Beefcake
(1999, 93 min, Canada)
Daring, visually
exciting and wildly enjoyable, Beefcake is Thom
Fitzgerald’s provocative follow-up to last year’s The Hanging
Garden. With a seamless blending of fiction and documentary, he
tells the story of Bob Mizer, the pioneering founder of the
Athletic Model Guild (AMG), a company which produced still
photographs (for muscle mags like “Adonis” and “Tomorrow’s
Man”) and short films, all of which extolled the beauty and
chiseled physiques of men. Chaste by today’s standards, AMG's
photos and films were homoerotic images of “the boy next door”
filmed against the now campy backdrop of Roman gladiators,
prisoners, bikers and bodybuilders. The fiction story follows
photographer and enterprising businessman Mizer (Daniel MacIvor),
who teamed up with his mother to film his beefy star-wannabes
around his sun-drenched pool. It is here that Neil, a naďve,
right-off-the-bus teen is lured into using his handsome looks to
become a model. The wide-eyed Neil soon learns about the world of
sex, prostitution, love and sex. But a police raid and ensuing
criminal trial soon threaten both of the men’s worlds.
Interspersed with the story are rare archival footage and
interviews with former co-workers (including Joe Dallesandro),
customers and models who joyfully recount this early era of gay
erotica. Humorous, sexy and poetic – an unforgettable homage of
the 1950s world of gay erotica and the repressive world which
surrounded it.
Beefcake
: The Muscle Magazines of America 1950-1970 by F.
Valentine Hooven, III
Beefcake:
The Muscle Magaizines of America...is an essential read for
those interested in the construction of the gay male form/ideal. Beefcake
takes a look at the history of "the beefcake." Simply
defined, the beefcake is a male who is physically built--a
bodybuilder or perhaps an Abercrombie and Fitch male model. What I
found interesting is the beefcake ideal emerged alongside
photography, the most popular mode of getting beefcake images to
the masses. Also interesting is the how the homoerotic images of
the male beefcake form in the early 1900s weren't automatically
linked to homosexuality. Yes, the images were homoerotic, but the
target audience were straight men. It was only later that the gay
factor came into play in such publications such as Physique
Pictorial and Tomorrow's Man, which still targeted straight men,
yet pushed the homosocial/erotic boundaries of the men being
photographed. The strength of this book not only lies in the
history and research of the beefcake, but also the photographs
included. The beefcake is everywhere in popular culture today (in
GQ, Mens Health, and other body-building magazines); he's
everywhere in gay male culture too. Beefcake offers readers
an invaluable insight to the standards of male beauty through the
eyes of both straight and gay men as seen in print/visual media.
-- Anonymous Review
