MMA: Gay For Pay

Back in 2008 Mark Simpson asked a simple question: how gay is MMA? And the simple answer was: VERY! His steamy description of a live fight he attended sounded (deliberately of course) like a review of the latest homo porno: ‘Mac Danzig is still on his back; his sweaty, pumped, almost translu­cently white torso is flushed with [...]

Ed Miliband Staring Into Space

http://visualcultureblog.com/2012/01/staring-into-space/ This is an amazing photo of Ed Miliband (UK leader of the Labour Party) staring into space, at a visit to a school. The blog, Visual Culture have analysed it better than I could, so I recommend reading their post here. It reminds me of Ed’s brother David, being attacked by confetti and caught on [...]

Andrej Pejic And The Gender Revolution

I have made my debut at the wonderful website Science Of The Time, where I have written about Andre Pejic and a campaign advertising women’s lingerie: What it is: Andrej Pejic, if not quite yet a household name, is definitely well known as a beautiful androgynous model, and for modelling both men’s and women’s clothes. But [...]

Objects Of Desire

http://www.ohlalagallery.com/so-chic/bang-bang-by-vijat-mohindra-for-factice-magazine-8/bangbang3/ I have been troubled by these photos in Oh La La Mag, of a fashion spread featuring a woman as a dead body, surrounded by her metrosexual male assassins. Not due to the murderous subject matter, which has become banal in contemporary (visual) culture. No. It is the issue of the ‘gaze’ that’s got [...]

Metrosexual Soldiers On Tumblr

The only surprising thing about this new tumblr, of ‘Military Hunks’, is the fact it didn’t exist before. Soldiers have been showing how they love to show off on the internet for a while now, especially in spoof youtube videos of famous pop songs. The photo above demonstrates the military lads’ self awareness – as [...]

More Metro-Psychos

There is an interesting – and epic – essay by Elise Moore about representations of men as psychopaths in the movies over at her blog, The Autobiography of  A Soul. http://autobiographyofasoul.blogspot.com/2011/09/monstrous-masculine-and-rise-of-pop.html#comments Elise tracks the development of the psycho trope from the 1940s, to the famous film, Psycho and up to the present day. Mark Simpson [...]

It Aint Half Gay, Mum!

I was sad to hear the news yesterday, about the death of David Croft, co-creator and writer of classic (1970s) British TV comedies such as It Aint Half Hot Mum, Are you Being Served? and Dad’s Army. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11011664 As a child in the 1970s I adored all those shows, particularly their irreverent approach to, well, [...]

Lip Up Fatty – The Impossibility of the Macho Male Pop Star

I am writing about how the metrosexual murdered subculture. In addition to the narcissism and the consumerism and the ‘neo liberal individual’, that caused the ‘radicalism’ of subcultures to fade away,  I am trying to articulate something about how subcultures e.g. Punk, Mods Skinheads drew on a ‘retrosexual’ model of ‘traditional’ machismo but they could [...]

Reality Bites The Dust

‘Gavin Henson and a female friend exchange vacant stares (Picture: Channel 5)’ – Metro http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/872914-the-bachelor-did-little-for-gavin-hensons-reputation#ixzz1WRmdGhsa The reality TV dating show format is dead. The Bachelor is its funeral. The Bachelor is very very difficult to watch. I only managed it in five minute bursts, with breaks in between to regain my sanity. I have found [...]

The ‘Retrosexual’ Lives!

http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/retrosexual-recession/ The media has got itself into a bit of a lather about the ‘death’ of the metrosexual once again recently. I have read a number of articles from the UK, America and Australia, claiming that ‘masculine’ ‘retrosexual’ men are back. And they have (perfectly groomed) beards! http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-beard-heralds-the-age-of-the-retrosexual-20110814-1isu7.html And, as Simpson has enabled me to [...]