Esme Blegvad
Two and a half years ago, I moved into my first studio. Five of us crammed into a windowless box, with a bright pink painted floor, in south London. One of the artists I was sharing with — and am still to this day — was Rachel Hodgson, a Polyester contributor since the beginning. One summer’s day spent with no exposure to natural light, Rachel and I conceived the idea for Non Threatening Boys*. Well, it wasn’t our original idea per se, we’ve borrowed it from one of the greatest teen girl characters of all time; Lisa Simpson. Sensitive, self aware and disliked by her peers: I can’t imagine I’m the only millennial woman that related to Lisa growing up. In multiple episodes of the now-trash, once great, tv show, she can be seen thumbing through her favourite magazine, ‘NonThreatening Boys’. From that moment onwards Rachel and I have always spoken about making the fictional mag a reality. There’s no denying the toxicity of masculinity. It’s a dangerous thing; a set of spoken and unspoken rules that have arguably caused more damage to our society than anything else. Unlike other issues of Polyester, this isn’t a straightforward celebration of what lies within this zines pages. It’s not a co-sign of how men are still currently allowed to reign supreme over our lives, writing our rules and setting the status quo. It’s certainly not an acceptance of the patriarchy. But what started as a tongue in cheek poke at masculinity has grown into a much more nuanced, complex collection of work.
Without artists and creatives asking questions about the role of masculinity, without comedians pointing and poking at the glaring holes in its DNA, and without people attempting to rewrite what masculinity means entirely, the more that it’s insidious traits are left to run riot. That’s why, for the features in this issue, we’ve chosen people that are truly challenging and changing the stronghold of masculine ideals. The male gaze extends to everything, as it still exists as the default in our wider world. When talking about the female gaze, we so often take the position of femmes shooting, or viewing, or creating work about other femmes. But through this zine, I’ve become more interested in how femmes view men. Across this issue, you’ll learn about women that create work exposing the utter disappointment men often are — especially when dating. You’ll also find writers penning slightly unhinged love letters about their fave problematic actor, and a deep dive into why teen girls of today still choose to litter their bedroom walls with pin ups of boys torn from magazine spreads. Masculinity won’t disappear from our lives. I have been quick to dismiss engaging with it in any meaningful way the past. But putting this issue together — and bearing witness to all of the work going into dismantling the dangerous patriarchal framework we live within — has made me slightly more hopeful for the future.
Founding Editor-In-Chief Beauty Editor: Mona Leanne - mona@polyesterzine.com Socials Editor: Hatti Rex - Hatti@polyesterzine.com Assistant Editor: Jemima Skala Interns: Izzy Stokes. Ashley Saville Cover shot by Savanna Ruedy, featuring Benito Skinner. Special thanks to: Kiersty Boon, Gina Stewart, Carlyn McNabb, Bridget Meyne, Kiersty Boon, Alfie Gleeson. Cover illustration & illustration throughout by Rachel Hodgson.
COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in part or whole without written permission from the publishers. ©2019 Polyester Gamble limited and The views expressed in Polyester zine are those of Editor in Chief, and are not neccessarily shared by the publisher, these parties cannot be responsible for them.
Reuben is the most emotionally, socially and politically intelligent person I’ve ever met in my life and I instantly fell head over heels in love with him. He challenges me, grounds me, has political debates with me, helps me paint over my ex’s shit graffiti tags at night, comes karaoke with me last minute even if we’re both ill and has been there for me in more ways than he couldn’t know.
Please welcome this angelic human man who materialised in 1991 to grow up to be a walking-talking-empathic realisation of every hot band poster I had on my teen wall. Mitch is: very good at puns, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and gives exquisite head. Easily the cutest nose in London.
Photography by Liv Thurley. Lighting by Thom as Green.
Bringer of snacks, keeper of my heart. Alfie and I have grown up together. I can’t think of anyone else who I would have wanted to have with me through all of my awkward teen phases and into our adult lives. He is calm, level-headed, and kind; he teaches me to be better, and makes my days lighter. May he always be there to call me out on my bullshit, take my shoes to the cobbler, and run millions of Polyester related errands that he is under zero obligation to.
Connor is not too keen on spiders to say the least. When you want to be with someone, you’re with them regardless of their sometimes irrational worries and it really just makes you love them more.
TJ is one of the most loving and giving people I have ever met. He just makes me so happy. We’re both Virgos and I think that gives us a deeper level of understanding one another that I’ve never really had with anyone else. We’re genuinely each other’s biggest fans – which is so special and rare in this world. He is also one of the funniest people I know. I don’t think we’ve ever not laughed our heads off.
Storm by name, Storm by nature! Born the morning after September 11th 2001, he came into the world with a bang. The now 19 year old musical prodigy with a heart of gold spends his time eating avocado toast and taking long walks with his golden retriever. Look out world, Storm is here!
Scrum down, ginger! Gold and bronze pharaoh from Te Wai Pounamu, the waters of greenstone! Reece brings light into my life, questionable canned coffee drinks into my handbags, and Nasty Pig jockstraps into my bedroom. Sun King, Soft Bear, Sweet Seraph. God defend New Zealand.
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Many things about Netflix’s The OA hit home for its fans: its elegiac overtones; its surreal treatment of the afterlife; its scifi that didn’t stretch too far from home. It explored the twisted fate of a group of people who can die and come back to life, with protagonist Prairie Johnson enlisting a group of high school kids to help her reunite with them by opening a portal to another dimension. Most notable among them is Buck, a young trans boy whose quiet fight for acceptance makes him the most endearing in his compassion and empathy for others. Buck is played by Ian Alexander, an actor whose own story bears a striking similarity to the character’s that he plays. Having gotten the part when he himself had only been out as trans for eight months, it was exciting for Ian to do a role where the life of his character so closely reflected his own. “To play a character that was also
going through the thing that I was going through, it was just so validating for my masculinity,” Ian reflects. “I found Buck to be very closely related to my personality and my masculinity, just in this very gentle, protective way. Buck is very shy and quiet but also has this very masculine energy.” It is clear from five minutes of conversation that Ian Alexander is wise beyond his blossoming teenage years. The internet has been formative for Ian in the identification and acceptance of his sense of his own masculinity, right down to landing the role of Buck. He found a Tumblr post asking for thirteen to fourteen-year old Asian-American transmasculine people to audition, no prior acting experience necessary. From there on in, the internet proved to
be an endless resource for Ian to explore what it meant to be trans. “Without the internet, I would be a lot less educated and a lot less informed on gender and sexuality and just the world in general,” he says. “Without the internet, I wouldn’t have been able to do my own research on the trans community, and what it means to be transgender, and what the gender binary was, and all that sort of stuff.” As well as providing useful transitional resources, the internet was crucial in giving Ian different examples of what masculinity and femininity could look like. “I was able to break down my biases about makeup and clothing and stuff like that, because of the internet.” Most importantly, “it gave me the language to be able to describe what I was feeling.” Ian’s internet presence has since grown, and his beautifully curated Instagram and refreshingly open tweets about the process of his transition are a resource for any young trans boy looking to find a way to be himself. Was the decision to be open and visible a conscious one? “I just wanted to be visible because I feel like I am one of the very few public transmasculine figures in mainstream media, and so I do feel this responsibility,” Ian muses. “I just need to talk about my dayto-day life just so it’s normalised, and people realise that transmasculine people exist.” As mature as he is in shouldering the responsibility of being a transmasculine role model, it is easy to forget that Ian is only eighteen. Being so young, and a prominent trans actor, the pressure to be open and visible online can sometimes be difficult. “There are certain things that are very personal, and not every celebrity should be expected to talk about, every aspect of their personal life, but I feel like trans people are definitely put under a microscope, especially
“The internet gave me the language to be able to describe what I w as feel ing.�
because there aren’t that many trans icons in the public eye,” he says. “Sometimes there is this expectation for me to keep people updated and to do like voice updates or pictures and I don’t necessarily feel like I need to do that all the time. I’ve been trying to find a more healthy relationship with social media where I’m not constantly updating about my life and I’m actually going and experiencing my life instead of tweeting about it. I guess I feel the same way about my transition. I’m just trying to experience it first-hand rather than like constantly doing 24/7 updates. For many, transitioning isn’t a finite process; it’s a constant renegotiation of everything you think you know and reframing that within new parameters. Since Ian started transitioning a few years ago, it was a difficult road to self-acceptance. “I originally came to terms with my masculinity with a sort of self-loathing. I hated myself for how
“This idea that, men have to be tough and they have to assert their masculinity. It’s all about dominance. It’s all about human greed and power”
I felt, and I wish that I could have fixed it… Then I didn’t really know what masculinity even meant to me. I turned to the media and what society said a man was, and tried to be very macho and tough, and that wasn’t me. That didn’t fit.” Instead, Ian decided to find his own sense of masculinity. “I started experimenting with makeup again and clothing and wigs and stuff. I realized that fashion is genderless, and makeup is genderless. All those things that I enjoyed doing before I came to terms with my masculinity are still fun things that I am allowed to do. When I came to that realisation, it just freed up my ability to express myself and just really fully love myself for who I am. I love wearing earrings and cool makeup.” Since moving to LA to pursue his acting career, Ian notes of his own gender expression that it has become much more fluid. “I started wearing skirts recently – it’s great! Boys can wear skirts, girls can wear skirts, anyone can wear
“I hope that by being out and proud and happy and just thriving, people know that they can succeed and that’s it’s possible for them too.” whatever they want to wear! I feel like my masculinity is ever-evolving and it just keeps levelling up.” Having had all of this life experience squished into just a few years has made Ian a far more circumspect teenager than a lot of adults twice his age. He is clear that for men to be able to move forwards, toxic masculinity has to be done away with. “I would just like… for everyone to just go to therapy and resolve their issues!” Although it is a solution that is easier said than done, Ian is clear in his reasoning behind this. “This idea that, men have to be tough and they have to assert their masculinity – it’s all about dominance. It’s all about human greed and power, and that is really heavily associated with masculinity: this want to conquer. But if masculinity evolves in the next fifty years to where that isn’t a thing anymore, I feel like we’ll just get to a much better place.” It is refreshing to see an actor whose few years in the spotlight haven’t made him into a slave to Hollywood; Ian is clear that although the industry has been accepting of him and willing to accommodate his needs, there is still a lot of work to be done to make the film industry a more equal and representative entity. “Hollywood is starting to open up,” he observes, although it is still the minority groups that are expected to do a lot of the legwork in making it so. “People in the industry want
inclusion and they want diversity. They just have no idea how to take the steps to get there. So people are often like so excited to see me and to work with me because they want to be able to be more inclusive and open.” I come away from my conversation with Ian Alexander feeling reinvigorated with hope for the new generation of men. If only half of them turn out like Ian, we’d all be in a better place. I ask him what he hopes people can learn from him as a role model, and his initial reaction is one of humility. “Aw! That’s so sweet!” But he certainly is a role model: living his life in authenticity for people to accept him as he is. As for his advice to others, he says, “I hope that people know that no matter where they’re at in life, they can succeed… I remember I used to be in a really dark place where I was conditioned to believe that people like me could never be happy. I hope that by being out and proud and happy and just thriving, people know that they can succeed and that’s it’s possible for them too. They don’t have to feel like they’re being shunned into silence and darkness. They can come to the light.”
Words by Jemima Skala. Feature images by Shelby Lorman. Lorman The internet age has undeniably changed the face of modern feminism, for better or for worse. The slightest whiff of inclusive politics in a tweet or Instagram caption is seemingly enough to go viral these days. Platforms like Instagram and Twitter have helped to perpetuate an ironic double bind: on the one hand, they have made the movement accessible and attractive to new generations of activists through the proliferation of feminist slogans; on the other, our feminism has become one-dimensional, expecting too little of people before we laud them as our Feminist Heroes. Someone who is both a victim and beneficiary of this is New York-based Shelby Lorman, the illustrator behind popular Instagram account Awards For Good Boys. Awards For Good Boys
illustrates the ways in which we all are too quick to self-congratulate for doing the bare minimum in terms of activism and social consciousness. She describes herself in the context of her work as “first and foremost someone who is creating comedy, but I happen not to hate women.” She can’t help but laugh at this one. In the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp, Shelby noticed that men were being held up as heroes for doing performative activism, like retweeting political statements without reflecting those in their personal lives. To call this out, she started doodling examples from her personal life, particularly her escapades in the world of dating, and posted them on Instagram. So, what is a good boy?
“I think it’s so specific to now,” Shelby muses. “When the President is a white supremacist Nazi, a dude posting ‘believe women’ on Instagram seems like a hero. It really truly seems incredible.” As a creator, particularly as a woman on Instagram, she notices a constant disparity in how she is treated online versus how men in similar positions to her are treated. “Men don’t have to do that much to be seen as good, whereas anyone who isn’t a dude is critiqued ad nauseum for everything they say, think, do, wear, speak, breathe – it’s endless. To be an online person making comedy, when I see men saying anything
about anything besides their work, they’re immediately upheld as heroes, and they take that and don’t really challenge it. There’s so much social currency involved in being seen as someone who gets it.” As well as this, it leaves such little room for making mistakes, and learning from them. “So many other people I see are getting held to such higher standards, and then owning it when they fuck up all of the time. It’s just really wild to me that good boys don’t really have to get it or talk about when they fail. They just kind of exist and are just praised for doing the minimum, which is, you know, my
whole thesis.” As someone who considers herself as someone who “gets it”, Shelby is constantly having to remind people that she herself is not perfect for doing the work she does. “People call me an activist because I reshare things that I’m reading, and I’m like, what are you thinking? Like, no, literally, no! I’m just socially conscious, and that shouldn’t be rewarded. It should be a baseline. That’s a weird thing to also have to remind people that I shouldn’t be put on a pedestal just because of the work I make. That becomes this weird thing where I want people to support me, but I’m also telling people to not over-praise me.” With an Instagram account that now has over 300k followers, this uncomfortable dynamic is one that governs Shelby’s life and work. When she first started, she had just fifty followers, “and half of them were related to me,” she chuckles. “It was just awkward and weird and felt really vulnerable.” Slowly but surely, her account started to be picked up by what she terms “feminist Instagram”, which she received with mixed feelings. “I started putting it out there because I wanted people to see it, so the fact that there are people watching and following is awesome, and if I pretended that I didn’t ask for it, that would be a total lie. I wanted
people to care about my work.” However, the attention being drawn to Awards For Good Boys online, and Shelby as its creator, comes with its own challenges. “Being seen as a person on Instagram, who is only that, is very upsetting to me,” Shelby explains. She is a writer by trade and has spent a lot of her professional career writing about why social media is bad for you, so for her to find professional success on Instagram (she has written a book called ‘Awards For Good Boys: Tales of Dating, Double Standards and Doom’ off the success of her Instagram illustrations) was a conflicting state of affairs. “I think about it very differently than a lot of my peers do, which is to say that I appreciate Instagram – I think that an unintentional community has sprung, which has been really wonderful, and there’s so many unexpected things that have been much lovelier than I could have ever imagined. But also I’m a public woman making art about how men are rewarded for doing the least. People are horrible to me. So it’s complicated.” As expected, when making art about the various ways in which men do the least, Shelby was always going to make men on the internet angry. “I’ve known for a very, very long time that men see humour when it comes from non-men as petty, or bitchy, or snarky, or any sort of underhanded way to undermine the legitimacy of me as a person who makes jokes. It’s much easier for them to see me as either an educator and teacher, like helping them be
"When the President is a white supremacist Nazi, a dude who posts, 'believe women', on Instagram seems like a hero. It really truly seems incredible.”
better boys, which I find deeply insulting. Or I’m a bitch, and I’m just mad and angry at all of the men who have wronged me.” What she didn’t foresee, however, was that her work would anger people who weren’t cis-het white guys working themselves into a sweat about a woman being intelligent on the internet. “It’s just been really interesting to see all the ways that women express what I consider to be their own internal hang-ups. It just is wildly sad to me,” Shelby says, noting that a lot of the criticism that comes at her from white women in the comments is largely due to internalised misogyny. “It often seems they’re trying to save me from myself. And I’m just like: okay, I think that you just don’t like my version of feminism, which is critiquing us too. And I have no tolerance for that, because if people are just on my page to watch me roast white men, they’re in for a big surprise. It’s always been that way, so it’s really interesting to see when people notice that.” She says, “I’ll post something about white feminism and people are like,” she pauses to mime the screeching hordes of critics in her comments, “what is this about? And I’m like, oh, you clearly haven’t paid attention to my work. It’s always been about everything.” That is the key to Shelby’s work: “truly no one is safe from my ire,” as she wryly puts it. “That’s what so much of my work is about: we can’t give anyone a free pass. Like, anyone. Everyone needs to be challenged; we need to critique and think closely about everyone: our heroes, our celebrities. Anyone should be looked at with this type of scrutiny.” Whilst cloaking this scrutiny in comedy, Shelby hopes that she has allowed fans of her work a gateway into self-reflection, a way to discuss their own problematic behaviours. “I think I’ve given permission for people to laugh at themselves, while
"Everyone needs to be challenged; we need to critique and think closely about everyone: our heroes, our celebrities.” they’re also interrogating their behaviour. That’s not to say that this stuff isn’t really serious, because it is, but I also think that there’s room for looking at yourself through the lens of humour and be like: oh my god, I’ve been that person.” Shelby is hopeful about the role that her work plays in neutralising toxic traits in her audience, whether men or otherwise. She pauses to think, then says slowly, “I don’t think that what I’m drawing about is the most important thing in the world by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think that [we should be] able to laugh and talk about why certain behaviours seem more specific to cis men, and what links can we make between that and these larger patterns? And how is this small, good boy behaviour related to the larger social norms that allow men to get away with a lot of stuff? To me, it’s a microcosm where [we can] look at this really small thing and really unpack it, and laugh about it and probably find some catharsis and maybe cry about it also.” In short, Awards For Good Boys, while primarily a medium for healthy critique, is a bright Elysium in the dark hole that is the internet, where people are held accountable, boys can become actually good rather than performatively so, and white women can learn to chill once in a while.
How Will Your Soft Boy Cancel On You Tonight? AQ
Softboys can be so annoying. One minute they’re like ‘hey, wanna split a bottle of Prosecco at Wetherspoons and then come over to my flat while I make you watch improvised jazz videos on YouTube for four hours?’ and the next they’re like ‘sry can’t tonite b, sth came up. next week x.’
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While it’s not like you’re sitting around waiting for them to text – ‘plenty more softboys in the DMs,’ I think the old expression goes – you are a highly in-demand socialite with places to be (in bed, eating.) So, in order to save some precious me-time, and pre-empt how your softboy will cancel on you tonight, please step right up and take our handy softboy-whispering quiz!
1. Where does your boy tend to hang out? A) Next to Queen’s Road Peckham, making his mates take videos of him skating B) On Tinder, incorrectly quoting Bukowski to other prospective conquests C) At art exhibitions and book launches, where he can be found saying ‘dialectic’ at people who aren’t listening
2. Describe your boy’s style... A) Like the only film he’s ever watched is ‘KIDS’ B) White shirt tucked into smart-ish trousers or black jeans, shoe Dr Martens, bleeding heart C) Clear rimmed glasses and worker’s jacket, despite the fact that he’s only ever used his hands for his admin-assistant-at-an-architecture-firm job, and mediocre fingering
3. What’s your boy’s favourite book? A) Any zine with his photo in B) Proust or something idk C) His tote bag says ‘the latest Fitzcarraldo Editions’ but his bedroom shelves say The Great Gatsby...
4. What’s he drinking on a ni ght out? A) Tyskie B) Tyskie C) Red wine but eventually, yeah, Tyskie
5. Where does this boy’s money go? A) Weed, corduroy trousers, really limited edition Converse B) Vinyl and old books from charity shops to ostentatiously carry about in his top pocket C) Tickets to author Q&As where he ‘more than a comment than a question’s for 5 minutes or more; cameras he doesn’t actually know how to use
6. What’s the vibe of his Insta? A) Fairly transparent attempt at being scouted as a model for UNIF B) Rare posts of gig flyers, some dead flowers now and then C) Just so many fucking pictures of the Barbican
7. If he was on a dating app, what would be his opener? A) The eyes emoji B) ‘So cool that you’re into music. So rare these days.’ C) ‘I like Mark Fisher too – for me ‘Capitalist Realism’ is his defining text, would you agree?’
SO... HOW’S HE GOING TO CANCEL ON YOU? MOSTLY As ‘Heey rly sorry to do this but I can’t make 2nite anymore, fucked my knee really bad skating earlier, don’t think I’ll be able to walk on it for a bit :-(( will smoke u out soon 2 say sorry *angel emoji*’ You go past him on the bus the next day; he is skating. MOSTLY Bs ‘I’ve promised to do the noise soundtrack for my friend’s installation so can’t come over tonight anymore.’ You later see the video he was supposedly working on at an exhibition – it is silent. MOSTLY Cs ‘I’ve double booked myself and am actually going to a talk about typography, another time?’ He posts photos from the event, which he did actually attend. It looks crap.
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Dorian Electra’s music video for future – made poppier, more maximalist, “Flamboyant” begins with their back almost space age – and you’ll come close to the camera. They’re in a golden to what Dorian is about. sparkling gown, hair stiff and colgate white, ringed fingers dancing across Weirdly though, Dorian was much more a multi-layered electric piano. And inspired by what they call “obscure British then the beat kicks in and they’re on bands” than the aforementioned touch the floor suddenly, lounging in front points. We’re speaking over Facetime of a fire in a red silk kimono, their – them from a rural farm in Lawrence, slicked back hair now a pale mint Kansas, where they’re taking a five-day green. “I’m a very flaming flammable break from touring, and me from rainy east guy,” Dorian sings, their voice a deep London – and both of us are nerding out genderless autotune, a over early 2000s indie music. “In freshman pencil moustache year of high school, I was really obsessed sitting atop baby with The Horrors,” they pink glossed lips. say, “Which is funny, “Some say my “Work ing a because I’m just this t the strip fire burns way comf kid from Texas. But c l u b ortable in too high.” a sexual w made me more I was a total snob more comf about bands like My ortable ju ay. It made me Chemical It’s an incredibly Romance. s t putt total perfo camp, fantastical [Instead], me and my rmance of ing on this fem ininity music video. But best friend Clare were ” obsessed then again, that’s what with the NME Dorian does especially and would spend, like, seven well. Whether they’re dollars importing them from our embodying a hypermasculine local book store.” sweat-soaked corporate bro in “Career Boy,” or throwing out This might seem incongruous considering slick, choreographed dance routines in Dorian’s uber-art pop sound and Texan head-to-toe black and red PVC in “Man background, but meditate on it some to Man,” each video is crafted like an more and it actually makes a lot of sense. absurd and colourful movie dream “During that time period, I was really sequence. Imagine Sofia Copolla obsessed with the Klaxons,” Dorian smooshed together with John Waters, continues. “Nobody around me had heard with bits of Liberace, Prince and Annie of them, but I liked how they created a Lennox smattered in between. Now whole world and aesthetic and humour imagine those images pushed into the around them – and also I liked the Nu Rave
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“I spent a lot of time exploring femininity and the history of that - and then it was only natural for me to get into masculinity. Throughout history, those two things have always been defining each other.” thing.” One glance at Dorian’s constantly changing neon hair, bright synth lines and playful outlandishness, and there isn’t much of a gap between them and the New Cross four piece. A lot of people might have only heard Dorian Electra’s name recently. Their debut album, Flamboyant, came out earlier this year in July and they’ve started to pick up traction in more mainstream circles, rather than just the queer underground (who are always there first). 2017 saw them appear on Charli XCX’s Pop 2 mixtape alongside Mykki Blanco on a track called “Femmebot,” a perfectly crafted PC Music-produced club banger, in which Dorian jumps into the second verse by singing, “You’re just my human toy (human toy) / And I am programmed to search and destroy.” In the years since, they’ve been touring almost constantly, including multiple dates with Charli XCX across America. (“I try to get as much sleep as possible,” they say, when I ask how they stay on top of things. “I don’t drink when I’m playing shows either, because it affects my immune system.”) It hasn’t always been this way. It’s hard to get a solid timeline from Dorian because they speak at 1000 miles per hour – with each new thought interrupting the old one, and taking them down new, interesting tangents. But they tell me they grew up in Houston, Texas, with a mum “who did musical theatre, installation art and sculpture” and a dad “who has his own business building Victorian-style houses.” Their parents broke up when they were five, and Dorian lived with their dad and stepmom
until the latter “became super religious and tried to force me to go to church when I really wasn’t into that.” They were more interested in art, politics and gender theory than christianity and conservatism, so they moved back in with their mum and never looked back. The earliest video you can find of Dorian online is a homemade viral hit from 2010 called “I’m in Love with Friedrich Hayek,” a piano-led ode to the Anglo-Austrian economist and philosopher best known for his defence of classical liberalism, which later inspired Margeret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It’s nothing like the Dorian we know today – not just because the colour-soaked hair and flamboyant looks are nowhere to be seen yet – but because they’ve since disavowed these ideas of libertarianism. It’s something they’re embarrassed by now – as we all are by what we thought in high school. Later videos, from 2016, see them give musical masterclasses in the history of dildos, or high heels, or drag – their popping neon aesthetic and shiny electro vocals a lot closer to the Dorian we’ve heard recently. In between all of this, Dorian went to university in Chicago. For a while, they worked at a strip club near Chicago’s O’Hare airport. “I was a quote unquote, ‘shot girl’,” they tell me now, laughing down the phone. “I wore this outfit that was a see-
through dress and a push-up bra and two layers of thong and high heels. But I hate high heels, so I told the manager I have raynaud’s syndrome. I was able to wear – not even a kitten heel, but a super comfortable orthopedic heel.” Dorian tells me that the strip club job affected them in a positive way, especially when it comes to how they express themselves with their body. In their videos they’re always dancing, and they’re good at it – but that didn’t always come easily. “Working at the
“Anytime someone is militant on either side it just breeds more militancy”
strip club made me more comfortable in a sexual way,” they explain. “It made me more comfortable just putting on this total performance of femininity and using my body in a certain way – learning how to have command over it, and that it could be fun and make me feel good. It helped me feel like, sexually, it’s okay to put this on as a performance. It’s not false or a facade, it can be both a conscious performance, and I can still embrace it genuinely.” While at uni, Dorian got deeper and more interested in the concept of gender and what that even means – not only in an academic sense, but as a personal exploration too. They identify as non binary and gender
As our chat reaches its natural end, I ask Dorian what they would like the future to look like for them personally. Not just in the short term (which will be spent touring, touring, touring), but in the long term as well. “Right now, I’m a totally independent artist. I’m self managed and I support my own touring,” they say, before continuing: “I’ve always had this idea of myself that is self limiting – like ‘I’m such a weird artist, and my message and my vibe is only going to be appealing to so many people’ – but then I look at other artists and think, maybe if I had the support to get my work into more ears and eyes, then I would have a bigger fan base.”
“How far can I go, without having to compromise my own vision?”
For Dorian, when it comes to gender politics, it’s important to remain open and engaging with those who try and shut you down. Although that’s obviously easier said than done, especially in the current climate. “The answer is dialogue and mutual understanding, because anytime someone is militant on either side it just breeds more militancy,” they say. “Whenever I get a mean / transphobic comment on YouTube, I try to take the time to respond in a kind, thoughtful way because I know that person is probably suffering or hurt or sad. I think that’s how I always try to approach a situation. Sometimes you do need to create your own safe space – but in general I’d like to see more dialogue, and less closing people off. I’d like to engage, safely.”
They pause for a moment, as if thinking carefully about what they want to say next. “There is room for these kinds of artists. So I want to see where that takes me. How far can I go, without having to compromise my own vision?” Words by Daisy Jones. Photography by Meg Lavender. Styling by Mia Maxwell. Set Design by Jonquil Lawrence. Makeup by Georgia Hope. Hair by Linnéa Nordberg.
Jacket & Trousers by KAWAKEY. Shirt by MMRMS. Earring by Dominique Ree
fluid, and themes of femininity and masculinity are a constant thread throughout their work. “I spent a lot of time exploring femininity and the history of that – and then it was only natural for me to get into masculinity,” they mull over. “Throughout history, those two things have always been defining each other. There’s been so much celebration of the feminist movement – in a corporate co-opting sense – but I feel like that’s reached a plateau. Companies are appropriating pastel pink and leg hair and i t ’ s like… what’s the next step? How do we keep going?”
I Love
Words by Olivia Graham
hy grap o t o Ph By na n Savaedy Ru
(Benny)
Drama!
I am obsessed with Benito Skinner, AKA Benny Drama. To look at the nature of this obsession simply, it’s because he makes me laugh. To look at the nature of this obsession with more complexity, I’m drawn to watching his videos over and over because he makes me think about the nuances of human behaviour in ways that were going completely over my head. He makes me think about society’s representation and adoration of people with power, while he takes it from them. He shows me, with love, understanding, and dedication, people marginalised in the way my body and my voice have been marginalised — and presents them in strength. Then again and again and again, he makes me laugh. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Benny is an actor and comedian who makes videos and tours live performances of sketch comedy, characters, and original parodies. I got to interview Benny about his work, and the ways he often challenges oppressive structures and behaviours in society through his videos. The most refreshing thing about interviewing him was hearing from a man — who, like all men, can benefit from exerting masculinity to gain and abuse the power afforded to them — who has thought so much about the impact masculinity has had on his life. And not only his life, but the lives of those
Styling By Gabriel Held
around him and the importance of addressing that personally as well as through his work.
Benny Drama: It’s interesting that now I’m three years out of the closet, I feel like I look at masculinity in a completely different way. I think about when I was growing up. In school I was made fun of for the things about me that lean more towards what we think of as feminine. I saw that as so negative and masculinity as this ideal, and something to strive so hard for. Until I looked around and I saw truly how toxic our understanding of masculinity is; how toxic it is for me, as a gay man, to worship it, and think of it as the only way for me to have acceptance in society. Whereas now I recognise how naturally I find comfort in the feminine. Be it the parts about me that I find that people have labelled as feminine, be it my voice or the pop stars that I’m interested in listening to, or the movies I like. With masculinity, I feel empowered that I no longer see it as an ideal but
instead I see it as something that you really have to check in with and make sure that you’re using it for good and not evil, because it can quickly spiral into really negative understandings of human beings. I don’t think we’re one or the other, there are masculine aspects of me, as someone who identifies as a man, but I’m careful with it. After years of idolising it, I don’t see it that way any more. I’m careful with how I present masculinity to the people who follow me or watch my videos, and also how I’m thinking of it in myself. Often when I’m representing masculinity I’m mocking it, because it is so easily mocked. It’s therapeutic for me, and hopefully a way for the people that follow me to finally see it put on a pedestal to be poked at as opposed to being an ideal.
Olivia Graham: From a viewer’s perspective, I think that so much of what you do and what you create is political. The first time watching one of your videos is funny, and maybe a little eye opening. But then the more you watch the more you kind of think, ‘Shit, he’s really on to something
here’. Not only that, as queer people our bodies are inherently political, and so seeing something performed well, from a marginalised body, is a political statement in itself. What I want to know from you is how much you feel politics come into your videos? In particular, your character Benjamin Van Woostersen (aka Benny Brohana), who plays your stereotypical sexist, homophobic, catcalling, shit-talking ‘bro’.
Benny Drama: I want all of my videos to have a little bite to them, and a reason. I want you to laugh, but I also want you to potentially think about some things, or join me in thinking about what we’re taught, and how we’re taught to act, and maybe to think about what is good and bad for us to learn. I hope that people feel some of the bite. With Benny Brohana, I just literally wanted toxic masculinity to be a character, and I just made him one. I think that is therapeutic to me because it’s so much of what I encountered from playing American
football in high school, or being in locker rooms, or hearing the way that straight men were talking about women when those straight men thought I was a straight man standing next to them, and not a spy. At the end of the day, I was a spy for my girls.
so fucked up. Also I was able to show men that people don’t mind screenshotting your messages and sending them to a stranger, and make them realise they should stop sending disgusting things to women on dating apps.
The Benny Brohana character definitely would have called me a faggot in high school, and it can be hard to get into that aspect of Olivia Graham: it, because I still want it to be funny, and I still One of your Benny Brohana videos want it to be enjoyable to watch and not like, on Instagram is accompanied with triggering. It’s still got to be fun, so we feel a caption detailing the specific better after watching, and so we’re not just dating app experiences a female reminded of awful times. My instagram, in friend of yours had encountered; a lot of ways, is an escape from the world how consistently badly she was w e live in, which can be kind of not fun, treated, accompanied by some of the as of late. There’s a little community derogatory and dehumanising names within the internet as well. I love she was called,and how this led reading comments where people you to make a video are like, ‘Oh my god, this is that featuring the worst guy you dated’ or they’re literally " O things your followers fte repre and publicly name checking senti n when I had been sent on dating ng m 'm m people, and I’m like, o apps. The end of the as cking it, be culinity I ‘Oh fuck yes, caption calls for the men so e 'm caus asily go off queen’. e that said and say those th i m t is erape ocked The community aspect . It's things to ‘DO BETTER’. utic f or m of it is so much fun, a good e.” community can make you feel a I’d like to know why lot better about a lot of things. when all of his captions are funny or in line with the humour of the video, did you Olivia Graham: feel the need to contextualise this What I like about your work is that video further you don’t limit yourself to challenging sexism in its most recognisable and louder forms, You create characters that work to Benny Drama: deconstruct a less ‘in-your-face’ version I wanted to be sure that there was a of sexism too. You do this through your bit of a trigger warning to the video. portrayal of society’s ideal of the modern day At the same time, I wanted to make it male heart throb, (also known as ‘soft boys’ clear this didn’t come from my mind. and of course, ‘fuck boys’). What you do with Some of the messages women had these characters is truly highlight the low received on dating apps were so expectations we have of cis white straight disgusting that I could not take credit men — particularly when they’re the object of for them — they were psychotic. I romance and desire. wanted people to know where they were coming from, how other people are getting sent them, and that it’s
Benny Drama: Sometimes I think it’s really funny, the kind of things that people are attracted to. There is this very specific kind of masculinity, where they’re masculine but they’re sensitive. I think the culture of that is very fascinating, and fun to poke at. In my live show, I talk about having crushes on straight men when I was in high school and college, before I came out. I realised when I came out how low my standards were. I couldn’t help but notice that in so many of the straight male heartthrobs that we have created, how little they have to do; as opposed to how much we expect from women and how much they have to do. We’re like ‘Oh no, this character is like super sweet because he isn’t psychologically manipulative or a totally toxic person’, and in reality that’s the least we should expect and that doesn’t deserve praise and full glory. Anything that pokes fun at the media’s portrayal of a ‘perfect boy’ is so, so funny to me. I do feel very liberated in mocking this idea, and I hope it makes all my followers feel better too. I’m glad that there is a sensitivity — if it’s real and it’s honest, that’s great, I’m fine with them showing that, and I hope that it is there. It’s more that we expect queer people, and black people, and women, to do so much, yet we expect so little of straight white men. Just bare, bare minimum, and then full glory of course. It makes absolutely no sense, and that’s where comedy can come in.
Olivia Graham: If you’re familiar with Benny Drama, you will understand, I had to ask about the star sign series. If you’re not familiar, essentially each Zodiac season, Benny releases a video portrayal of ‘Dating an [insert star sign]’. Conventionally the conversation around star signs seems to go either one of two distinctive ways: either, people are entirely dismissive (your loss @ciswhitestraightmen) or, they’re taken seriously (well in @queerswomenandfemmes).
But I think your approach is something a little bit different all together. Your astrology videos are about dating, and what’s interesting about conventional representation of dating culture is how uninteresting and excessively basic it is, because it is all based around heteronormativity, and how society conceptualises every single dating experience around heteronormative ideals of romance and relationships. What is interesting about your videos is how you play on that. I feel like through this series, you’re playing a part in queering astrology whilst still taking it seriously.
Benny Drama: I hadn’t seen astrology explored in comedy unless it was entirely shitting on it. That was so annoying to me. And yeah, whenever I can mock heteronormativity I absolutely do that. You can see that in the Taurus video. In the videos I have made conscious decisions about the characters and their sexuality, like Hayley is straight, and Kayleigh is queer. But, some people have come at it and are like, ‘Do a female Taurus’, and I never really thought of them as so aggressively gendered. I obviously made them as an impression of a person, but I urge people to read between the lines, and sometimes think beyond the character and think of the dialogue and the lines I’ve included. I want them to be super inclusive, and in my head there is a balance.
Olivia Graham: Continuing with discussing heteronormativity and sexuality, I wanted to know more about a recent video of yours titled, ‘Live footage of me in the closet’, and what it was like for you to release the video. For readers context, the video is a queer person aligning themselves with toxic masculinity to be straight passing.
Benny Drama: I posted it around the three year mark of me coming out. I thought, I usually poke fun at
so many other people, maybe now I’m going to poke at myself, and there’s going to be some therapy attached to that. I mocked the concepts of masculinity I once believed in as the ideal, by hearing the things I’m saying about women in that sketch, and about me in the football locker room. It was so cringe for me to make and cringe for me to watch. What I wanted was for queer people to watch that and just let out a laugh, and be like ‘oh god someone else did that. It’s cringe. I did that too and now I feel better that we’re talking about it’.
Benny Drama:
There is something so specifically queer in walking in to a certain space and feeling like you need to turn on a completely different side to you. That is such a specifically queer feeling, and I’m sure a feeling when experiencing being othered by your race, and there’s really kind of nothing like it. It’s really scary to see and it’s really scary to feel it when I enter a space, and I’m just like, ‘oh me and my boyfriend are just friends here, we’re just buddies’, and my voice needs to get an octave deeper, and I need to walk with my shoulders up a bit and my neck needs to be thicker. Olivia Graham: That can be terrifying, but once When i first watched that video I thought you have identified it in yourself, about you and y o u r "The experience, but now re is there’s a power to knowing that s maybe you’re just doing it for we’re talking about it o spec s o meth if ing your safety in that moment. i’m thinking about myself ce ically q ueer rtain It’s on the world, the in it, classic leo, and my in spac e an walking way that certain experiences with homophobia you d fee in to need places make l in school, and what it means c i n a t g o omp l you feel. It’s not to be out of that, out about letel turn on ike on you. It’s literally just side y differe a my sexuality, but in some to yo n ways still so smothered u.” t safety for your life. by society’s desire to I have so much fucking respect imprint hetero-norms for the trans men and women that on me, and us as queer people. are fully out there owning their identity and are not changing it And so the last thing I wanted to talk f o r anyone. The terrifying risk of that to you about is our relationship with and their bravery is something I respect the feminine and masculine aspects of so hard. I feel like I can retreat into these ourselves as queer people. And how our old things to protect myself, which can be representation of and interaction with really sad and can kind of make me feel them is received by society. As a femme guilty, and make me feel like I shouldn’t queer woman being straight passing can be proud of who I am or shouldn’t be provide safety; however, when straight proud of my sexuality. But it’s important men find out I’m queer it can make me to know that as queer people we’re just more vulnerable to their triggered fragile doing it for our safety and that we dont masculinity which presents itself in the need to blame ourselves anymore. We’re fetishisation of my sexuality, or violence. just doing this so that we can continue our lives as queer people, and maybe What are your thoughts on how we down the line younger queer people present ourselves as queer people? won’t have to do that shit any more. All Clothing Care of Gabriel Held Vintage.
Dissecting a lifelong tom cruise obsession By Sirin Kale * Editors note: While we endorse Sirin in confessing her feelings for Tom Cruise, we do not endorse any of her opinions on the arguably trash actor *
It’s hard for me to explain to sane observers why I love Tom Cruise, but let me try. Firstly, I should start off by saying that I know this infatuation is not rational. Objectively, Tom is a complete freak. The Scientology stuff alone is a huge buzzkill. But my rational brain has nothing to do with this; I could not change my love for Tom Cruise any more than I could stop gravity, or rivers from flowing into the sea. It is a primal lust that cannot be contained. I am not proud of my love for
Tom Cruise, but I am not exactly ashamed of it either. It is what it is. I should also say that there is no combination of words that will allow me to explain my love for Tom Cruise in any way that makes adequate sense, least of all to myself. None of this makes sense. Notwithstanding that, the following list is an attempt to understand my lifelong infatuation for the greatest film star and most fuckable celebrity to ever live: Tom Cruise.
1. I like Tom Cruise’s face, which I find to be very attractive. 2. Specifically, I like the way that his left eye will flicker slightly when he is flirting in on-camera scenes. 3. I really respect the fact that he does his own stunts.
4. I particularly enjoyed the scene in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol where he hung outside the Burj Khalifa. I found it to be visually very impressive. 5. I also liked the opening scene of Mission Impossible: 2 where Cruise is rock climbing in Yosemite. Also, I liked how his hair was slightly longer in that film. I think it suits him and would like to see him grow it again. 6. I like how intense he is in every role. Like you can feel him vibrating with the commitment. I find that intensity very attractive as a quality. Tom Cruise never dials it in. You are always watching Tom Cruise acting his very A-game.
7. Obviously I love Top Gun, and I particularly enjoy the homo-erotic locker room scenes. Fun fact: they had to recut the movie to include Kelly McGillis as a love interest because the whole thing was so gay. 8. He is so devastatingly attractive in Top Gun.
9. He is such a good actor that I cried during his execution scene in Valkyrie, which considering that he was playing a literal Nazi, is testament to his extraordinary acting ability. Anyone who can make me feel sympathy for a Nazi must be a very remarkable actor. I also liked the eyepatch he wore in that film, it highlighted his facial symmetry. 10. I like how in the first twenty years of his career, Cruise played interesting, diverse character-led roles (Cocktail, Rain Man, Vanilla Sky, Jerry McGuire), and then in the second twenty years of his career he was like, fuck it, I’m Tom Cruise, I’m going to play the same character over and over again on huge blockbuster films that I executive produce so that I have complete control over all my projects and take a percentage of the profits, because I’m Tom Cruise. 11. I like the fact that Nicole Kidman said that she was never sexually harassed during her marriage to Tom Cruise because he was a powerful man no one would fuck with. Power is very sexy. 12. I like how every love interest in a Tom Cruise film since Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky has been a completely forgettable B-list actress because Tom Cruise wants to be the undisputed star of all his films. 13. On this point, I find it funny that Tom Cruise casts all the actresses in his films to look identical - long brown hair, slim, mid-to-late thirties - so much so that I got confused between the two love interests in Mission Impossible: Fallout because they looked the same. 14. I think the Mission Impossible franchise is the greatest film franchise ever made. 15. I thought it was cute when he jumped on Oprah’s sofa. 16. Everyone has contract weddings I don’t see what the big deal is.
17. I like the fact that he is short, but at peace with it. 18. Famously, Tom Cruise spends a lot of time doing meet and greets with fans at premieres, because he is an old-school star and likes to work the crowd. 19. He seems really charming and I would love to meet him. 20. Apparently he is very professional and always turns up on time on sets. 21. Minority Report is one of the greatest films of the 20th century.
22. I like how no matter what, if you’re watching a Tom Cruise action film, he will always save the day, and probably hang out of a helicopter at some point doing it. 23. I LOVE WATCHING HIM RUN. He always commits to running scenes 100% and you can tell he’s really running as fast as he can, with great intensity. I think this goes to the heart of why I love Tom Cruise so much. Because he gives the business of being Tom Cruise his absolute fucking A-game, whether he’s hanging out of a skyscraper or chasing a baddie. He is always, living and breathing the performance art that is, being Tom Cruise. RUN TOM RUN.
Words by Hannah Ewens. Artwork by Savanna Ogburn Pamela Des Barres, an excitable teenage Beatles nut, plastered posters on every inch of her wall. “Everywhere I turned in my bedroom, their four faces beamed at me,” she wrote to me. “I had to kiss Paul’s picture every night before sleep. My teenage imagination ran wild!” All her paper-kisses turned into real flesh and blood ones, as if pubescent dreams had the power we all wished they did. Pamela would grow up to be a professional music fan and lover to the stars throughout the 60s, penning the tell-all memoir, ‘I’m With The Band’. She’d always been with the band – in every form, 2 and 3D, watching them pose and preen and draping herself over them after shows. No more infamous groupie exists, her sexual back catalogue full of names like Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon and Jim Morrison. Her memoirs were later scoured by Cameron Crowe for inspiration for the film Almost Famous and subsequently studied by Kate Hudson who played the groupie lead. “I had to have every poster of Paul in existence. I mailed away for some of them, and snagged them out of magazines being very careful with the staples,” she remembers today, adding that she still has every last piece of memorabilia in her ‘Beatle Box’. My teen pin up posters can only be rotting away in a landfill somewhere after I pulled them all down, at various ages of development. I can remember all the main
ones though. A massive black and white one of The Rasmus when I was 9 or 10, which I used to stare at while listening to their album Dead Letters and imagine putting the crow feathers in his hair. I’d lust after carefully cut out Kerrang! posters of every hot emo frontman holding a pair of roses or covered in blood. Kurt Cobain would get a longing look whenever I left the room as he played an acoustic guitar on a HMV monochrome laminated sheet. I’m just a girl in the world with a large laminated picture of my boyfriend and true love and meaning for living on the wall, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I can’t specifically remember which ones I used as masturbatory material to but you can bet that absolutely would’ve happened. That was the 00s. The power of the pin-up has never died, never faded. Throughout the 2010s, magazine art editor Paul Lang spent his days looking for striking and unique shots to turn into posters. “When I worked at We Love Pop, we had a poster called Page Forty PHWOAR!, which was just an excuse for us to treat our readers to a nice pic of a nonthreatening hunk, preferably with his shirt off.” Exclusive shots were ideal, even vital,
and especially so now – fans already know every shoot (and every selfie) their favourite artist has been posed in all over the world. They want a new dreamy shot of their favourite boy; and sometimes the casual, just-rolled-out-of-bed images were most in demand. “One interesting thing that became more obvious in the mid to late 2010s, towards the end of the run of We Love Pop, was that teen girls were much more savvy and knew all our tricks. We’d get roasted online if they felt that we’d done too much retouching, for example,” Paul says. Once, a very famous non-threatening boy asked Paul and his team to fill in a tiny eyebrow scar he has, which they did, and the magazine was “eaten alive” on Twitter when the pics came out. A little scar like that is an idiosyncrasy you grow to love, some freaky quirk becomes the object of arousal and tender feelings. Something for your eyes to burn holes into on a poster.
“Posters were one of the mag’s USPs [unique selling points], as if you liked alternative music, there weren’t many other places to get them,” she tells me. Not many other rock mags, not many stores or websites sell pin-up prints. “A good set of posters would boost sales – especially if you used the sneaky tactic of putting two posters you know people would want back to back. We’d often get people tweeting us saying they’d bought the mag twice, just so they could have both posters on their walls.” The fewer people that spend money on buying music, the more support their artist through purchasing merch and things covered in their idol’s face or outline or beautiful celebrity skin. Despite all this, it’s curious to me when I flip through a magazine and find boys with beaded sweat on flimsy paper. Vinyl, cassettes and physical objects make magical sense in 2019, but posters, like the teenage period in which you’ll cherish them, are fragile and fraying. I couldn’t imagine cutting promo shots out of glossy magazines and buying some blue tac to batter them onto wallpaper, while my mum shouts at me to not leave marks. When I ask if she thinks they’re an odd relic in a digital age, Pamela is incredulous. But of course “fans still want to gaze at their fave rock gods and goddesses on their bedroom walls. It’s the next best thing!” Obviously nothing can beat the pin up posters visual presence. This is the highest form of rock worship. These are meditations on love, fantasy and... being in a bedroom with a rockstar.
“I had to kiss Paul’s picture every ni ght before sleep. My teenage imagination ran wild!”
For a pop mag, there was a fine line with the pin-up pics. Paul needed to ensure they were hot but not “sexual”. “We clashed massively with a new editorial director who came in and was on constant pube watch,” he says. “Other editors had specific things they avoided. One I worked for absolutely hated hairy armpits.” Too masculine, too raw and ready! Everything from raw and masc to sweet little angel imagery has been accessible online for years but posters have retained appeal. Jennyfer Walker worked at rock mag Kerrang! for most of the 2010s, as it held the attention of its female heavy, teen and young adult readership.
Hatti Rex
Words and Illustration by Theo Goodyer
Since I was young, other men have made comments about my appearance. They range from the harmless “You’re gay right?” to the rude “Why have you got long hair, are you a girl?” and the abusive “You look like a f***ot.” Why does this happen? Why does my appearance anger other men? My guess is, though I’m a man, I look feminine. Femininity and masculinity are subjective characteristics, but most of society still sees masculinity and sexuality as inextricably linked. To society there are two types of men: “lads” and “fairies”. Lads are masculine, they like drinking beer, watching the footie and sleeping with women. Fairies are feminine, they like drinking cocktails, watching Rupaul’s drag race and sleeping with men.
me. It’s because of moments like these I’ve always felt there’s an invisible but strict boundary between masculinity and femininity. Ignoring this invisible boundary makes me anxious, as though some gender-conforming police will arrest me if I do. I often feel like an outsider who exists in a grey zone. Not masculine enough to be a lad, and not feminine enough to be a fairy. I’ve always been a bit envious of people that can conform to these stereotypes, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve found it easier to exist in this grey zone. Of course my struggles are not as difficult or comparable to other people’s. I’m a white able-bodied man with all the privileges that includes, though this is still an important issue that is the cause of many problems. Toxic masculinity exists because men feel insecure about trying to meet the ludicrous social standards of masculinity.
It’s understandable that most of society sees sexuality and masculinity as linked, since this idea is constantly reinforced by the media. In Legally Blonde (2001): Elle Woods deduces the witness is a gay man because he can identify Prada shoes. “Gay men know designers. Straight men don’t,” she deduces. In Spider-man (2002): Spider-man insults a wrestler, “that’s a cute outfit did your husband give it to you?” In The Hangover 2 (2011): The character Stu discovers he drunkenly had sex with a transgender prostitute. “This is Bangkok not Bang-c**t sweetie.”
Looking at my earlier examples, you could be forgiven for thinking “hey ho those movies came out years ago, and times have moved on. Things are getting better.” You might be correct. But the creators of these movies haven’t moved on. The Hangover 2 was directed by Todd Philips, who recently directed the movie Joker. The Joker is an origin story of the Batman foe, a mentally ill white man who finds fame and fulfillment by turning to violence. In a recent interview, Todd Phillips declared “woke culture killed comedy.” Oof. Why is a rich Hollywood director, who seems to hate outsiders, telling the story of an outsider? I’m the prime audience of Joker; a white male comic book fan that feels like an outsider, but it left me unsatisfied. The film’s aim isn’t to explore being an outsider. Joker wants to be many things — origin story, dark drama, zeitgeist political thriller, Martin Scorsese homage — but in the end, it’s a
There are countless other offensive moments like these in other movies, but these are the ones that I grew up with, and the ones that have stuck with
predictable half-baked concoction. Todd Phillips’ career is typical of Hollywood. A white male director continually given chances despite producing middling box office results and offensive material. The number of established white male creators who are forgiven for spectacular box office failures is staggering (Zack Snyder, Brett Ratner, Ruben Fleischer). Why give a director who has lost you money another shot when you could give a fresh voice a chance? The diverse voices that are given a platform often conform to the establishment’s ideas of minorities. The Joker is an outsider who has a sense of entitlement and a belief that he’s special. But he’s not special. He’s like many other movie protagonists. Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle) in Taxi Driver and (Rupert Pupkin) King of Comedy, Michael Douglas (D-FENS) in Falling Down, Edward Norton (Tyler Durden) in Fight Club and Jake Gyllenhaal (Lou Bloom) in Nightcrawler. These movies all portray white male anger. Some try to interrogate it with varying success, others end up glamorising it. Fight Club is the most notorious example of this conundrum. Though Fight Club confronts Tyler Durden and his cod philosophy at the films climax, it disproportionately revels in his glamour for the majority of the film. It crafts the indelible image of Brad Pitt’s sexy bloody body but fails to dismantle it. In contrast, the movie Nightcrawler is completely unambiguous. It continually portrays Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) as morally repugnant despite the success he gains — and at the films’ conclusion it unequivocally condemns him. Tyler Durden and the Joker (Heath Ledger) are worshipped in rightwing incel circles, so it’s unsurprising there’s been much debate about whether the Joker movie could inspire people to commit violence like James Holmes or Elliot Rodgers. Some of
Tyler Durden and Joker’s anger is aimed at capitalism, and though this is a valid target, when men are angry in real life they rarely shoot up Wall Street. More often it’s a woman, a school or a minority that suffers because of men’s self righteous anger. Will Joker turn every man who watches it into a violent killer? No. But it’s a nihilistic movie that portrays violence as a successful means of expressing anger. Its creators might argue Joker simply portrays a man’s depravity without judgement, but to those who already worship his depravity; it’s only more encouragement. No creator can control the legacy of their creation, but they can make a conscious effort to think about its message and its consequences. I’ve seen male anger and the ‘joke’ is on all of us.
Boy is born. Spring bloom’s as if the earth is saying welcome. Boy is not born boy. He is born bundle of joy. He is born healthy-ish. He is not born boy. He is not. He is born smiling not crying. He is born living not dying. He is born. Boy grows. Grows in height. Grows body. Grows body in wrong places. Grows. Every year on his birthday the Daffodils come out. Some sprout in the wrong places because bulbs have been moved by the wind. He stands in the wind. He stands. Waiting for the extra weight to be blown with the wind. It doesn’t. Boy stops growing. Boy grows up. Boy comes out. Into the wind. It is stronger than his spine sometimes. Boy hides. Hides everything. Hides it so far that his insides become a graveyard and boy comes tombstone. Boy comes out. Wind takes away everything. Home. Family. History. Boy has to relearn himself, like a revised text that is written in brail. Like a jail service that has run its due and freedom is for you. Boy forgets what freedom is. Boy forgets how to use his tongue. Forgets the secrets beneath it. Boy forgets how shut his mouth, as if spring sits in between is molars. Boy forgets how to shut is eyes as if the solar system relies on it. So boy sees everything. Boy then turns everything he sees into poetry. Boy spills it, on subways, on stages, on sheets. Boy spills. On sheets. On sheets. Royal red blood. Boy was not born boy. He remembers every month. Boy writes. Everywhere. On his hands. His books. His lovers hair. His scalp. His fingers don’t stop moving. As is the whole world needed a tune and he the only pianist. He doesn’t know why he is writing but he sees everything, forgets nothing. He writes down everything hides nothing. Only puts them in metaphors like code was the only way he spoke. Boy writes everything. World forgets boy exists, except for in spring. To remind him that he is the new sun after the rainfall. Boy plays Sun Ra. World never knew boy existed. Neither did a system calling him the wrong name from the wrong number everyday. Boy is born on heartbreak and split lips. Boy is born on apologies and goodbye kiss. Boy is born on the official day of spring. Boy goes to a field. Lays on his back. Boy forgets everything. Fractured rib. Screaming. How hard it is to keep breathing. Keep believing that you exist until they know you do. Boy was not born boy. Boy was born bundle of joy in the wrong arms. Boy was born with the wrong heart. Backwards and has spent his life trying to get feet first ever since. Boy’s utopia is simply smiling. He can’t count on ten fingers the last time he could for the whole day. Sky goes grey. Boys happy place is nowhere. Boy forgets everything. Boy forgets he was born. Boy forgets what his under his tongue. Boy forgets spring. Boy remembers the wind. Boy goes to write down what it feels like. Boy forgets his pen and his book. Boy forgets what his fingers look like. Boy forgets his scalp. Boy forgets his words. Boy forgets his worth, his purpose. Boy forgets to breathe. Boy is not breathing. Boy is dying. Boy remembers he was not born boy. Boy is not born. Mistake is and masculinity it so hard to keep remembering. Boy forgets what it means to be boy. Boy breathes again. Boy hates his body but knows the importance of what is inside. Boy breathes. Boy is born again. Boy breathes. Wind turns to breeze and boy cries. Boy cries with no care of what a boy crying should look like. Boy doesn’t allow himself to die. Boy is born again. Spring is here.
rd the wo g n i n i g e Re i ma boys l ike m boy for
Boys without binaries bound to their backs. Boys with book bags of bloodstained blackness. boys with breathlessly pray for themselves to believe they will be able to live life further than baby just begun. Boys with babies. Boys who don’t like brewery’s and bacon rolls. Or bad beneficial systems. Boys that smoke blunts. Boys at ballrooms without biceps. Boys will balloon style confidence. Boys with boobs, baptised by breathing for the first time, with chests that are no longer bound. Boys with binders. Boys with barely enough buddies. Boys with bad brains, or maybe just bruised brains. Boys who are bottoms, boys who like bottoms. Boys with beef but are not beefy. Boys that have been. Boys that are beginning. Boi’s. Boys that are blissful and bountiful. Boys that bravely go out in the blizzard. Boys that don’t break. Boys that break like bread. Boys that aren’t naturally blonde. Black boys. Brown boys. Boys who need a new word for boys. Boys who are sometimes boys. Boys that bun. Boys that are bizarre. Boys that cant use the boys bathrooms. Boys that do. Boys that believe in nothing of being a boy.
Dominic Myatt