The Male Gazed On Hunks Heartthrobs And What Pop Culture Taught Me About Desiring Men Manuel Betancourt by Manuel Betancourt 9781646221462, 164622146X instant download after payment.

Manuel Betancourt has long lustfully coveted masculinity—in part because he so lacked it. As a child in Bogotá, Colombia, he grew up with the social pressure to appear strong, manly, and, ultimately, straight. And yet in the films & television he avidly watched, Betancourt saw glimmers of different possibilities. From the stars of telenovelas & the princes of Disney films to pop sensation Ricky Martin & teen heartthrobs in shows like Saved By the Bell, he continually found himself asking: Do I want him or do I want to be him?

The Male Gazed grapples with the thrall of masculinity, examining its frailty & its attendant anxieties even as it focuses on its erotic potential. Masculinity, Betancourt suggests, isn’t suddenly ripe for deconstruction—or even outright destruction—amid so much talk about its inherent toxicity. Looking back over decades’ worth of pop cultures attempts to codify & reframe what men can be, wear, do, & desire, this book establishes that to gaze at men is still a subversive act.

Written in the spirit of Hanif Abdurraqib & Olivia Laing, The Male Gazed mingles personal anecdotes with cultural criticism to offer an exploration of intimacy, homoeroticism, & the danger of internalizing too many toxic ideas about masculinity as a gay man.

Manuel Betancourt is a queer Colombian culture writer & film critic. His work has been featured in The NY Times, BuzzFeed Reader, LA Times, Film Quarterly, LA Review of Books & GQ Style. Manuel is the author of Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall (Bloomsbury Press, 2020), & a contributing writer to the Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel series, The Cardboard Kingdom (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2018 & 2021)