From our friends at Queerty…

From the steamy bath scene in Spartacus to Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life, Hollywood’s evolution of masculinity has been a wild ride.

Queerty asked journalist Naveen Kumar to dig deep into the vaults, and what he uncovered is as nuanced as Montgomery Clift stroking his pistol in Red River and as openly gay as Jake Foy’s character Tuff McMurray on Hallmark’s Ride. Despite an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ vitriol and legislation, visibility continues to thrive, but the definition of masculinity has become more nuanced.

Kumar also spoke with Rock Hudson documentarian Stephen Kijak, Brokeback Mountain playwright Ashley Robinson, and delved into queer (or queer-coded) representation from Roman Novarro’s swashbuckling prince in Across to Singapore to Murray Bartlett’s gay survivalist in The Last of Us.

Our writer asks, “What does it mean for queer characters to be visibly integrated into these familiar genres with their existing associations about what a man should be? And where, in many instances, we’ve been all along but were kept under wraps?... You just have to look — longingly, and with your hat tilted just so — toward the horizon of what’s coming next.”

Matthew Wexler
Features Editor, Q.Digital