Well, i happened onto a run of gay arts movies here in columbus over the weekend and managed to take in one.
The aptly named "Beefcake" was an interesting experience if not an overly interesting movie. As anyone will tell you, I'm not much into "art" movies as a genre, but always wanting to support my "community" i went anyway.
The movie centers on Bob Mizer a photog from the '50's who took pics of various muscle men for those notorious "physic" men's mags. It was thinly veiled male porn at the time and thus the conflict for what drama there was in the movie. The Man vs the oppressive and censoring gov't.
I say what drama there was b/c the movie employed traditional acting along with interviews (and, as an aside, i detest the "talking-to-the-non-existent-interviewer" style of interview - what an over used tactic). Most of the ppl i've never heard of, except for Jack Lelane (or however it is spelled). I think it gave the film some substance in that all the older "muscle men" being interviewed thru-out the movie weren't made up actors. So, that seemed authentic.
The movie contains wall-to-wall male eye candy. While this is a very nice treat for the first 20 minutes of so, after that it goes from too much to unnerving to icky to just too bizarre for words. It felt very much like sensory overload! I wasn’t the only one either as my date and i agreed afterward that it was just too intense after roughly 90 minutes.
Therein lies the problem. The movie shows a frustrated man whose only outlet from his sexuality and art is photographing men which common society deems as “perverse” and “sick”. I’m also not so foolish as to think the same repression couldn’t go on today and indeed it does, just in different outlets. In showing this frustration, however, the camera concentrates too much on the stunning men in the scantily clad pouch thong suits. It is jarring to see the courtroom action in black & white and then the beautiful hunks by the pool in garish sunlight. Maybe that’s what the director wanted; i'm not clever enough to know.
Overall, i'm glad i saw the movie in that it is a good reminder to ppl of my generation of the history my “people” have in the advancement of recognition as a legitimate component of society. Honestly, tho, i'm unsure I woulda edited it down more – they were just too good looking to cut! (No pun intended.)
