Using illustrations from a technical manual of the 1940s `the author examines the working male figure in popular iconography focusing on masculine representation in the visual arts and its link to the means of production.
Since 1927, the idea that the motor cycle is synonymous with assertive and unmediated masculinity has been enlarged and expanded through a broad range of visual, literal and cinematic imagery to the point where a machine which was once acclaimed as a means of transport has been transformed into a gendered cultural icon, an object of and for masculine display.
Social documenter Maxx Image is obsessed with the colour purple. Black leather is the costume of rebellion and the thrill and valour expounded by such an ideal could be seen as enticing accessories to the passion and zeal of leather sexuality.
We collage, genderbend, cross dress and polymorph exquisite corpses out of media and advertising personalities, then use them as fantasy aids in the cause of our mundane desires.
Vigilantly looking out to sea, the two manifestations of the life saver, the saviour and the sportsman, are combined in this 'gay greeting card' in such a way as to draw on the history of surf club masculinity and create an erotic pose.
During World War Two, the Australian government's Department of Information represented the male body in at least two distinct ways. The photographer Edward Cranstone photographed a heroically active, phallicised body and the cameraman Damien Parer filmed a heroically suffering abject body.