Not intentional? Do you seriously think the artist(s) who drew those photos were manly men drinking buddies of John Wayne?
There are millions of examples of homoerotic art dating back to cave drawings and throughout history. Maybe you can look at the drawings and say, “pretty colors” but you can’t tell me that the artists were not thinking, “hot nude dudes frolicking before or after the real fun…” Trust me, there were queer boys in the past who thought exactly the same way I do now.
That’s his own meaty fist he’s scrubbing.
If you want salacious subtext, you can assume he’s lubing it up with soap, while eyeing the blond lifting himself half-out of the water onto the log (fifth from right).
That’s not a foot, that’s his fist. No dismembered body parts visible in the ad, sorry.
Aye, that one is clearly an eroticized image – there’s no way of getting around it. It’s naive to dismiss it based on conceptions of changing cultural attitudes; while it’s obvious that the codified societal values about homosexuality have changed a great deal in the last sixty years, you can bet your firm, round bottom that the underlying sexual psychology hasn’t changed in the slightest. The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name appeared with no less frequency because of the stronger taboo, and the smart money’s on the commercial artist who created that scene approaching it as eroticism.
As for it being marketed to the women at home, in no way does that make it any less homoerotic. There was a thread recently polling het women about their feelings about gay male porn, in which the there seems to be a concensus of “hot!” I’ve asked a couple of my acquaintances about it, and it doesn’t seem to be limited to the SDMB. What women might say out loud with confidence about nekkid men soaping up and romping together might be rather different that it was in decades past, but I sincerely doubt that the effect it has on their dirty little ids has changed in the tiniest little way. Sure, it sold towels.
Saying that it’s not homoerotic because of the context is like saying that there’s nothing sapphic about girl-on-girl porn because it’s created by and aimed at heterosexual men.
Sometimes a banana is just a banana, and sometimes a group of hot, soapy wet men touching each other provocatively is just a group of hot, soapy wet men touching each other provocatively.
Spoken attitudes about sex may change, but sex itself changes on a geological time scale.
Crypto-queer commercial images will always motivate principal consumers, whether or not they feel comfortable about admitting it to their coffee klatch.
Sorry, but if you’re going to make allegations of ahistoricism, then you need to hold yourself to the same standard.
Sure, it would be unhistorical to argue that these pictures meant exactly the same thing in the context of 1940s America as they would mean if they were produced today.
But homosexuality and homoeroticism didn’t spring fully formed from the Stonewall riot or the gay liberation movement. Just because 1940s America was openly hostile to homosexuality, and most Americans might not have read any homoeroticism into those images, doesn’t mean that none was intended, or that none was there.
Only, it’s a regular feature of WWII-era war movies–movies made during the war–to show soldiers entertaining each other with nostalgia for what they were missing back home. THere’s more than one such movie that includes a good-natured drag act, with the mop-bewigger soldier clearly standing in for a real girl, and not a veiled image of homosexual sex. The guy with the palm frond seems much in the same context.
It’s a fictional picture, so this can be nothing but conjecture. Sure, it’s undeniable that there were men away at war who had homosexual desires for some of their fellow soldiers, and sure one of them probably picked up a palm frond or a mop. But from my dorm life, I can tell you that goofy straight guys will don a mop at the drop of a hat too, with no homosexual repression involved at all.
Just sayin, in the context of the day, it’s perfectly believable to me–even likely–that neither the authors nor the audience of these ads were thinking in terms of gay sex, but in terms of goofy nostalgia for the skirts back home.
I am not sure whether the all of the overtones were intended or not. However, it wasn’t unusual for ads to be “posed” as though the subjects were aware of the veiwer and camping it up for them. Maybe that accounts for some of the goofiness? Why can’t it be “a little of this, a little of that”?
I’m saying, there’s no definitive answer, short of a tell-all autobiography by one of the advertisers. I’m saying it’s perfectly plausible that there was NO homoerotic intention. It’s also plausible, of course, that the opposite is true. Although, taking into account the social climate of the day, my personal opinion is that the former is more likely. “Gay” as a political, social concept is largely post-1968; before that, homosexual urges were seen as abnormal; a psychiatric disorder. Outside of a few pioneer individuals like Truman Capote and Quentin Crisp–and others like them in the big cities–an individual who felt such urges did not see them as something to acknowledge, even to themselves, let alone celebrate. The social revolution that came about as a result of WWII was part of what fed the eventual–and still incomplete and continuing–opening up of the closet. With all that in mind, I just don’t see an individual advertising artist giggling into his sleeve while pulling a beefcake prank on the vastness of the public. It just doesn’t ring likely to me. I acknowledge, however, that it’s possible.
Damn you, Cannon! Didn’t you give any towels to the WACs?
Me too sister. Yowza. I don’t care who they were aimed for, but they’re hittin’ me just fine!
This one makes me wonder.
Gay as 19 balloons. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 
)
I think every generation likes to think they invented sex and sexy talk and risque double entendres, but that is obviously not true, as evidenced by William Shakespeare and pretty much everything he wrote.
A co-worker bought a 1936 Spiegal catalog from eBay not too lonmg ago. Paging through it, I came to the conclusion that EVERYBODY in the 1930s was homosexual, because the word “gay” was used in the description of almost every product.
The first ad (with the crocodile-net bath) strikes me as being more eye-candy for lonely housewives whose husbands were off fighting the Japanese or the Nazis- It really doesn’t strike me as being especially “Gay”, and especially not when you take into account the social attitudes of the time.
The second one doesn’t seem especially Gay, either- there’s a bunch of soldiers taking a break from kicking Jerry’s ass, somewhere in Italy, which would befit the whole Roman thing going on. Again, applying 1940s social conventions, I’d say it’s closer to eye-candy for bored housewives than homoerotic.
The third ad is clearly Liberace Gay, however. Perhaps, after publishing the first two, someone said “Hang on… as long as we can pass this off as being for all the women keeping the home fires burning, then I can indulge my interest in hot naked guys, and no one will question it!”
Gay may not have been a political thing in the 1940s, but until recently (and even today!) in some places, it was/is an excuse for straight people (or those in denial) to beat up gay people.
Makes me glad I’m not gay, but it certainly can’t have been a good time to know you were “different”, and people constantly wondered why you never married…
Please. Just because it may not have been intended that way doesn’t mean it’s not homoerotic.
Whoa, check out the two guys on the lower left-Jude Law appears to be giving a reach-a-round to R. Lee Ermey!
:eek: 
[QUOTE=lissener]
Only, it’s a regular feature of WWII-era war movies–movies made during the war–to show soldiers entertaining each other with nostalgia for what they were missing back home. THere’s more than one such movie that includes a good-natured drag act, with the mop-bewigger soldier clearly standing in for a real girl
[/QUOTE*]
…A hundred and one / pounds of fun / that’s my little honey-bun!*
South Pacific anyone?
Oh shit! I’ve gone and brought up show tunes… who’s homoerotic now, hmmm?
(–and yes, now I realize the dude in the “Crocodiles keep out!” ad is not washing a dismembered leg. The right hand holding the left wrist and the fist above looked like an ankle and foot to me.)
I’m sorry for a semi-hemi-demi-double post, but I just HATE messed up coding!
…A hundred and one / pounds of fun / that’s my little honey-bun!
South Pacific anyone?
Oh shit! I’ve gone and brought up show tunes… who’s homoerotic now, hmmm?
(–and yes, now I realize the dude in the “Crocodiles keep out!” ad is not washing a dismembered leg. The right hand holding the left wrist and the fist above looked like an ankle and foot to me.)
Actually, I was talking about straight men who posted in another thread that they didn’t shower, after working out, at the gym, because it’s pretty gay to bathe with other dudes.
I looked at the picture the way Martini did: A bunch of guys who just completed 50 days in combat, probably haven’t bathed in two months, and are sharing the area with the rest of the regiment. I think the Powers that Be in the Army feel the same way about the picture as you, though. That’s why they do everything in their power to keep any open homosexuals away.
See, that doesn’t make any sense to me. Wouldn’t the soldiers who are gay be the happiest to be out in the field, since they can be there with their lovers? I don’t know; maybe happy soldiers are bad soldiers.
