Who was it who said, “I want the guy guarding my ass to think it looks good!”
George Carlin.
Someone may have said this, but even if it wasn’t intended to be homoerotic, that doesn’t mean that it’s not.
It’s very difficult to divorce the parts of one’s opinion that are formed by present-day culture when interpreting art from another time and/or place. It’s easy to judge movies from the early part of the 20th century based on modern notions of racism and misogyny, for example. Ultimately it’s not possible to do so completely and conclusively.
Yeah. Gay, gay gay.
Look at the native islanders, even they’re staring in disbelief in how gay a spectacle has descended upon their tranquil paradise.
I like Martini Enfield’s take on it – sure, the deliberate target was the lonely ladies in the homefront, deprived of both their men AND their Cannon towels, but at the same time that provided an excellent cover for anyone wanting to camp it up under the cover of good-humored ambiguity.
And like Menocchio I was amused by the natives in “Buna Bathtub” … (it’s like they’re standing there saying “ooookaaaay… the missionaries did NOT tell us about THIS custom of white folks…”)
And Larry Mudd has a point in mentioning that it’s “like saying that there’s nothing sapphic about girl-on-girl porn because it’s created by and aimed at heterosexual men.” It makes me think about girlie-mag pictorials featuring twins or even Dahm triplets – "surely"the intent is to feed my fantasy that I’m stud enough for a matched set, not to make any insinuation of lez incest.
“Surely”.
Also, when you’re in the middle of WW2, you kinda can’t be bothered to be too uptight…
I don’t know from gay, but IMO those ads are much more risque than anything in mags today! I’m seeing male butt cleavage (but not plumber’s crack) in those as well as the lowest palm frond/towel I’ve ever seen in a male dominated ad.
How come it’s just women who are partially nude in ads today? I want some eye candy, too!
I cannot believe those ads got past the Hayes office (did that cover ads or was it just TV and/or movies?) or it’s equivalent–I doubt they’d be put in mags today (and certaily not feature soldiers!).
And that speaks volumes as to how America views it’s men and the situation in Iraq, IMO.
Looking at them again–it’s hard to NOT see them as homoerotic. Maybe folks want to keep that time as “innocent”? I’m pretty sure there were gays in the '40’s. Even farther back, in the 1840s etc…
Sorry for the double post–but look at the croc one again. In the far lefthand corner, there is a private(?) who is fully dressed and looking down at his shoes, as if ashamed.
I’ll swear he is closeted.
I have a bunch of photos taken in New Guinea in 1944 that aren’t that much different than Buna Bathtub. They feature just about all the pilots in the attack bomber squadron my father flew in, and include camping up with flower “bras” to the amusement of the others while relaxing nude on the beach. Pretty severe tan lines, too. So my take on the ad is that it would have been regarded as guys-away-from-home hijinx.
See, in my reality, he’s rushing to get his pants off and jump in there and get next in line for Private Fist in the front.
…what?
Yep, gay as a three-dollar bill, which incidentally were printed during the war as a rationing measure.
You know, if you look closely, his pants seem awfully baggy…
To My Little Brother Skippy,
Except for being able to use some canoes as bathtubs, the village of Faghag proved a real disappointment. Fortunately, Sarge says we’re heading back to Rimjobi. The folks there are behind us 100%! They give us everything we’ve got. There’s nothing they won’t do to help us beat the Jerry’s. They’ve got the stamina of marathon runners too. Just when you think they’re done, they stand right up again. I’ve got to go now, as I am running out of entendres.
I don’t know what the intention of the artist was, but to me this looks gayer than a bus full of drunken Lucy impersonators. It also looks like a place where I would like to spend some time… so maybe they were aiming fpr a wide demographic group.