Manuel Betancourt

The Male Gazed

Featuring deep dives into thirst traps, drag queens, Antonio Banderas, and telenovelas—all in the service of helping us reframe how we talk about (desiring) men—this insightful memoir-in-essays is as much a coming of age as a coming out book Manuel Betancourt has long lustfully coveted masculinity—in part because he so lacked it. As a child in Bogotá, Colombia, he grew up with the social pressure to appear strong, manly, and, ultimately, straight. And yet in the films and television he avidly watched, Betancourt saw glimmers of different possibilities. From the stars of telenovelas and the princes of Disney films to pop sensation Ricky Martin and teen heartthrobs in shows like Saved By the Bell, he continually found himself asking: Do I want him or do I want to be him? The Male Gazed grapples with the thrall of masculinity, examining its frailty and its attendant anxieties even as it focuses on its erotic potential. Masculinity, Betancourt suggests, isn’t suddenly ripe for deconstruction—or even outright destruction—amid so much talk about its inherent toxicity. Looking back over decades’ worth of pop culture’s attempts to codify and reframe what men can be, wear, do, and desire, this book establishes that to gaze at men is still a subversive act. Written in the spirit of Hanif Abdurraqib and Olivia Laing, The Male Gazed mingles personal anecdotes with cultural criticism to offer an exploration of intimacy, homoeroticism, and the danger of internalizing too many toxic ideas about masculinity as a gay man.

On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men

On the night of Sunday, April 23, 1961 Judy Garland made history. That's no hyperbole. Surrounded by a throng of ecstatic fans (3,165 to be exact), the legendary performer delivered a concert in Carnegie Hall the live recording of which became, upon release, an unlikely pop cultural phenomenon. Judy at Carnegie Hall, the two-disc set that captured all 25 numbers she performed that night, went on to spend more than 70 weeks on the Billboard charts, win four Grammy Awards--including Album of the Year (making it the first live music album and the first album by a female performer to win the category)--and become, in the process, the fastest-selling two-disc set in history. What the recording highlights, and what's made it an enduring classic in a class of its own, is the palpable connection between the songstress and her fans. "Indeed," The New York Times reported in its review of the evening's proceedings, "what actually was to have been a concert--and was--also turned into something not too remote from a revival meeting." By looking at her song choices, her stage banter, the album's cultural impact, and her place in the gay pantheon, this book argues that Judy's palpable connection with her fans is precisely what her Capitol Records' two-disc album captured.

Manuel Betancourt

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