Strength and Stealth: Watching (and Wanting)

Strength and Stealth:
Watching (and Wanting) 'fum of the Century Strongmen
Thomas Waugh
Introduction
A !riplycb of erotic icons stares oul from the Kinetoscopes made
by Edison and Dickson in the mid-1890s, in fact the founding prototypes of
the representation of sex and gender in the image technologies of the dawning century. If Tile Kiss (1896) is popularly mythologized as the Ur-lext of
the cinematic tradition of narrative eros and conjugal closure, the vignette
of Carmencita (1894), the Spanish show business sensation that Edison
hired into his Black Maria studio to perform her famous butterfly dance,
inaugurates the tradition of woman as cin.ematic spectacle (not to mention
the history of cinematic censorship, her "upturned ankles" and hint of lace
baving raised the ire of at least one would-be censor).] Bu~ as a bistorian
of the gay imagioary, and more specifically as sometime private investigator of the cultural regime in wbicb the image of the male atblete bas lured
and accommodated tbe bomoerotic gaze,2 ] rest my eye on a tbird
Kinetoscope, the 1894 record of the famous strongman Eugen Sandow
flexing bis muscles for peepsbow thrillseekers. My bomoerotic gaze
lingers, then fixates, tben starts its own libidinous and inlellectuaJ flexing.
My pirate video copy of this Kinetoscope is only ten seconds long
and its burnt-out scantines scarcely ouUine the golden-baired bero as be
faces the camera in a tbree-quaners sbot. Mindful of the s!rict time limit of
Edison's prototype macbine, Sandow foregoes bis legendary grace and zips
at lightning speed through a repertory of ten poseS, front and back, lifting
bis arms up and down, tensing his magnificent biceps and rippling bis slupendous hack. This text is normally subsumed uncritically, I suppose, then
as now, under the minor bistory of sports performances or sbow-business
documents in the cinema (all the more so since Sandow's tiny tight white
trunks and otherwise uncovered body seem to have evoked no consternation wbatsoever from the Cornstocks of tbe day)_ Tbougb the charisma of
the star is evident in the fragmenl, few have noticed the key progenitor of
CfMadian JOunJaJ of Film SlwdiulRevw CDIJlUiimn~ d"ilUiW minulwgrapJUqffU
Vol 2 No I
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Streflgth and Slealll,
17Iomos Waugh
richly contraclietory sexual discourses Wt I extrapOlate from thai nickering
windmill on !be screen, much Ies the momenlous hernld of new represcn!alions of masculinity and new cnacunents of sexual difference and desire.
(Figuu I)
Readers are no doubt familiar with Sandow's direci descendanL~ in
the cinema, an unbroken parade of bodybuilders facing Ihe camera: from
Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano. the ubian lave in Cabiria. 1914) through
George O' Brien, Rudolf Valentino (yes), Johnny Welssmuller. Sieve
Reeves. Mickey Hargitay ... cUhninatinj' though nOI lerminating. in
Sandow's fellow Teulon Schwanenegger. However, for lhe purpose of
Ihis ani Ie on lhc strongman as sexual image and homoerotic icon, I am
turning Illy gaze away from this pumped-up cinematic genealogy for the
time being and looking al photography, specifically the photographs of
Sandow and his contemporaries. For it is in the phy ;que photography of
the dibul-de-siicle thai one can best stan in simple uncluttered temls a dissection of !be strongman icon as lightning rod of (gay) male desire and the
erotici7.ed gaze; it is here one can perceive Ihe first stirrings of Ihe homoerotic construclion of the male body, mechanically recorded, in all
llS...nakedness.
I Alhletes vs. Icons
This anicle is part of a larger study of homoerotic cultural dynamo
ics around sports images which can be traced back to the origins of photog·
raphy itself in the mid-nineteenth ccntury.4 Academic nude poologrnphy
had included idealized discus-throwers. gladi3lors and Hercules among iLS
fonnula icons from ilS very beginnings (along ide those other homoerolk
and imperial figures. noble primitives and pastoral ephebcs); on literary terrain. homophile poets Walt Whitman and later A.E.Housrnan. among others, had eclebraled the athlete's undraped body. The homosocial ideal of
group exercise. competition, and display was indisputably a nexus of nineteCotll cemury homosexual cullure, and there wa no shortage of broader
social sanctions. Public-school ideals of muscular Christianily inspired
some of its earlier institulional settings 5 As time went on, its base was
democratized in Ihe proliferating institutions of male athletic camaraderie,
institution which, for all their CUllural and social differences. formalized
male bonding outside of traditional ites of familial workplace, communal
and geographical identification: lh YMCA and Scouting in !be Anglo·
Saxon world were paralleled by various youth movements on lhe Continent
such as the WanderviJ8tl. and of course by the apparatus of es alaling mihIary mobilization everywhere in lhc West.
However it was only towards the turn of the century Wt Ihe ath·
F'g.,../ _ Eugrn Sandow, I7y Georgr Stecul. 1894. Library oj Congress.
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Thomas Waugh
lete could emerge as a homcxrotic icon, in and of himself (rather than the
abstract nude male for which athletics had always provided one of several
stylized essences). Around that lime, cultural transformations around the
social conception and function of leisure, spons and the body, as well as
refmements in the technology of representation, began to consolidate the
athletic body as a focus of emerging subcultures, both sexual and social.
Tbe modem-day revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 symbolized the 'new institutionalization and commodification of sports and leisure
that was altering the place of the (male) body in the social and cultural
domain. Professional team sports proliferated, as did their audiences,
together with a systematized contest and competition circuit for bodybuilding and non·team sports in tbe same decade. Of this Jailer circuit,
show-business spinoffs and appendages were numerous: earlier strongman performance traditions whicb bad thrived lhroughoutthe century were
gathered into big-business circuits of fairgrounds, music·ball, vaudeviUe,
amusement arcades, and, as we have seen, the cinema. A network of starathletes soon developed on these circuits, administered wim unprecedented
professionalism, of which Eugen Sandow was only the best-known. Stars
aside, the constiluency of fans, audiences, and amateur participants were
me crucial context in which the new pbenomenon prospered.
The emergence of the male athletic body was not only a socio-cultural spons pbenomenon, based on participation, competition, commerce,
spectatorship and display. [t gradually defined itself also as a phenomenon
of visual representation. The photograph of the athlete became a commodity and icon with its own presence, autonomy and value beyond its indexical
function. Flesh and blood carnival strongmen had suddenly become pboto·
graphic idols. Photograpbers sucb as Jules Beau appeared who specialized
in a new genre, the sports photograph 6 [n the realms of portraiture and
journalism, a new social and civic ideal appeared in the pbotographic repertory, distinct from its various predecessors: the dignified bourgeois citizen
began to be jostled in his position of patriarchal authority by the champion.
This undraped, muscular, mature body of the socially mobile proletarian
hero encoded new social ideals of populism/popularity, strength, leisure,
consumption and triumph rather than civic, cultural or economic accomplisbment Figures like Sandow cultivated public identities as performers,
models, merchandisers and idols, as welt as athletes. Portraits of athletes
documented individual social identities to be sure, but the male body
emerged above all as object of mediatic consumption: it not only worked,
presided and earned, but also played and competed, and was displayed,
recorded, endlessly reproduced, sold, consumed, preserved, admired, emulated - and desired.
Strength and Stealth
Enthusiasts wbo followed the stars in a rush to the physique studios which began to proliferate in urban centres, did so not only to build
their bodies and to socialize with their male comrades, but also to participate in mis phenomenon of representation. They consumed photograpbs
and aspired to be photographed themselves, to become pbotograpbic
objects of admiration. They developed poses and muscles for the camera
as much as for any live onlooker. The surviving photos of countless proud
but anonymous amateurs are a particularly endearing section of this legacy,
innocents proudly staring at me camera as il catebes them adrift in the shifting sexual tides of the modem era.
The mediatizalion of the male athlelic body was of course nOI an
isolated phenomenon, but simply one facet of the global bomogenization
and commodification of popular culture across tbe surface of modernizing
industrial society in the years leading up to World War I. And like many of
the emerging cultural forms, the institution of looking at the male body was
overwbelming male, in terms of its control, its operation and its constiluency. Its mass commodity aspect cannot be overstressed: this traffic in the
representation of the male body reached far beyond the constituencies of
the pioneering bomoerotic photograpbers of the nineteenth century - aestbetes and pornographers alike, covert and dispersed, subcultural or elite.
The means of production and circulation had been perfected: the postcard,
newspaper and magazine industries quickly overtook the pbotographic prinl
trade that had been in existence since mid-century, and transformed the private obsessions of the priVileged into modem mass media Mass circutation newspapers, like the Police Gazelle, were Ibe frrst 10 enshrine athleles
and physique stars in the firmaments of pop idolatry, thanks first to
engravers and soon to photographers as the printing industry became more
tecbnologically sopbisticated. As early as the 18808 graphic illustrations of
boxers and wrestlers, the clear antecedent of male pinups and pbysique
eroticism, were obligatory components of the popular press.
Towards the lurn of the century, specialized physique magazines
began to further consolidate this cultural phenomenon of men looking al
male nudes. German magazines existed from as early as 1893, and 1898
saw tbe first publication of English-language equivalents, Sandow's
Physical Culture Oater changed to Sandow's Magazine) and Physical
Deve{opmeTll, a British creation of tbe American entrepreneur Bernarr
Macfadden (1868-1955), one of the more flamboyant and influential of the
new generation of American physique idol-entrepreneurs,' who followed up
with an American offspring in 1901, Physical Culture, and soon a whole
magazine empire. Professor Edmond Desbonnets (1868-1953), a leading
French physique impresario, founded his magazine La Culture physique in
5
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Slft1lgth and Stealth
Thomas Waugh
France in 1904. The book trade also shared the marke~ with such lavishly
iUuslrated volumes as Deshonne!'s Pour dtvtllir Jon: commt1lJ all devitTIt
athlju ([909) being typical of production across North America and
Europe.
Perhaps roo t important wa the postcard boom, peaking belween
1900 and 1920, when il is said thai twenly postcards were senl annually
tbrough the mail for every inhabitant of Britain.(Figurt 2) The collecting
impulse was tbere from the stan: .Desbonnets is said to have bad a coUeetion of 6000 pbolos of strong weU bu.il! men. Dozens of male pbysique
tars were in circulation, thanks to this medium, including such luminaries
as Georges Hackenschmidt and Stan Zbysko alongside tbe sublime
Sandow. The muscle super tars are said 10 have ouldrawn tbe greatest
vaudeville stars in the postcard trade.? Certain subeategories of the strongman po t ards, such as pinups of champion wrestlers and boxers in action,
were also evolving at
the same time, no
les open to subeultural appropriation
tban tbe
olilary
bodybuilders. (Figurt
3)
As for Ihe
newest of the mass
media, Sandow was
not tbe Only strongman to be immortalized in the einema.
In fact the fir I
Edi on Kineloscope
line bad also fealured
the
prizefighters
James Corbell and
Peler Courlney in
perhaps ilS mosl sensat;onal product of
tbeir first year of
operations. as well as
Profes or
Louis
Attila. Sandow' legendary teaCber and
tbe founder of modFig-.rt l-Alwn)woru: J'O,tctJrd. pottld 1901. Uwt Sc~jJ collulum,
em bodybuilding. Two decades later, Bernarr Macradden produced two
elpensive films aimed OIl loning up American youth for entry into the War.
Their failure did nol deter tile irrepressible promoter from further ""peri_
menlS over the nell decade. 8 (This is nOl to say that ancient artistic media
were ignored: several sculptUral representations of Sandow's cbann> were
in ircuJation, including one golden nude complete with genitals, mOllestly
proportioned.)
By the outset of World War I tben, Physique Culture had been
transformed from a
nel\vork of local
aCli\lities into an
international cultural
induslry, a robuSI
bra ncb of popular
patriarchal mylbology ant! commerce.
How was this new
discourse of the male
bOdy, wbal Rouill~
call tbis new -corporiitl", also one of
tbe peno<!'s proliferating new sexual discourses? How did
Physical Cullnre also
reOecl a hifting of
sexual terrain, lend·
ing itself 10 appropriation by the emerging
homosexual constituencies of tbe
debut-de-sUcI,
West? Specific documentation of tbe
bomoerotic articula·
tion and appropriation of lbe strongman
image is as scanty as
t:lLVfrRfrL.
raW
a fig leaf. . Here .as Figure3 -Slighlly lOUr/han 1M ~rWd covered by this
elsewbere In SOCIal ol1icle, this 1920spostco,d ofa chompioll boxuwus pol1 ofa
hIStory wbere subtel- IwguoIJ«tion ""dtrtuUn in 1920by a DulCh say malt
coUeclOr(/900·J989). Priw.JIecolJ«:tion, Th~ Hagut>.
7
Thomas Waugh
Srrtn,glll and Slca/rh
tua! and ubcullural operalions inlersect with mainslream culture, the context and the artifacts lhemselves must unfortunately teU US all.
o Homosexual vs Homosoclal
Of lhe general cootex~ il must be emphasized lhal the beefcake
industry was in exact tandem with the companion cheesecake industry.
The strongmen emerged alongside lhe aClresses. female models, fan
dancers and burlesque queens, who were depicted in poses only slighlly
more languorous and costumes llghlly more ornate (though much less
reveaJing). Male bodies and the nwre ownerous female bodies were marketed io exactly the same way 10 tbe same male gaze in every medium from
mail-order pI.1olography and postcards to vaudeville and lbe nickelodeon.
There is a record of a female following for sucb figwes as Sandow. bUI lhe
audience for hoth pbeoom na was overwhelmingly male. The cbeesecake
direclly addressed an overtly sexual male voyeurism; the beefcake
addressed a male voyeurism and identification of a more coven, sublimated
,.
or unconscious nature, simultaneously or a1lernatively. The star YSlem in
and of ilSClf. with its truetures of adulation and mystification, was by its
very nature erotic. Sandow knew how to exploit this aspect ooUer than his
rivals. with his American impresario F1oreoz Ziegfeld mercbandising his
attributes no less flamboyantly than be did those of the opposile gender. In
sh~ the mass circulation and con umplion of thc nude. lDale or female.
was and is aUlomatically a sexual articulation in our culture, 00 mailer how
vigorously disavowed. The sex03.1 expre iveness of the male body ""as no
secrel. simply obscured by an in tilutionalized 'yslem of silence and look·
PHYSICAL C01.TURE·S ADVERTISERS-
MANHOOD
AND
MARRIAGE
By BERNARR MACFADDEN
A Book that. searches your soul
that enters the most sacred precincts of your inner life-that
points the way to the vital. pulsatiog forces of splendid manhood.
THE PERSONAL OF \§~ ~ MAN
PROBLEMS (~ :,~t.i:Aleci \
SOLVINe THE vrrAL PROBLEMS OF MEN
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Figur~
5 - "Du &JUT• .. Lucian von R(Jmu, IHr £igl!n~ (Balin). Milr:. 1903.
9
10
Thomas Waugh
Slrenglh and Sleallh
fran~aise), the
celebrity patron of Desbonnet's Pour devemr fon (1909), an
eccentric orienlalist notorious for his interest in drag and makeup and for
the sensuality of his romantic/exotic fiction. Loti was a collector of
physique photographs and an amateur photographer in his own right,
remembered for intriguing sWdies of sailors bathing in the Bosporus. I I As
for Sandow, two of his most ardent fans were the British gay literati
Edmund Gosse and John Addington Symonds, who wrote in an 1889 letter
to Gosse of Sandow's most recent fig-leaf portfolio: 12
ing the other way.
That sexuality was on everyone's minds there can be no doubt.
An obsession with male sexuality was an explicit part of the larger discursive environment of Physical Culture. A widespread male anxiety about
potency was transfOlmed by the physique magazines and the tabloids into a
profitable mini-industry of literature, gadgets and pharmaceuticals. As for
the oft-married Macfadden, there is no reason to doubt his professed heterosexual credentials, but one is struck by the obsessive nature of his melding of the pseudo-medical discourses of male sexuality with those of erotic
display and corporal development. He not only enjoyed posing in the nude,
for photographers and for travelling show audiences - not to mention anyone in the immediate vicinity - but also wrote frequently on sexology in
such books as The Viril~ Powers of Superb Manhood (1903), argued endlessly against prudery, and invented a "peniscope" to "restore male vitality
and potency".(Figure 4) This preoccupation with male sexuality that was
an adjunct to Physical Culture - this aU-male self-improvement cult at the
shrine of the phaUus and the semen - seems in retrospect deeply homoerotic in its focus, structure, and constituency. Yet an entrenched homophobia alSIJ pervades the pages of Macfadden's magazines. Within the
closet regime of discursive silence, where, as Eve Sedgwick pulS it,
"silence is rendered as Pointed and performative as speech," how much
more teUing is disavowal?9 Macfadden, who survived at least one obscenity conviction in his career. spared no energy in protesting too much: 10
TIle Sandow photographs arrived. They are very interest-
ing, & the full length studies' quite confirm my anticipations with regard to his wrists ankles bands & feet. The
proftle & half-trunk is a splendid study. I am very much
obliged to you for gelling them for me.
Other evidence of gay participation in the Physical Culture milieu
can be inferred in carefully worded classified ads seeking male companionship, liherally sprinkled in the columns of the physique magazines among
the more numerous heterosexual overtures (many of which have clear matrimonial intent). The following dignified solicitation in Physical Cullure is
typical: 13
American bachelor, 48, book lover owning large collection, lover of nature, devoted to open window sleeping,
open-air life and hatless existence; solicits correspondence with young men of athletic build and habit, fond of
literature and wholesome life.
Physical Culture stands today as the exponent of a cleaner, saner attitude towards the human body; and holds that
the prudishness of the past generation was a demoralizing
intluence and was instrumental in encouraging the secret
development of licentious art at the expense of wholesome an. This magazine has published and shall continue to publish photographs of the human body, the purpose of which is to reveal muscular development, alhletic
activity, and bodily grace and beauty.
Finally, one must not overlook the matter-of-fact appearance of
Physical Culture iconography in the embryonic gay magazines of the early
decades of the century, most notably the German Der Eigene (18961931).(Figure 5)
Of another order is rare testimony about both lookers and the
looked at in the sports milieu from the few memoirs and oral historie.s of
gay men available from the period. "In the gymnasium dressing room I
would enjoy seeinc, the naked forms, but concealed my own." remembered
one "androgyne". 4 Xavier Mayne, another "native informant" from the
same period, in fact one of our first gay-identified authorities to undertake a
comprehensive study of homosexuality, fell qualified to generalize in his
own special vocabulary: I5
One cannot know the precise extent of self-identified homosexuals' participation in the Physical Culture phenomenon, either as practitioners or as constituency. Mere shreds of evidence have been retained, such as
the contributions by Wilhelm von Gloeden, Thomas Eakins and other gay
photographers to the cult of the alhlete, or the participation of individual
gay (or bisexual) personages in the Physical Culture movement. One
nO!able example of the latter is the French writer Pierre Loti (Academie
t
II
12
Thomas Waugh
.•.JeI. us OOle lhat simUisexualism is widely manifested in
professionally athletic occupations. It is commOll to circus-riders, tumblers, acrobat (0 men wbo are devoted to
sports and profcs ions of bigh pbysical dexterity. Tbe
"super·viriJe"lbeory may be recognized bere, tbe male so
emphatically masculine as to repudiate instinctively tbe
feminine. Among "ring" gymnasl~ oflen exi t lasting
Fig"" <5 -,".norryllt"IU bod)huilder. c. 1900·1910. library· ofCcngr<ss.
Str,,,glh a.uf St,alth
intimacies of thi 00. In athletic circles of all social
grades, Ihere is more or les uranianism. The Uraoian
wbo is llOl athletic is almost always anracted 10 tbe manly
symmelry and masterful trenglb of the circu acrobat.
Somelim this i inverted. In the professional pairings
of acrobatic associates a vivid psyctlic interdependence i
Figure 7 - Phmograph by Wilklm ron
G/o~den. c. J9(X)
Privott! collection_
13
14
Thomos Waugh
common... One of Ibe most distinguished of "strong
men" and wonder-athletes of the day, whose physiquc is
famed the world over, is imilisexual. a~nOSIl() complete
indifference 10 women. Another greal "physical cuitorist". as also a renowned proCe ional wreSller and athlete,
are uranian in their sexual life. In athletic-clubs, scandals
of the homosexual kind are nOl rare. In London, Paris
and Berlin, especially, some such have made social convulsions. In "Turllvu,in" organization, for gymnastics
and social intercourse, thai arc so much an institution of
Gennan and Austrian towoUfe, lhere bave heen many
such epLo;odes.
Extrapolating flOm these admittedly minimal hard data, the historian mu t presume that lbe homosocial infrastructure and sexual aunlr
sphere of this movement that legitimized the pleasure of looking at male
beauty. attracted and sheltered an important (if superficially invisible) gay
constituency; furthcl1llore it facilitated all the gradation of bomoerotic
identification from unconscious same-sex fantasy, through fieeting contac~
to entrenched commitment that Kinsey would formalize in bis famous scale
of I to 6 a balf-eentury later. One assumes that. oonditions already existed
in Ibe Physical Cullure milieu that wouW he much hetter documenled in
later generations: a safe institutional space for socially legitimate homosexual networkang, as well as for Ihc ublimated sexual activities of
voyeurism, display, bathing, and communal exertion in intimale same-sex
surroundings.
New alibis thus opened up for homoerotic discourses. the athletic
alibi soon overtaking tile hoary nineteenth century artistic alibi as Ibe principal shelter for homoerotic imagery in the modern age; 16 il is Ibis alibi
thaI eventually timulated the post-World War II fiorescence of gay visual
culture in the erotic works of a whole generation of physique photographers
on the eve of Stonewall, from Bruce of Los Angeles to Hoffman of
Edinburgb. This generation' enormous importance in the formation of
contemporary gay identities. cultures, politics and sexualities (and - why
0011 - in the defmition of contemporary lIlaSCulinities across the board)
bas yel to he fully told. Meanwhile, Phy ical Cullure photography was
already contributing to the bturring of boundaries - between licit and illicit codes corporal repr~ntation with their two previously separate protoCOlS, between tbc representation and enactment of arne-sex bonds,
between identification and d ire as motors of inlennaJe social relation~ips, between the homosocial and Ibe homosexual.
or
5trtngth and 5r,allh
15
•
DI Licentious vs Wholesome
Relurning to the domain of the IeX~ Ibc actual photographs of the
Physical Culture movemenl mUSI themselves inevitably remain the most
palpable but forever mysterious instance of the homoerotic substratum of
the strongman cultural phenomenon. In general the majority of the poses
are lhe stem frontal assertions of phaltic power Ulal are still all tOO familiar.
tbe mosl common poses higbligbting the arms. The neo-classical repertory
of gestures and props that can be seen in much academIc painung and phlr
tography of a genemtion or (WO earlier is frequently invok.ed in both the
pholography and the public strongman performances of Ihe pennd.
Gredan pillars and other props function nOI only as decor bUI even as
weights. Such pholographs typically offer lavisb decoration - indeed,
fetishizalion - of the male body through accessories like clubs and Ihe
standard posing getup of high sandals and Icopardskin trunks.
As for the much abused fig Icaf, tbe coy negotiation of genital
mode Iy is 10 itself a sexual discourse, both througb the fastidious precision
of Ibe pose. and the ingenious excess of the substilutes (such as Ieopardkin sarongs). In many cases the fanatical detail of posl-appliqueed foliage
seems 10 accent the repressed sexuality of Ihe body ratber lban hide it.
drawing allenlion 10 tbe Uling forbidden. Al Ihe same timc. lhe titillating
artifiCiality itself of the leaves, poses and painl jobs is, to the oonsumcr. an
unavoidable articulation of lbe nudity of the actual photographIC session.
Paradoxically, lhe di course of the pballus seems 10 bave been
hcigbtcned by the taboo on the actual representation of the penis. This
taboo was c1ass-detennined. apparently deemed necessary in a mass medium lacking Ibe legitimizing elite constituency and IOleraOl alibis of the art
pholograpby milieu (where penise were plentiful). TIle taboo mystified
the symbolic centre of mal sexuality in ways lhatthe no-hold -barred -arC
pholOgrapbers sucb as VOn Gloeden with their unprivileged and unswollen
genitals did nOI usually do. The athlete's arms. taut, rigid. fiexed, swollen,
interlinked, outstretched or upheld, seem in this absence 10 acquire the
grapbic wtus of phallus urrogate, erectile biceps and :lIL(Figllft 6) At the
same time, while most poses suess lIle bulk of some muscle or other. and
many employ the powerful semiotics of folded arm wilb their in idental
signal of sexual prolCCliveoess, other poses emphasize intimacy wilb the
cbarisma of the star. Such poses seem 10 mimic tbe configurations of
access and vulnerabilily, even tenderneSS, seeo io von Gloeden or in earlier
heterosexual piquanterie.
Finally. the SIalI:: deootative quality of most of the early physique
photos C, In sharp contraSI to the coonOlativc, aestbelic articulalions of the
16
Vwmas Waugh
body by contemporary gay -art" phologtaphet1i such as von Gloeden or the
American Fred Holland Day. In !his sense. tho pbysique pbolOS emphatically disavow !he erotic nalure of the act of pbotogtaphy itself, delegating
all erotic signification 10 the perfonnance and body of the hero. As
phy ique pbOlOgtaphy would evolve, !be insenion of self-conscious aestbelics into tbe pbotogmpbic fmme and the emergence of phologmpbers
with distinctive personal styles - as early as 1930 in the U.S. - would
have much 10 do with the surfacing of the ovenly bomoerotic sensibility of
its modern-<lay descendant in its golden age of lbe 19508.
Conclusion: Strongman vs Ephebe
At the CetllfC of !he Physical Culture pbeoomenon was the image
of an anificial and cultivaled body in harp contrasl to the image of the
male body conveyed by the "arC photographers. For one thing, the mature
body type of Physical Culture depans from the pubescent or adolescent
Iype so popular up to this poinl. The physicullurisls' rigid and angular
poses contradict the softness, roundness and grdCe of von Gloeden's setups
with !beir connOtation. of pre-modern idealization and pa loral nature
mythS.(Figurt 7) AI the same time, the spectalorial economy of generational difference is reversed: the pbOiograph 'implied pectator transfigures. the adult pederastic longing for dominance over the C1CmaJ ephebe
modulating inlo an adolescenl hero wmhip of the hyper-deveioped malure
male body. As the Victorian hierarchy of class, age and culture yields to
the submissive adulation of consumer and imitator within twentieth-century
-democracy", the aura of grace yields in tbe picture' themselves to
strenglh, the acolyte to the initiator, the passive {O the active, the castrated
child to the phallic father, Ganymede to Hercules, effete Socratic pederasty
to virile demOl:mtic L'Ommdcship. Thomas MaM's Tadzio to E.M. Forster's
gamekeeper Alec.
These oppositions of ephebe and trongmaD would constitule a
continuing, often overstated dialeL1ic in gay culture and eroticism. ttaceable
right up to Stonewall and beyond (think of tbe opposition between
MannlVisconti's Tadzio and GeneVFassbinder's QuereUe). Never1heles it
seems to be al this point in bistory that the cphcbe modcllost its precedence
over !be IrOngman: of Ihe various nineleenth cenlUry images available, the
mature model of Physical Culture would provide the dominant vocabulary
of twentieth century gay erotici m - and of masculinity itself. at teast
within !he hegemooi<; cullural mainSlfeams of lbe Western induSlrialized
world.
The epbebt>-srrongman pair seem akin to the two competing L'OO«plJOnS of homosexualily - "in-hetweenism" vs. -male identification" _
Strt"gJJI alld SlealIll
which Richard Dyer Ifaces from early gay sexological theory. Dyer ituates these two models in equilibrium in lbe two major gay male films of lbe
Weimar Republic, the protolype gay rigbts narrative Afldtrs als die
Andert" (DifferelU from tht Others. 1919) and the discrete alblelic-a1ibi
"documenlary" IVtgt xu Kraft UJld SchlittlltiJ (The Way 10 S,rmgtll and
Beauty, 1925). Significantly, Dyer finds that the -in-helwecnisC model (or
the "Third Sex" or imennediale model. 10 use 19th Century theoretical oonstructs) 's ultimately "implicitly downgr3d(ed)" in Ibe narrative resolution
of Anders and directly reflective of ideologicallrends within the gay rigbts
movement of the day. 17 The filmmakers and the ideologues - nOl 10
mention Otber interwar arbiters of gay popular cullure - were imply confuming what had been intimated perhaps as far back as Sandow's franlic
gesticulations in Edison's Kioctoscope: the "male identification" modelor in iconogrdphicallenns the Ifongman - bad arrived.
It is no do ubI symptomalic tbat in our century the predominant
homoerOlic tradition would arise within tbe medium par "cellence ot'
industrl3l reproduction and dissemina'ion. pholOgrdphy, and that this medium altached itself to an individualized port ideally suitable for inslitutionalization. regimentation, and commercialization. (That cinema should have
taken second place to pholOgmpby in this tradition requires an analy is of
factors from demography 10 the cullura! geography of public space to the
economic control of the mean of production; that tbe Sandow
Kineloscope would bave to wait almost fifty years for ils Un.1 systematic
filmic elaboration [oulside of lIle Hollywood discourse of athlclC pinups] "
another story.) For helter or worse, the modem gay sensibiliry has responded to and ensbrined in the phOlograph a port felishizing individual performance rather lhan collective effort, consecrated 10 the mechanical invenlorv
of bodily parts rather lhan to the grace of c<>-ordination, dance. Or produ~­
live work. As a scientific adjunct to this phenomenon. it is nO aecKlenl lhat
the anthropometric applications of photography by Marey and Muybridgc
seem most relevant: in comparison 10 tbese applications (whicb not inci·
dentally Linda Williams bas bown no! only to be ba>ed on rigid gender
stereoryping but also 10 be prOlotypes in their own way of modern sexual
representation (8) and to tbeir occasional elaborations by both militarists
and industrialists inlenl on measuring the combal or worl'Place limits of the
male body, and by antbropologists searcbing for measurements to legilimire imperial power - in comparison to these most ominous dimensions
of the new carporiill, the bodybuilding pbolograph seem. innocent indeed.
eVerlllcless, wbal belter epitome exists than the Physical Culture
pinup for the incipient expansion of capitalism into tbe realms of leisure.
sport and erotic expression. (or the corporal inrernalization of our civiliza-
17
18
Tlwmas Waugh
Slrength anti Slealr/l
lion's myths of lechoological advanoe? Whal belter discursive conduit for
ccxporal de ire anxieties and aspirations coming out of OIIr culture in its
Ihroes of commollitization and other modem ll1Illsformation ? What better
sbelter fex- the subterfuges. uansgression and pa ions of the legion of OIIr
ancesto<x - gay. straighl.... male - whose sexualily is being construeled
at the threshold of OUt age?
Acknowledgments
For their upporl of the researcb of whicb this anicle is a result 1
am graleful to Concordia University. The Canada COIIncil. Ln Archivts
gaits du Quibte. Frtllnd. einn Scllwules Mustums in Berlin. the Library
of Congress; J0s6 Arroyo. MiclJael Budd, David Chapman. Ross Higgins.
Don Mader. Bruce RusseU. Paul SnijdcrS. Andrtas Slemweiler. and many
others.
Thomas Waugh is Associalt Professor of Film Studies in tilt
Depanmenr of Cinema. Concordia Universiry. Man/real. This articlt is a
version of an excerpt from llis bOOk-in-progress. Hard to Imagine: A
Histlry of Gay Male Erotic Pbotograpbyand Film l8SO to 1969. He has
also tdiled "Sbow Us Life": Toward a History and Ae tbelics of Ihe
Commit1ed Documentary (New Jersry: Scarecrow. 19841. and IUlS wrillen
often on ClJ1UJdian. Indian, documtlllary and IlOmoerOlic film and video.
I Gordon Hendrick. "Tbe History of the Kineloscopc" (1966). in Tino
Balio, ed.• 771t American Film Industry (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press. 1976). pp. 33-45.
2 Thomas Waugb. "Gay Male Visual Culture in Nortb America During the
Fiftie ;' Parallelogramme. Vol. 12, No. I (Autumn 1986). pp. 63-67;
"Hard 10 lmagine: Gay Erotic Cinema in lbe Postwar Era." CineaC/iOlt!,
0. 9 (FnU 1987), pp. 65-
n
3 Richard Dyer curaled an interesting season, "Buill to Show," hased on
this chronology at London's National Film Theatre in December 1989, with
Reeves and Scbwaneneg"oer prominenUy displayed.
4 In fact lbe larger study is a preliminary version of a chapter from my
fonbcoming book Hard to lmagin~: The History of Gay Male ErOlic
PholOgraphy and Film J85Qlo 1969.
3 This bi5tex-y is wCU documented in Brian Reade, ed.• Sexual Hemics:
Homosexualiry in English Lil~ralure from 185010 1900 (New York:
Coward- McCann. (970).
6 Andre Rouille and Bernard Marbol. Le Corps el son image:
PllOlographies dll diJ:-nellvieme sjeele (Paris: Contrejour, 1986).
7 Two valuable sources for data on tbis period arc David Websler,
Botlybuiltiing. An lIIustrOltd Hisrory (New York: Arco, 1982). and Leo
Gaudreau. Anvils. Horusho.. anti Canrulns: Tilt HiS/ory of S/rongmen
(VoL I and II, apparently self-pUblished, 1975, 197 ).
8 Robert Ernst. Weakness is a Crime: Tile Life of BenlOrr Macfadden
(Syracuse University Press, 1991),87-88. As Ernst recounts. afler a 1919
series of eXCfcise films.. Macfadden would try bis band in the 1920$ at lieuon films lligbligbting physical culture, equally unsucce ful. and [misbed
off the decade by presenting bimself in the shorts Rampanr Youth OJ Sixr)'
and Health is the CreOlesl WealJh.
9 Eve Koso'fsky SedgwiCK, Epistemology of Ihe CloStt (Berkeley:
Univen.ily of California Press, 1990). p. 4.
10 Beman Macfadden, editorial. Phy ical Cullure. April 19J7.
JJ Lesley Blanch, Pierre LOIi. Ti,e Legendary Romalllic: A Biography
(New York: Harcoun Brace Jovanovicb, 1983), This slalldard biography is
relatively forthright ahout Loti's homophile affinities but maddeningly
uncritical ahoUl tbe heterosexual persona advanoed by bis fiction.
12 John Addington Symonds, Lfllus (Detroil: Wayne Stale Universily
Press, 1969), p. 436. For bringing this to my auention. I am grateful to
David Chapman. author of a forthcoming definitive biograpby of Sandow.
IJ Physical CullUre, January J905.
14 Earl Lind. pseud., Aurobwgraphy of an Androgyne ( ew York: The
Medical- Legal JOIImal, 1918; rpt. New York: Aroo Press, 1975) p. 103.
15 Edward Irenaeu
Prime-Stcvcnson (Xavier Mayoe, pseud.), Tilt
Inttrstxes: A Hislory of Similistxualism as a Problem i" Social Life (pliv.
ew York Arno Press, 1975), pp. U4-25. Historians fre-
print. 1908; rpt.
quently encounter
·UranJan~ as
a term for homosexual in nineleenth-centu·
ry theory; "similisexual" may bave been Mayne's invenlion and is arguably
an etymological improvcmcnt on the confusing Greek-Latin pun "homosexual".
19