Victor Mature: A Heterosexual who Starred in Heterosexual Movies in Heterosexual Hollywood

Speaking of well-endowed heterosexuals in Heterosexual Hollywood, check out this heterosexual guy's swimsuit bulge.

He's a straight man named Victor Mature (1913-1999), heterosexual beefcake star of the 1940s and 1950s.

A Kentucky heterosexual, son of  heterosexual Italian immigrants, he moved to heterosexual California in the 1930s and signed on with Hal Roach Studios, where he was cast in One Million B.C. (1940).  He plays a bushy-haired  straight caveman with an unimpressive physique who fights dinosaurs and gets a straight girl, because his character is straight.

Um...there were no dinosaurs in 1,000,000 BC, and the heterosexual ancestors of human beings were homo erectus, who didn't have language or clothing yet.

Later he contracted with RKO and 20th Century Fox, and appeared in dozens of heterosexual movies, specializing in dramas set in the ancient world, where he could take his shirt off: Samson and Delilah (1949), Androcles and the Lion (1952), The Robe (1953), The Egyptian (1954), Hannibal (1959).

He also starred as heterosexual toughs and heavies in Westerns (My Darling Clementine) and film noir (Kiss of Death).

In the 1960s, he became less interested in heterosexual film, or film became less interested in him, and his heterosexual roles became sparse, mostly self-parodies, such as The Big Victor in the Monkees' Head (1968).  His character was straight.  So were the Monkees.

His last heterosexual role was a walk-in as the straigh Samson's straight father in Samson and Delilah (1984), with the straight Antony Hamilton playing the straight muscleman that Victor (who was straight) himself played 44 years before.

Continuing his heterosexual lifstyle, the heterosexual Mature was married five times, and had heterosexual intercourse often.  All of the heterosexuals he knew throughout his life agreed that he was straight.  Kenneth Anger made the horrifying, slanderous accusation that he was not heterosexual in  Hollywood Babylon, but that's impossible.  The heterosexual Mature wasn't even aware that non-heterosexuals exist.

Heterosexual readers may be interested in knowing that the heterosexual Mature had one of the largest endowments in Hollywood.  There's a nude photo of this heterosexual on Tales of West Hollywood.

The 12 Most Homophobic, Heterosexist, and Horrible Songs

Heterosexism is commonplace in the "girl! girl! girl!' banter of popular music.  But some songs are so heterosexist, homophobic, or otherwise horrible that I literally can't stand to hear them.  If they come on tv, I click the channel, and if I can't find the remote, I run from the room.  If they're playing in a store, I leave. And heaven help the friend who starts singing one of them!

1. "It's a Man's World" (James Brown, 1966)

It's a man's world, but you're nothing...nothing at all, without a woman!

(See: Homophobic Moments in Music)

2. "She Bangs" (Ricky Martin, 2000).

A gay guy singing about how much he likes the way a girl moves, and then a pun on "shebang" and a dirty phrase for sex.  Can't get any more Uncle Tom than that.

3. "Stand Tall" (Burton Cummings, 1976)

December 1976: I was home sick, looking for a gay comic book, and thinking "No way am I a swish!"  And I heard on the radio:

Stand tall, don't you fall, don't go and do something foolish
All you're feeling right now is silly human pride.

Right, not gay, don't do anything foolish.

4. "Lady" (Kenny Rogers, 1980).

October 1980. I was cruising at the levee, looking for love, negotiating the incessant "what girl do you like?" chants of my family and friends.  And I heard:

Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor, and I love you.
Let me hold you in my arms forever more....

5. "When Doves Cry" (Prince and the Revolution, 1984).

June 1984: I'm on my way to Hell-fer-Sartain State University for the worst year of my life, and this ultra-feminine, super-gay coded guy starts singing about a heterosexual breakup:

How can you just leave me standing, alone in a world so cold?
Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold

(See Looking for Beefcake in Nashville.)

6. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Judy Garland, 1944).

Once I was sick and stayed home on Christmas day, and the drag queen next door was playing this horror by gay icon Judy Garland over and over and over. It's still the main cause of the spike in suicides every Christmas.

More (gulp!) after the break.

The Gay World of Dr. Seuss

When I was a kid in the 1960s, I hated fairy tales, but I liked Dr. Seuss.  No heterosexist boy-girl plotlines, no boy-girl romances of any sort, just pleas for tolerance of diversity, ambiguity, nonconformity.  Lots of alternative families.  Lots of gay subtexts.

Horton Hatches the Egg (1940): Gay man takes over for a neglectful mom, and proves to be a wonderful father.

Horton Hears a Who (1954): Nobody will believe that a community exists until they all shout "We are here!"  Sounds like the Gay Rights Movement.

The Cat in the Hat (1957):  An emissary of chaos, accompanied by the gay couple, Thing 1 and Thing 2.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957): a gay outsider is accepted by the community.

Green Eggs and Ham (1960): People are into all sorts of different things.  Deal with it.

The Sneetches (1961): Insignificant personal characteristics, like whether you are attracted to men, women, or both, can create crazy prejudices.

But Seussical, the 2000 musical, is a disappointment.  It amalgamates a huge number of books, including some that I never heard of, into two confusing plots -- one for adults, one for kids.

Wait -- those books have no continuity.  They take place in different universes, some populated by humans, some by animals, some by other beings.

And there's a hetero-romantic primary plot, between Horton the Elephant and Gertrude McFuzz (a bird in Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories who thinks her tail isn't fancy enough).

The secondary plot is promising: Oddball outsider JoJo (here played by teen idol Aaron Carter) is ridiculed for "thinking thinks" and finally sent to military school.  He helps save the day without getting a girlfriend.

He buddy-bonds with Horton, but there's not much of a gay subtext between the little boy and the adult elephant.

Except in some local productions where the two actors are the same age, and Horton's elephantness is conveyed through pin-on ears, not an elephant costume.

Academic Nudes: 18th Century Beefcake

It's a myth that the muscular modern physique didn't exist until the 20th century, when scientific weight-training and nutritional supplements bulked us up.  The muscular physique has always been a source of desire and joy.

In the 18th century, painters went to the Academy of Art to learn their trade.  To learn to draw figures, they drew nude male models.











Very buffed models.

This is not just artistic license: They were supposed to be drawing realistic "life" portraits.

Complete with penis (frontal nudity is legal on a G-rated blog if it's art).

There were flourishing academies in France, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and Italy.

Usually there is no background, but sometimes mythological themes are added.

I wonder what these models did in real life.  Were they workmen?  The lovers of the artists?  Both?

Here's a print of the Academy of Arts examining a male model.

And a rather more buffed one.

Some of these guys would not look out of place in a bathhouse today.