Laocoon and His Sons: Beefcake Through the Ages

Laocoön was a priest who angered Apollo or Poseidon during the Trojan War, and as punishment the god sent sea serpents to kill him and his two sons.  Variations of his story, with different plots, were recorded by Sophocles, Virgil, Apollodorus, and other ancient authors, and inspired one of the most famous of all ancient sculptures, Laocoön and His Sons, now in the Vatican Museum.

After Michelangelo's David, this is probably the most famous beefcake sculpture in the world.  Interesting that one must enjoy male bodies only when they are in agonizing pain.

Similar to the boxers and wrestlers that we are "permitted" to ogle today.








The story of Laocoön has inspired many artists to try their hand at depicting bulging, straining muscles, regardless of the reason that giant snake tentacles are biting and straining at them.

Alessandro Allori (1535-1607), a painter of the Italian Renaissance, copies the pose of the ancient sculpture, but fills in the blanks a bit.

El Greco (1541-1614), one of the greats of the Spanish Golden Age, separates the sons from the father so we can see their muscles better, and has their pale forms struggling against the ruined Spanish countryside.

The older son, on the left, is Antiphas, and the younger, to the right, is Thymbraeus.  The stories make them twins, but artists usually think that it's more poignant to make one ateenager and the otehr a child.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), the pop artist of the Andy Warhol school, gives us a stylized version in which the three bodies blend in to the troubled, multicolored background of the 1980s.

Contemporary painter Richard Wallace's version is grotesque, with three men who look more like brothers, and one penis visible.

See also: Japanese Tentacle Porn

St. Florian, the Patron Saint of Firefighters and Beefcake Fans

I'm not much for the veneration of the saints -- Nazarenes abhored such "idolatry."  But I could get behind St. Florian, usually portrayed shirtless, with a massive, sculpted chest.

Here his chest is ink on someone's chest.

The real St. Florian was Florianus (c. 250-304), a Roman legionnaire from present-day Austria who organized a fire-fighting brigade.  When the Roman authorities discovered that he was a Christian, they ordered him burnt at the stake, but then, noting his affinity for fire, thought that he probably wouldn't burn.








So they drowned him in the Ennis River instead.  After ripping off his clothes, of course.

Today St. Florian is the patron of firefighters, soap makers, and chimney sweeps, and also the patron of many cities in Central and Eastern Europe, including Krakow, Poland and Linz, Austria.

This is one of the more famous St. Florian statues, by Josef Josephu (1889-1970).  It stood at the main firehouse in Vienna, where it survived a bombing during World War II.  Now it's in the Firefighter's Museum.

His brother, Florian, was also a sculptor.

In German-speaking countries, "florians" are firefighters.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a 2012 comedy by Christopher Durang that brings Chekhov and beefcake to rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

If you need to know the plot:

Vanya and Sonia are a middle aged brother and sister, one gay and the other straight, who live together on the family farm and complain about their cherry orchard.

Their life of complacency and complaining is disrupted when their young movie star sibling Masha arrives, with her uber-muscular boy toy Spike, who is allergic to clothes.







Spike is always played by a mega hunk, who spends most of his stage time in his Calvin Kleins, thrusting his you-know-what at whoever is sitting nearby.

Everyone starts flirting with Spike and competing with each other to see who can complain the loudest.  Old rivalries surface.

After a disastrous party with a Snow White theme, Masha announces that she's going to sell the house and kick Vanya and Sonia out on their cherry orchards.

Meanwhile Sonia gets a date, Vanya gets a backer for his play, The Seagull, and Spike cheats on Masha.

Masha gives Spike the boot, decides not to sell the house, and the three siblings live happily ever after, just like in a Chekhov play.

Except for the gay character.

And the happy ending.

And the beefcake.

Did I mention the beefcake?

Breaking Bad: Everyone Loves Jesse

People kept telling me, "You have to watch Breaking Bad (2008-2013).  It's great!  It's fabulous!  It's colossal!"

I turned on the first episode, in which Albuquerque chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) finds out that he has lung cancer, and in order to provide for his family, decides to produce methamphetamine.  He talks one of his ex-students, a meth dealer named Jesse (Aaron Paul),into being his assistant.

Jesse uses anti-gay slurs.

Click.  Why should I watch a homophobic program?

My friends implore me to watch.

But the program is homophobic!

Recently I have been forced to watch The Shield, which was the most homophobic programs ever, dripping with contempt for homos, and with an actual plotline in which a gay guy turns straight due to the power of prayer!  So I figured I could handle Breaking Bad.

The homophobic slurs are infrequent after the first episode.  I guess the writers figured they had gotten rid of all the gay viewers, and didn't need to bother anymore.

So, what did I find, going incognito into a program exclusively for heterosexuals?

Well, of course, there are no explicitly gay characters.  Like most television drama, Breaking Bad is set in a world where gay people are assumed not to exist.

But, wow!  Walt and Jesse.

They behave like romantic partners.

They are treated like romantic partners.

They break up, date other people, then reconcile.

Jesse is wooed by a new boyfriend, Mike, and Walt roils with jealousy and tries to win him back.

Each says to a bad guy (well, to someone equally bad), "If you kill him, you'll have to kill me, too."

Even other people notice.  When Mike is told "If you kill him, you'll have to kill me too," he says "What is it with you two?"

Even in Season 5, after Walt has betrayed Jesse a dozen times, Jesse still behaves as if he's in love with him.

Jesse says "Why don't you stop pretending that you care about me?"

Walt hugs him.  Jesse breaks down and sobs.

Then there are the gay characters, or at least characters who are well-groomed, sophisticated, and expressing no interest in women.

Including big time meth dealer Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), who, in a flashback, sees his lover murdered by cartel head Hector Salamanca. He invites guys he likes, such as Jesse, over for dinner and who-knows-what-else at his house.

At one of the drug cartel's gatherings, the entertainment consists of women, who come in and sit on the laps of the men.  Not Gustavo, though.  He's obviously not interested.

During one of Walt and Jesse's breakups, Gale Boetticher (David Costabile) becomes Walt's new assistant.  Well-groomed, sophisticated, no women around, gives Walt a copy of Leaves of Grass, the famous gay-themed classic, with the inscription: "To my star, my perfect silence"

What, exactly, were they up to after hours?

For that matter, few if any of the characters on Breaking Bad exhibit significant

Walt's teenage son Junior (RJ Mitte) has a best boy friend but never mentions girls, although he gets the standard heterosexist "you must be girl-crazy" gibberish from his dad and uncle.

D
Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz), one of the baddie drug dealers, spends all of his time with men.

Jesse's friends, Badger (Matt L. Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), display an interest in women in just one scene.










Hank (Dean Norris), Walt's brother-in-law, who also happens to be a DEA Agent, has a wife, but he spends all of his quality time in the company of men.  He even tries to woo Jesse away from Walt.

Who doesn't?  This show should be called Everybody Loves Jesse.

So that's what heterosexuals are up to when they think there are no gay people watching.