Male Beauty: Postwar Masculinity in Theater, Film, and Physique Magazines

Author/Contributor(s):	Krauss, Kenneth
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Date:	01/02/2015
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

In the decades that followed World War II, Americans searched for and often founds signs of a new masculinity that was younger, sensitive, and sexually ambivalent. Male Beauty examines the theater, film, and magazines of the time in order to illuminate how each one put forward a version of male gendering that deliberately contrasted, and often clashed with, previous constructs. This new postwar masculinity was in large part a product of the war itself. The need to include those males who fought the war as men--many of whom were far younger than what traditional male gender definitions would accept as manly--extended the range of what could and should be thought of as masculine. Kenneth Krauss adds to this analysis one of the first in-depth examinations of how males who were sexually attracted to other males discovered this emerging concept of manliness via physique magazines.