THE CHOCOLATE PRINCE

I love all of the attention being given to a gay male sub-culture rising that seems to strongly identify with a strange combination of american apparel and bear appeal. Relying on the rhetoric of 'queerness', these is new art, centering largely around photography, is a kind of play on gay masculinity/femininity. These particular pictures, taken from Pinup Magazine, are emblematic of the new gender play surrounding a sort of co-option of an aesthetic that, until recently has been reserved as acceptable for straight men and the gay men who make clear their distaste for 'feminine' gayness. These pictures, based on a host of classic and commonplace poses and images used typically to display women in clearly exploitative context are being mocked, but oddly eroticized in a way that blurs the instant association of feminine with those poses. This man, standing in a pose that suggests he is presenting himself as a sort of passive object, already challenges and makes unclear that pose with the presence of an erect penis, being the object closest to the camera. I think its fabulous, and if nothing else, isn't about the typical blonde 'twink' that pervades global, let alone, american gay conceptions of identity. The site description:

"Pinups is a quarterly periodical that features one, sometimes two nude male models. There are no words—just an exaggeration of the classic centerfold. The magazine exists in book form but can be taken apart and then tiled together to reveal a life-size image."

GenEx had the following to say about the publication which is not only ridiculous, but at the same time exactly what I was thinking when I tried to decipher my relationship and reaction to the images of Pinup:

"Photographically sophisticated (mixed with some delicious typography) I ask myself "Is this porn?" The fact that I can ask that question is precisely why the magazine is so interesting. I want to say no - the book is far too honest to be categorized as such (tho I'm sure Sarah Palin would disagree). It is post-porn, just as the magazine considers itself post-bear. You can pick up issues for around $14 a pop at certain locales in the city and on the site. Issues are printed in limited editions of 1000 so get to it."

Labels: art, queer

-http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

-http://www.emergingthoughts.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320&Itemid=57

One thing that frustrates me is that there seems to be an almost romanticized view of previous 'counter-cultures'. This articles seems to ignore any substantive movements for the 'rebellions' that seem to dominate this historical view of a certain period - all of which are young white 'sub'-cultures dictates by wealthy youth escaping a certain type of privilege. What about the black panthers? What about the riot grrl movement? What about the queer revolutions of the late sixties? What about the rise of hip-hop in the early nineties? These are, in my opinion, examples of movements that, while maintaining a certain aesthetic, also provided a contextual challenge to a specific status quo injustice. Hipster is a label that you don't seem to be able to define, although looking at the examples you lay out, it is rich, mostly white, people in parties in New York. Although this is already a problematic starting point for criticizing a term that is applied to everything from chanel-wearing models to 'conscious' hip-hop, you don't even provide a context for these kids, which could very well provide some type of definition that challenges what you seem to take for granted as a general term for white kids in urban outfitters-esque clothes. A lot of what you are saying here is relevant to a certain type of people who identify as 'counter-cultural'. But that doesn't really say anything at all. The school I go to is typically labeled a 'hipster' school. I, being completely unaware of the implications of that title before i came there, found a culture that, although problematic in many ways, opened up a space for self-expression on my part that I had not found before. I think its not only vapid for you to attack the 'hipster' as the end of western civilization, but frankly insulting that you seem to think that you can dismiss any subversive qualities of what clearly means for you anything that assumes itself to challenge normative practices. You seem to me to operate on a bitter desire to distance yourself from a term that YOU have associated with a group of people I would find disgusting. to spread that to a critic on all youth who wear skinny jeans is easy, unintelligent, and, frankly, unfounded. Especially since you refuse to look at the parts of culture deemed 'hipster' that are productive of not only many subversive cultural practices but carry weight in social change - feminist/queer punk, global hip-hop/electro, new forms of pan-africanism that are emerging under the label 'hipster', third-world solidarity movements, among others. I'm sorry that you can only see the rich white remnants of a title that seems to encompass anything that assumes as its goal the challenging of dominant culture, but many others, including myself, find this attack to broad, undefined, and almost cliche in its presentation of the 'counter-culture'. And, by the way, hippies and punks were also white, mostly male-centered movements by rich young adults who had the 'privilege' of living some sort of 'free' life. FUCK YOU.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Gay Bear 'Alternative'

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

HIPSTERSSS!!!!