God that's a clinical title, huh? But it seemed better than "TV shows are letting guys chill in their underwear and I'm living for it!!!!!!!1!!1!" That's really what it boils down to, though.
It's a trend I've noticed and it makes my gay heart happy. Not just for eye candy reasons, but for the broader cultural shift. See, it used to be that hot guys put on display in TV shows were specifically there to be hot guys on display. You all know the kind of scene. He's very carefully positioned against back-lighting, taking off his shirt, center frame, three quarter view. Maybe a profile if they wanted to mix things up.
But then out of nowhere, along come shows like Netflix's Sabrina and Riverdale. Youthfully-minded shows that want to speak to the upcoming audience, not the audience that once was. And we see...a change. Don't get me wrong, KJ Apa doing pushups in the middle of the night was very clearly meant to show off his body.
And I'm really okay with that.
But the more important scenes are...Harvey from Sabrina with an exposed midriff because he's alone in his room and who doesn't like to let their midsection breathe sometimes? I know I do. Or Archie just working at the construction site in a tank top, not to show off that he's attractive, but because sometimes you get hot when you work and a tank top mitigates that.
I honestly think this is partly from trying to appeal to a youth demographic, and partly because we're seeing an upsurge in queer and female creators coming to play. It's no longer a committee of old straight white men deciding what's attractive about a guy: it's other people who are interested in guys. And all of us? We're saying "Why not just let them be guys?"
Casual male sensuality is good for everyone - including straight men. It's good to normalize our TV heroes just chilling in moderately exposed situations. It's good for people like me, who appreciate the eye candy, but it's also good for people like me just because I'm a guy, and maybe we can get over some of the body-modesty stuff that's been thrust upon us by the patriarchy.
Maybe. Just maybe.
It's a trend I've noticed and it makes my gay heart happy. Not just for eye candy reasons, but for the broader cultural shift. See, it used to be that hot guys put on display in TV shows were specifically there to be hot guys on display. You all know the kind of scene. He's very carefully positioned against back-lighting, taking off his shirt, center frame, three quarter view. Maybe a profile if they wanted to mix things up.
But then out of nowhere, along come shows like Netflix's Sabrina and Riverdale. Youthfully-minded shows that want to speak to the upcoming audience, not the audience that once was. And we see...a change. Don't get me wrong, KJ Apa doing pushups in the middle of the night was very clearly meant to show off his body.
And I'm really okay with that.
But the more important scenes are...Harvey from Sabrina with an exposed midriff because he's alone in his room and who doesn't like to let their midsection breathe sometimes? I know I do. Or Archie just working at the construction site in a tank top, not to show off that he's attractive, but because sometimes you get hot when you work and a tank top mitigates that.
I honestly think this is partly from trying to appeal to a youth demographic, and partly because we're seeing an upsurge in queer and female creators coming to play. It's no longer a committee of old straight white men deciding what's attractive about a guy: it's other people who are interested in guys. And all of us? We're saying "Why not just let them be guys?"
Casual male sensuality is good for everyone - including straight men. It's good to normalize our TV heroes just chilling in moderately exposed situations. It's good for people like me, who appreciate the eye candy, but it's also good for people like me just because I'm a guy, and maybe we can get over some of the body-modesty stuff that's been thrust upon us by the patriarchy.
Maybe. Just maybe.
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