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

Explores how a younger and more sensitive form of masculinity emerged in the United States after World War II.

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...