All this sounds a little like Amy’s “Cool Girl” monologue from Gone Girl; an impossible set of standards that seem incredibly flattening. Of course, the images of how women “should” be are far more pervasive and often sit in relation to capitalist agendas, as chronicled well in Jia Tolentino’s 2019 essay “Always Be Optimizing”. Still, the image of the modern man is continually pushed and then pushed against, especially by conservatives who have a vested interest in tradition. Take, for example, Harry Styles wearing a dress on the cover of Vogue in November 2020, which prompted right-wing commentator Candice Owens to tweet, “no society can survive without strong men”. Yet the act also drew criticism from the progressive left and queer community, who, you might imagine, would surely celebrate the blurring of gender lines. Actor Billy Porter told the Sunday Times he was unimpressed that Styles was the first man to wear a dress on the cover of Vogue, given that he had been doing it on the red carpet for years. The sentiment was echoed online, with people criticising the collective celebration of Styles, given that the act of wearing a dress is far less radical than anything queer people have been doing for decades. 

Last week, for Halloween, Styles dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and created a somewhat similar backlash. One user posted a photo of Styles in the costume next to a screenshot of another tweet: “Bitches be like “HARRY STYLES ENDED TOXIC MASCULINITY” and it’s the ugliest outfit you’ve ever seen.” The aesthetic value of the costume is irrelevant here. Instead, it seems that the underlying message is quite conservative; that straight men should remain within a straight aesthetic, and any attempts to merge with a queer one, or anything that crosses gender boundaries, ought to be met with hostility. 

THE IDEA OF THE MODERN MAN CAME BACK TO ME A FEW WEEKS AGO when I saw Dune and The French Dispatch in the space of two days. At the centre of both movies was Timothée Chalamet, who, like Styles, often draws attention for the way he dresses and is regularly discussed as a symbol of modern masculinity. As critic Guy Lodge put it in The Guardian last weekend, Chalamet’s image presents “a new kind of Hollywood leading man, rejecting macho stereotypes in favour of a kinder, more wholesome delicacy.” As a Hollywood leading man, Chalamet is often compared to Leonardo DiCaprio given, as Interview Magazine put it, “their similar career trajectories and the schoolgirl crushes they inspired during their respective rises to fame”. But perhaps this comparison doesn’t quite fit anymore.

If DiCaprio’s boyish good-looks were his gateway to fame, the one-two-punch of Titanic and Romeo + Juliet leading him to be on almost every girl and gay boy’s mind in the 1990s, he no longer has that vibe. In 2021 he is, perhaps, closer to an older idea of masculinity, especially if one is to analyse his apparent penchant for younger women, his life lived on yachts in sunny locales, and his choice of roles that retain his image as the classic heterosexual leading man. While Chalamet’s role in Dune may push similar buttons as something DiCaprio might have played in his youth, his political activist in The French Dispatch is far from it. 

In looking for this straight male linage—one that has been thrust upon Styles too—the idea of a modern movie star is difficult to comprehend in relation to the “modern man”. Chalamet, to my mind, doesn’t fit in the mould of DiCaprio but, instead, feels closer perhaps to Anthony Perkins, both in body type and in the air of sensitivity that he could portray. He, too, feels closer to the quiet brooding of Montgomery Clift, whose tender presence in films like From Here to Eternity mirrors Chalamet’s in, say, Call Me By Your Name or Lady Bird. In this respect, there is a sense of James Dean, too, with Chalamet often embodying an emotional teen looking to be understood.  What connects these men beyond a particular type of style is their queerness. Perkins and Clift were both gay men while Dean, it is often rumoured, was bisexual. It seems that drawing these lines has the effect of making stars like Chalamet and Styles make more sense within the Hollywood system, that their version of stardom is not wholly new but built upon older Hollywood stars, whose queerness was hidden. That is not to suggest that either Chalamet or Styles are hiding queerness, although it is entirely possible. 

I AM FAR MORE INTERESTED IN A LEFTIST AND QUEER CRITIQUE OF THE “MODERN MAN” than I am in anything right-wing pundits might want to say. Those arguments are hollow and only work to uphold long-standing power dynamics that rely on the diminishment of freedom. Yet the queer and leftist arguments are more complex to unpick and are fascinating when they run close to conservative lines, albeit from a different direction. 

Take, for example, Porter’s discussion of casting during the 2019 Drama Actor’s Roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter. “If ‘flamboyantly…’ wasn’t in the description of the character, no one would see me, ever. For anything,” he said. “Which wouldn’t be so enraging if it went the other way,” he continued, “because straight men, playing gay, everyone wants to give them an award” as if to say, “Thank you for gracing us with your straight presence.” This is a valid argument (one I have made before), one that feels even deeper when, as Porter puts it, you are a person of colour and a “queen”. Gay men, especially gay men of colour, rarely get leading roles in major movies and never get straight parts if they’re openly gay. When you open that out to lesbians, trans, and non-binary folk, the numbers get worse still. 

What made this moment even juicer, at least in the eyes of Twitter, was that he said this in front of Hugh Grant and Richard Madden, two actors who had recently played gay in A Very English Scandal and Rocketman, respectively. In fact, during the short video clip, the camera cuts to Madden looking oddly uncomfortable as if the editor wants to suggest it is him Porter is addressing. In response, some drew attention to rumours of Madden’s sexuality, which has seen him linked with actress Ellie Bamber as well as actors Brandon Flynn and Froy Gutierrez. What followed, then, was a discussion about disclosure of sexuality, the right to privacy, and if sexuality can ever be private. Madden, in 2019, told The New York Times he would not discuss his sexuality or personal life, but, culturally, it raised questions about the regard sexuality is given during these types of discussions. This idea recurred recently with The Morning Show actress Julianne Margulies saying that those debating her role as a lesbian season two of the Apple TV+ series are “making assumptions” in presuming her casting adds to the debate of straight actors playing gay. 

In all this sits the complexity of the “modern man”. Not the one GQ wants you to be, but the one people have been asking for when they talk about ending “toxic masculinity”. That buzz phrase, which has slithered through the past decade to the point it has become almost entirely meaningless, is what fans of Chalamet or Styles claim they are putting an end to. However, this often means crossing into what has often been considered a queer aesthetic, one that exists beyond rigid gender binaries. This, perhaps rightly so, makes some queer people feel uncomfortable, that they might question their intentions. After all, the “metrosexual”, which has included the likes of David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Zac Efron as its symbols, was a capitalist co-opting of queerness to make it palatable, and more importantly, sellable, to the straight male consumer. It is not, then, unjust for queer folks wanting those who engage with a queer aesthetic to have some connection to it beyond the superficial. In short, it is not an irrational fear. Yet it seems prudent that queerness often positions itself as something that breaks down barriers and binaries, something that, in theory, would liberate straight folks from oppressive gender regimes too. In practice, though, as “straight” men break free from a personality defined by Lynx Africa and bootcut jeans and into something akin to visual queerness, it is met with hostility or mocking.

Next year, Styles will appear in Don’t Worry Darling and My Policemen, the latter a film in which he plays a gay man in the 1950s. He, too, if rumours are to be believed, has on the horizon a relatively significant role in the MCU (his first appearance is in the end credits scene for The Eternals, which coincidentally also stars Madden, though just how he will fit into the franchise’s future is unclear). As for Chalamet, up next for him is Wonka, a musical exploring the campy chocolatier’s origins, Dune Part II, and a supporting role opposite his supposed predecessor DiCaprio in Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. It would seem that, as the profiles of these two actors grow and more like them begin to spring up, we can expect more discussion of what a “modern man” truly is. I am not sure, however, that we are entirely ready for it.

Also Read: How The “War On Terror” Changed Hollywood

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In some ways Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) does better. Sure, it approaches the bisexuality of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn with an easy-to-miss millisecond in the film’s opening animation and the much-talked-about relationship between villains Black Mask and Victor Zsasz (played by Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina, respectively) is nothing to write home about (even if Zasaz’s bleach-blond dye-job screams ‘gay man in distress’.) All that being said, it does have Renee Montoya, played by Rosie Perez; a jaded queer cop with a penchant for speaking in 80s cop clichés. It’s revealed, in voice-over, that Montoya has an ex-girlfriend (played by Ali Wong) who works for the DA in Gotham. Montoya is far more rounded and substantially queer than anyone in those movies mentioned above but it still doesn’t quite feel like enough. I’ve seen countless muscled white dudes kissing different skinny white women in almost every superhero film ever. I’ve seen men and women, in all kinds of romantic scenarios, kissing while they run from volcanoes, spaceships, or supervillains. I was even recently subjected to Rey and Kylo Ren’s horrendously odd kiss in The Rise of Skywalker. It’s all there, right in your face, all the time. So why, when it comes to LGBTQ+ characters, does it all feel so, well, casual? 

Whether it’s categorised as queerbaiting or seen as studios trying to ‘toe the line’ for the elusive and hard to define ‘Middle America’, it always comes down to money. If not for those in ‘the middle of the country’ then the problem is outsourced to other countries, like Malaysia or China, who won’t spend their hard-earned cash on LGBTQ+ content. It seems the big studios, and those in charge of franchises, want to have their Queer Cake and eat it too. A little deniable queerness please, they say, but not too much that it might genuinely mean anything. Mass appeal is the driving force but ultimately that means that queer people, who are so used to watching straight folks copulate on screen, get a whole lot of nothing.

LGBTQ+ relationships, romances, and experiences are frequently side-lined in this system. They’re never central to a film’s plot so it can be recut and still make sense. But what is the overall effect? A feeling of being second-class to heterosexuality? A lack of worth? When queer characters exist on the fringes, in fleeting moments, in the subtext, it sends a message: these stories, these people, are not worth the airtime compared to their straight counterparts. I mean, the most prominent TV show of the last decade, Game of Thrones, featured a substantial amount of straight sibling-on-sibling action. How does incest play in ‘the middle of the country’ I wonder? A whole lot better than a two-second gay kiss, I guess.

Is there hope for the future? Who can say? Patty Jenkins has been spotted filming scenes featuring the ‘Silence = Death’ protest signs for her upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 and Kevin Feige has promised an LGBTQ+ character in The Eternals, a story about God-like entities from space. While recent Oscar-winner Taki Waititi has teased that Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie will finally take flight as a fully-fledged, and explicitly acknowledged, bisexual woman in Thor: Love & Thunder.

But hope, well hope is a dangerous thing for a queer like me to have. These promises, the big studios waving their rainbow flags on the horizon, don’t inspire much trust. I know we have Ryan Murphy on Netflix with his adaption of Boys in the Band, featuring an all-gay cast of actors. We also have Murphy’s grander adaption of the Broadway musical The Prom, with a (mostly straight) all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kerry Washington to name a few. Actual real-life queer woman Kirsten Stewart is also set to star in a Thanksgiving-themed lesbian Rom-Com from Clea Duvall, and Britain promises to unveil its film adaption of the drag based musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie this Autumn but who can say how big any of these films will hit. It doesn’t feel obtuse to suggest that it won’t be on the level of any major franchise.

At the 2020 Independent Spirit Awards, a clip of the Gay Men’s Choir of Los Angeles singing about ‘The Gayest Moments in Other Films You May Not Have Realised Were Gay’ went viral. Its appreciation of the queer lens, of Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers and Laura Dern’s entire career was funny, accurate, and unmistakably the product of Gay Twitter. Even so, it was a little sad to think that so many queer people are, out of necessity, watching and claiming things that weren’t made with them in mind. Of course, there is power in reclamations, in queering the narrative, in forcing yourself into a place that didn’t consider you and making it your own, but it shouldn’t have to be that way every time LGBTQ+ people watch a blockbuster. Will that ever change? I’m not holding my breath.

Also Read: Where Are All The Young Moviegoers?

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