Last night, I stumbled across University of South Florida student Rion Sabean's "Men-Ups" photography shoot. The series is a spoof of popular female pin-up models of the 1940's and 1950's, and I was surprised to see that the photographs push the boundaries of the gender binary in what I believe to be a good way. The pictures show attractive, strong men with typical masculine props, such as hatchets, baseball bats, and drills, in wholly emasculating positions.
The juxtaposition between the manly men and their effeminate poses is surprising and comical. As Sabean says in this Jezebel.com article, "The imagery of showcasing the feminine/masculine ideals in one single image just struck me as something that could really work." Indeed, the stark contrast between the male models and their girly body language highlights the ridiculousness of both the masculine and feminine gender scripts our society places so much value upon. By giving the models props like drills and baseball bats, both items that could be seen as symbolic phalluses, and pairing them with highly sexualized traditional female poses, Sabean makes a well-executed critique of our culture's restrictive gender binary.
When I came across this photo set, I laughed so hard. I really think it achieves what it set out to do--poke fun of the ridiculous modeling of pin-up girls and the gender binary that comes with that. The only thing I wish was that the men wore clothes that showed more skin or have one of the guys without a shirt. It is funny but didn't take it the extra mile to make the viewer really think about (and laugh at) the practicality of playing baseball in a swimsuit or underwear, which is the wardrobe of choice for pin-up girls. I like the point you made about the symbolic phalli too! I hadn't thought about it that deeply.
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