Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys: Twentieth-Century Representations of Male Beauty
Editor: Steven L. Davis and Maglina Lubovich
Date Of Publication: Dec 2008
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0018-1
Isbn: 1-4438-0018-X
White, heterosexual, middle-class men have long served as the standard for masculine “beauty,” even if such men have refused to embrace this term. This study seeks to denaturalize this standard by exploring the connections between beauty and the broad spectrum of masculinities.

The chapters included in Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys contribute primarily to the field of gender studies, specifically masculinity studies. They consider twentieth-century representations of male beauty through a variety of mediums: performance, literature, art, photography, film and television. Although the contributors hail from both the humanities and the social sciences, all share a concern for how beauty informs, shapes, defines, and re-defines our understanding of masculinity itself.

These scholars investigate a range of historical periods and draw from a broad scope of critical approaches. Some interrogate male beauty through the female gaze and look to the influence of female performance on notions of masculine beauty. Others examine how queer and racial constructions of male beauty refuse and offer alternatives to hegemonic models of identity. Another revisits previous philosophical and theoretical conceptions of beauty, only to deconstruct gendered conceptions of the beautiful and the sublime. In all, these essays complicate masculine beauty by examining Chicano, Asian, working class, and female constructions of male beauty in Western culture.

Maglina Lubovich teaches in the departments of English and Women’s Studies at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Steven Davis is currently completing his dissertation on pulp magazines in the literature department at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he specializes in twentieth-century American literature and gender studies.

“This eclectic anthology brings much-needed attention to the social construction of male beauty. Its novel and wide-ranging essays will be of interest to scholars of gender studies, visual culture and gay and lesbian studies.”

—Martin Berger, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California at Santa Cruz, author of Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood (2000)

“While the impact of the myths and ideals of beauty on the lives of women has attracted prolific scholarship, men’s association with the discourses, representations and practices of beauty has gone relatively unexplored. Davis and Lubovich address this critical omission in an anthology that dexterously reveals the connections between beauty and the multifaceted field of masculine identities and cultures. Always perceptive and absorbing, the essays deal with a wonderfully rich range of topics. Together, they provide an invaluable insight into the way notions of ‘beauty’ influence and inform patriarchal culture and definitions of masculinity.”

—Bill Osgerby, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communications at London Metropolitan University, author of Playboys and Paradise: Masculinity, Youth and Leisure-Style in Modern America (2001)

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)