VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY
VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY
VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY
VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY VOICE
THE OBJECTS COME
DIRECTLY FROM
WHAT’S CONSIDERED
TO BE THE MOST
MASCULINE CULTURE.
IT’S EVERYWHERE—
FROM FRAT HOUSES
UP INTO OUR
GOVERNMENT.”
Two years ago, when her solo debut
opened at the New York gallery 56
Henry, the celebrated artist Al Freeman
presented objects that could easily be found
in a frat house: a beer can, a lava lamp,
a set of male genitals—except that these
were understu≠ed pillows. Freeman’s
soft-sculpture work is an e≠ort to examine
hypermasculine spaces, an exploration of
what she calls “a club I can’t be a part of.”
The objects in my work come directly from
what’s considered to be the most toxically
masculine culture. It a≠ects me personally,
and it a≠ects the people around me, and it’s
everywhere—from frat houses up into our
government. The soft sculptures are a way to
address the problems in that culture without
being didactic or finger-shaking.
As an artist, you’re either critiquing things
that are in the world, or you’re glorifying
things in the world, or you’re just
mirroring things in the world. This work is
a mirror of the things that I wish would be
softer, or more benign, or less threatening
somehow—or just something that I could
participate in that isn’t abusive.
I think a lot of the conversations about
toxic masculinity are just preaching to the
converted, and to some degree I want my
work to be inclusive. These are items that
everybody can identify with or recognize
without them being o≠-putting or judgmen-
tal or aggressive.
I’ve never tried to make funny work. But
I guess it’s castrating humor, to some degree.
It robs the masculinity of its power and its
potency. There’s also the idea of all of these
kinds of macho objects being cuddly pillows.
The idea of a frat boy seeking comfort in a
pillow version of his Jägermeister bottle, as
if the pillows are teddy bears that would
comfort some terrible man. —AS TOLD TO
NORA CAPLAN-BRICKER
Thomas Page McBee
is a journalist and author
who, while reporting his most
recent book, ‘Amateur: A True
Story About What Makes a Man,’
became the first transgender
man ever known to box at
Madison Square Garden.
The first time I quieted an
entire, rowdy newsroom just
by speaking, I’d been on
testosterone for only a few
months. I’d felt gangly and
pubescent, despite being
30 at the time, but my new
baritone seemed to create an
unconscious response in
my colleagues: Whenever
I spoke, they swiveled toward
me. They listened keenly and
with such focus on my mouth,
I became self-conscious.
My life was dotted with a
thousand such revelations
in the first years of my transition:
When a woman crossed to the
other side of the street to avoid
my newly weaponized body,
late at night. When my uncle
offered his hand at my mother’s
funeral. (“Men don’t hug,” he
told me, not unkindly.)
The expectation of what
being a white man “meant”
was apparent in how the world
reacted to me. In the years
since I first silenced that
newsroom just by speaking,
I figured out how to be the man
I am, mostly by doing the
exact opposite of what’s
expected of me: I listen more,
I talk less, and I hug other
men—even my uncle. And
I think about that day when
I first opened my mouth and
realized how disturbingly
powerful I suddenly was, simply
for existing in this white man’s
body. I hope I never forget it.
Thomas Page
McBee on...
Recognizing the
Power of His Own
Privilege
Photograph by Ryan Lowry
AL
FREEMAN
The Soft-Sculpture
Artist Playing
With the Tropes
of Toxicity
“
86 GQ.COM NOVEMBER 2019
THIS PAGE, PHOTOGRAPH: AMOS MAC. OPPOSITE PAGE, HAIR AND MAKEUP: LISA RAQUEL.
(continued on page 94 )
