The GQ Affect: Botching the Bocce Batch.

Do gay men play bocce?  Probably.  As much as gay men play any sport.

Do Italian men play bocce?  Yes. It's wildly popular in both Italy and with Italian-Americans. Well, maybe "wildly" is overstating it a bit.
​Are there any gay Italians?  No. At least, not according to my high-school classmate, Anthony R.  One day in class, there was a casual discussion going on amongst myself and some of "the guys." Homosexuality came up during the conversation.  By the time you're a senior in an all boy's school, the subject has lost a lot of it's, shall we say, novelty.  I forget the specifics (the relative "gayness" of some Italian male person came up); and Anthony said, as he considered this, in all sincerity and with zero guile: "...yeah, but there are no gay Italians."  To him, it was as though it was a mathematical proof.  A scientific fact.  There was no animosity in it.  For him, it just was.  I went to high school with a lot of Italian boys.  Can you spot moi?*  Anthony R. is on the bottom row, eleventh from the right.

Did we play bocce?  Although there was no team, I'm sure some of us did!

When we think of bocce...when I think of bocce...I think of well dressed, older Italian men leisurely lobbing their balls down the bocce court.  This is how it's often portrayed in movies. Usually with some jaunty Italian concerto on the soundtrack.  I have never played; but I find it intriguing.  Any fool can lob a ball, right?  I do not picture someone like this next fellow:

I mean, I'm assuming it's a fellow.  This person is modeling what we can assume is menswear as "he" is in the pages of a magazine with the word "Gentlemen" in the title.  This is for Dior; and personally, I think that bow would be better suited on the back of a New Look cocktail dress.  Here's our friend sporting a brooch:

Before we move on, can I just say: "Been there, done that."  There was a very niche contingent of gay men in Boston, myself included, who were sporting the man-brooch.  84-85ish. It had a very brief window of time. Very New Wave-New Romantic. But we did it.  It's been done.  I can even trace it back to one fellow in particular.  He was the host of the Empire Deli; a boho-Bos-O late night hang.  Of course, our brooches were generally thrift store acquisitions.  Or 5 and Ten Cent Stores you could find that still had them.  The tackier and flashier and rhinestonier the better.  Think Mrs. Howell on the cheap. A brooch on the lapel of a thrift store jacket over aa beat up tee and shredded jeans and combat boots. The brooch was ironic, in other words. But more just ironic, ironic. Not hip ironic: if that makes sense.
I bet the one our model is wearing costs a fortune.  Let me see if I can find a price...

This is close enough. Silver plated brass and crystal.  Yours for only $640.00.
In 1984 I probably would've dropped $1.64 for it at the Salvation Army in Lynn.
So, what am I getting at here?  Well, I'll tell you...
MY BAD MOMENT!
My apologies. That fashion spread is not for Dior but rather for Dolce & Gabanna. Which is interesting because they are an Italian design team based out of Milan and both gents are from Sicily.  I don't think you could get more Italian than that (except maybe the gay part; sorry Anthony...).
I couldn't find that exact brooch of theirs; but I think this one is close enough:

Again, what am I getting at here?  I guess I'm just trying to figure out what it is that GQ magazine is trying to sell me.  And I don't just mean the ads.  I mean, their mission statement, I suppose.  Back in the late 70s and early 80's it was pretty clear.  They were selling The Great American Gay Dream.  Or wet dream, more likely.  And the models often were dripping wet: diving into and climbing out of pools.  Cavorting in the surf.  Showering....

This was what I was seeing when I first started picking up the magazine in my very early teens.  How could anyone look like this unless they were on the Pepperdine Water Polo team?  Well, a lot of them were.  This was the fantasy of several men prominent at GQ at the time; none of whom bore even a passing resemblance to their subjects. Bruce Weber, Doanld Sterzin and art director Harry Coulianos.
Now, my mama always told me that if you didn't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  I'm not saying these men were homely.  I can't even find a picture of Donald Sterzin, not even on his memorial page.  Bruce Weber had been a model himself.  Coulianos had a certain swarthy appeal too, I think.

Clearly though, his looks were light years away from Pepperdine.  And Bruce W. had, shall we say, "let himself go" by the time he was photographing these Olympian demi-gods.

My beef with these men is that they created this aesthetic; their own personal fantasy of male attractiveness and pushed it.  Hard.  So hard, it lives on today.  Well, at least until very fairly recently.  I don't know if this bag--yes, an actual shopping bag from their store (Abercrombie and Fitch, that is)--features a Bruce Weber photo; but it has all the earmarks of his work.

A & F even had actual live shirtless jockola-studboy-hunks working shirtless in their stores.  Boys built on the Bruce Weber blueprint.  And I would hazard a guess that most of their business was from middle-aged gay men.
So GQ seems to be aimed at the hedge-fund-douche-bro set nowadays; but I find it truly hard to believe that any of those types of guys would actually wear the fashion stylings the magazine features and is so clearly trying to make happen.  The man purse comes to mind.  And I'm not talking about mens bags.  I'm talking about purses.  "Pockabooks" as my mother called them.  The most recrent issue even has a spread all about adorning said bags with whimsical charms.  
This is the kind of fellah I imagine sustains a magazine like GQ:

You know; a business bro who knows he looks good in a basic suit.  Knows a good barber 'cuz he's smart enough to know that the classic mens hair cuts look the best on ALL men.  Has some disposable income. Reads GQ to get some guidance on what's hot and trendy and in fashion for dudes in the 22 to 35 bracket.  But come on...is he really going to carry this around?

Or purchase a "starter purse" or join the "dainty shoe revolution"?  Yes, that latter was an actual phrase used in the latest issue.  Actually, so was the former.
Said dainty shoes:

Said starter purse:

And let's just throw in these for absurdism purposes:

Decidedly not part of the dainty revolution; but who is it that wants to go around with a pair of burnished scrotums on their feet?
But maybe I'm wrong.  I'm recalling the footwear trends for men in the mid 80's, which you can see on the feet of many of my high school classmates:

These were known as "Jazz shoes."  Now, I don't recall ANY guy EVER in my high-school calling them that.  This was simply the style that appeared on everyone's feet from about 1981 to 1985.  Are they "dainty"?  I'm gonna say, no.  They're sleek and low slung.  And they motherflippin' effed up your feet.  NEGATIVE ZERO support.  My feet are killing me just looking at them.  Now, see, I had to one up this trend.  I wanted what was known as the "Pixie boot."  The pixie boot was a boot, usually ankle high that had a very low heel.  Like a half an inch tops.

But the pixie boot was more of a style for the ladies.  In fact, I had seen them on Olivia Newton-John during a televized concert and I HAD TO HAVE THEM!  I mean they're essentially pirate boots; but as I said, they were more for the ladies; and I wasn't brave enought yet to boldly go where most women had gone before: that is, experiment with ladies clothes.  Think the whole Steven Tyler thing and maybe even more Joe Perry!

Masshole, first from right. Second from left.

And then, one fine day, I found a pair of mens shoes with a flat heel.  They were beige colored and were designed with a leather piece that attached to the opening and folded over; but the folded over piece could be pulled up, thus rendering the shoe a boot.  They weren't meant to be worn that way; it was decidedly "off label"; but it perfectly suited my purposes.  It wasn't exactly "butch" but it was masculine in a kind of Errol Flyn as Robin Hood sort of way.  Please see ADDENDUM below for illustration.

And I do like a dash of the feminine in my wardrobe and nowadays, what with guys like Harry Styles and...some other guy...dressing in full on ladies separates it's a lot easier and less questioned.  And I find you can really wear anything outre as long as you do it with utter confidence to the point where there is no self-consciousness.
So what's my problem with GQ, if they are putting forth looks for men that are decidedly androgynous and inclusive?
I don't know...maybe it's because someone like me would've gotten beaten up, possibly if I chose to carry a charm laden ladie's purse as recently as--well--last week, where I live.  But now, because a magazine like GQ has given it the stamp of approval, it's okay; because even douche bros, thug boys, macho man movie stars and NFL players are rockin' the look.  Yeah, I think that's it.  I took a real risk walking around Boston in 1986 wearing a rhinestone brooch in public.  But now watch any award show and it's like there was a fire sale at Brooches "R" Us.  Even just a couple of  years ago, Jim Halpert would've stared down the camera 'til the lens cracked on The Office (if they were still making The Office; but you know what I mean) if any of his male coworkers had worn a brooch.  They would've built a whole mocking episode around it.  But today?

Yeah.  It kinda pisses me off.  They're even calling it the "Bro Brooch."  Gag me with a spoon!  Did you pick out that brooch yourself dude or did some stylist tell you it was a trend?
I guess I see it as a kind of cultural appropriation.  GAYPROPRIATION (TM/REG./PAT-PEND/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED) (formerly known as "Gay Trickle Down Fashion").  Remember when gay guys paired construction boots with shorts at risk of their own peril and then a few years later, every construction worker dude in the country looked like this:

Oh, wait a second...those guys are Aussies.  They've been working this look since at least the 70's.  The gays may have got it from them!  Maybe more like this in the States:

Anyways...it just kind of bugs that these looks that a lot of "straight" dudes now just kind of have as a "go to" were once gay looks.  Looks that back in the day you had to have some balls to wear on the street.  Like seriously, could've been bashed for.
And what does any of this have to do with bocce ball you ask?
Well, I'll get into that and more in the next blog.  
So, look for Mind Your G's and Q's: The Bocce Effect

CFR   9/26/24