Hot Sad White Guys: Race, Sexuality,Film

Sad Hot White Guys is a screening/discussion
course exploring gender, race, and sexuality
through archetypal media representations of white
men. From military propaganda to the politics of
pretty, Beau Travail to the white guy of the month
on Tiktok; we're bringing a queer gaze to the
socio-political implications of hypermasculine
white figures in media to expand our definitions
and representations of masculinity. Student work
will include weekly writing, essays, and
film/video projects.

MILITARY PROPOGANDA. SENSUAL OPTIMIZATION. GENDER
ENVY. This course aims to connect films and
writings across genres under the umbrella of a
certain kind of racial and gendered
beautification. From the intentionally homoerotic
Beau Travail and Beach Rats to the laughably macho
Top Gun and Rambo and perfectly calibrated
sensitivity of Paul Mescal in Aftersun, these
works rely on the figure of the "movie star", a
traditionally or untraditionally attractive white
man who broods and/or shoots his way into the
viewer's heart. At one extreme, these uncanny
beauties, arguably fascist in their perfection
(shockingly muscular, shimmering from sweat, and
threatening in presence) exact copious amounts of
violence (revenge fantasies, military operations,
both if we're lucky) on "deserving victims". At
the other extreme, a lithe, lean sad boy
self-flagellates through an emotional repression
of his own design. Across genres (action, coming
of age, etc.) these dynamics of violence and
emotional inaccessibility craft a distinct
archetype in cinema. The Sad Hot White Guy.

While these tropes have historically been observed
as subliminal homoerotic exercises or straight
pornographic male fantasies, I posit that through
a femme, Queer, and Black gaze, these films occupy
a space in media of simultaneous threat and
aspiration. They're military and patriarchal
propaganda. They're indulgence. They're camp.
They're dogma, but they're also kind of fun! They
invite us to stare, gawk, even be, but never touch
or understand. In its exaggerated perfection, this
archetype becomes an Other that marginalized
viewers can inhabit and claim as their own.