Jam Beard: The closeted gay life of the man behd the award

GAY HISTORY: WHEN DID WE TURN ON THE MOTACHE?

A woman who dat a closeted gay man to help craft a hetero image is lled a beard. See: evangelil pastor Rick Warren’s goatee; the Duck Dynasty clan’s pairg of wild beards and entrenched homophobia; and Speaker of the Hoe Pl Ryan, who has attributed his growg beard to a pact unrtaken by his bow-huntg club.

'THE GAY BEARDS' DEMYSTIFY THEIR ENDURG FRIENDSHIP

In the early 20th century, as the beard cled Europe and the rporate shave ascend, a sophomoric svenger hunt swept Bra: Whenever a beard man was spotted, players peted to be the first to yell “beaver!, ” rackg up pots for every scff they claimed.

But he argu that Magnum also reprented a mastream, TV-iendly offshoot of a popular gay look of the era: “The so-lled ‘clone, ’ wh his obligatory mtache, bomber jacket, beefed-up shoulrs and mcular butt unr tight jeans. This Freddie Mercury-que “clone” look had evolved turn, wr Peterk, om the subculture of “leathermen” the gay clubs of the 1970s, whose “sadomasochistic practis and role-playg flourished and beme a new homoerotic norm. ” and “Go Wt” featured both a leatherman and a mtached wboy, helpg to make Middle Ameri aware of the mtache’s proment stat gay culture.

Perhaps equally vastatg for the ’stache’s populary straight society was the nng joke the first four Police Amy movi — om 1984 to 1987 — which hapls male characters fd themselv trapped a fictnal gay club, the neon-l Blue Oyster Bar, where they’re forced to dance wh fuzzy-lipped leathermen. It was an creasgly unfunny gag, which simultaneoly managed to entrench a daft homophobic stereotype and torpedo the mtache as a macho stat symbol for straight men.