39 Photographs Recast Masculinity, Challenging 21st-Century Myths of Male Toughness
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17
39 Photographs Recast Masculinity, Challenging 21st-Century Myths of Male Toughness
2 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17
Summary
A new feature assembles 39 photographs to argue that images have repeatedly reshaped how masculinity is seen—from fatherhood and vulnerability to queer identity, power and performance.
The selection challenges the old script of men as stoic actors rather than subjects, highlighting public tears, caregiving fathers and gender-bending style as evidence that male identity is constructed, contested and historically fluid.
Examples range from Oscar Wilde, David Bowie and Billy Porter to Sunil Gupta and Rotimi Fani-Kayode, whose portraits present queer and nonconforming masculinities as visible alternatives to dominant norms.
The article also tracks how photography has reinforced harder ideals—through bodybuilding, wrestling, strongman politics and authoritarian image-making in figures such as Putin—while noting the thin representation of average male bodies.
Set against a current resurgence of manosphere and strongman culture, the piece argues that each widely seen photograph can either bolster machismo or help erode it.