Gender, sexuality and performativityGender and sexuality are not necessarily linked, and are not talked about except in the context of homosexuality despite the makes heterosexual people also express their gender and sexuality. In Daddy and the Muscle Academy he shows a shift in popular gender performativity in Tom of Finland's art. In the documentary, it is explained that Tom's art was originally intended to feature beautiful, feminine young men. At the time, that was the popular show: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Performativity is often seen as extreme, like drag, but the truth is that everyone embodies their gender in everyday life. It is a process of iterability, “a regularized and constrained repetition of norms” (Jagose 87). This includes simple things like putting on makeup, whether or not to shave, and choosing your clothes. However, it also includes more complex ideals, such as behaviors and ways of speaking and presenting oneself. The identity of a gay man was often seen as solely a feminine thing, and gay men were not actually seen as men. Tom of Finland's art helped change that stuff. His art featured overly masculine men with exaggerated masculine features. This was truly the beginning of a new type of homosexual: “The 1970s used Tom's drawings as a model to represent their identity” (Lahti 188). Tom's drawings were really the beginning of this image of men in leather, bikers, sailors and policemen represented in a homosexual and fetishistic way. It really showed the world that gay men were men. This shows that masculinity is part of class and part of the body. Being a strong manual worker is masculine in Tom's world. This was unusual at the time. The fact that the men are manual workers “naturalizes the display of semi-naked muscular bodies” (Lahti 189), which is a good thing in the context of avoiding censorship. Apparently, this was strategic to avoid this restriction from the US Postal Service. This helped spread his work and make him more popular because of it. To say that his art isn't problematic is a lie, despite this kind of positive impact, there are also issues of racism, consent and Nazism in his art. Black men in his art are often depicted as rapists, which is a historically racist and incorrect depiction. Nazism is well explained in the context of his life, based on his own fantasies while he was a soldier in Finland. There is also the issue of men behaving in hypermasculinity, which is extremely restrictive and difficult to fully achieve, especially for gay men. Although gay men have begun to establish their own standards of masculinity through this, they remain true to heterosexual standards of masculinity beyond heterosexuality. For its time, this was a very interesting change and not nearly as problematic as it might be considered today. Many feminine gay men have “converted” to leather men. In Daddy and the Muscle Academy, a man tells the story of being rejected by a leather man at a bar, then converting to a leather man in order to have more men like him. It was more than successful, and he managed to convince the first man who had rejected him earlier. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a trial..