Boxers or Briefs: A Gay Look at the Evolution of Underwear in the Movies

Risky Business

Cruise dropped trou again a few years later, and was surrounded by a bunch of other guys dropping trou, in Top Gun (1986) — a pivotal movie in the history of men in their underwear in movies. At last a major Hollywood movie was openly and deliberately eroticizing guys. Incredibly, because a gay consciousness had not yet permeated America, the film, which clearly flirted with homoeroticism, was not seen as particularly gay at the time, at least outside the gay community.

Tom Cruise has shrewdly played with a gay sensibility throughout his career, using a strong fashion sense and the overt homoeroticism in his movies to appeal to women and trend-setting gay men, and to also give himself a sense of edginess.

“Tom Cruise presents himself as this male action hero,” Duralde says, “but there is something boyish about him, which makes him appealing to women. Off-screen he’s cultivated the ‘I’m not gay’ thing, always appearing on a motorbike or with some hot actress on his arm. But he puts his toe in the water of gay sensibility. It’s subtle, and he’s always pulling back, so it never appears to be too gay.”

Cruise’s delicate “gay” tap-dance has worked wonderfully — until recently, when his career has spiraled out of control, fueled, in part by gay rumors.

Still, in a nice bit of career symmetry, Cruise later did one more very attention-getting underwear scene, in Magnolia (1999). Incredibly, the contents of his briefs seemed to have grown considerably since the days of Risky Business.

Magnolia

The Teen Sex Comedies
The 1980s, of course, were the age of the teen sex comedy. It all started with Porky’s (1982), a raunchy, lowbrow sex farce the likes of which no one wanted to make — until it grossed $105 million (on a budget of $4 million).

Suddenly everyone wanted to make a teen sex comedy.

Porky's

But if there was ever a genre created by heterosexual men for heterosexual guys, it was the teen sex comedy. If gay people existed in these movies at all, it was as an object of ridicule or the punch line to a joke. This made sense, since the target audience of these movies was mostly homophobic adolescent boys.

But the great irony of the 80s teen sex comedy is that, despite being very, very heterosexual, they were sex farces, and in a sex farce, it’s almost impossible to keep even your male leads from stripping down to their underwear.

Reflecting the realism of a time in which most men wore skimpy briefs, that’s what was reflected in movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Losin’ It (1983), and Porky’s Revenge (1985). The Last American Virgin (1982) includes an underwear scene that is hard to believe (here’s an NSFW link to the uncensored clip).

In other words, the ranks of the nation’s closeted gay and bisexual teenagers had something to look at even in these avowedly heterosexual sex comedies.

Next page! Briefs go gay!