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

Foreign Films

Foreign filmmakers have long treated men in their underwear differently than American filmmakers. “American society has generally been constrained by all the Puritans that the Europeans had the good sense to kick off their continent centuries ago,” Duralde says. “Europeans are, in general, less torqued up about nudity and sexuality than Americans in general are, so they’re allowed to be both more matter-of-fact and more sexual with their screen nudity.”

Sometimes the scenes of guys in their underwear are very matter-of-fact, as in the innocent French coming-of-age story Wild Reeds (1994), the bittersweet story of a love triangle between a gay boy, a straight boy, and a straight girl.

And sometimes the underwear scenes have a deliberate eroticism, even a deliberately gay eroticism, as in the films of the openly gay Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. In Labyrinth of Passion (1982) and Law of Desire (1987), he introduced the world to a very hot, frequently undies-clad Antonio Banderas.

Labyrinth of Passion/Law of Desire

Despite critical and popular success (including Oscars for All About My Mother [1999] and Talk to Her [2002]), Almodóvar continues to portray the male body both realistically and erotically with little regard for American sensibilities, most recently in Bad Education (2004).

Bad Education

Where Things Hang Today
As with so many things, men’s underwear in the movies isn’t quite as simple as it has seemed in the past. Boxers remain the rule in most studio films while briefs are used mostly for comic effect, as with William H. Macy’s hapless Dudley in Wild Hogs (2007).

“Most mainstream [American] movies still have a ridiculous level of giggle factor,” Duralde says.

Still, it’s undeniable that we’re also experiencing a return to the eroticization of the male form. Somehow the Greek epic 300 (2006) managed to draw in hoards of adolescent heterosexual males without alienating them with the fact that it’s basically two hours of oiled bodybuilders strutting around in Speedo-like loincloths.

300

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