By now you’ve seen him. Pecs like polished granite. Jaw square enough to slice an avocado. Cloaked in Lycra so tight you could trace the man’s emotional trauma from outer space.
Superman is back. Again.
I’ve lost count how many times he’s returned. Each time they resurrect him with a new face, a new curl, and a new level of emotional constipation. This year’s version arrives rippling with pectorals, exuding all the fragile charm of a Calvin Klein mannequin who recently read Nietzsche.
Which is to say: we’re supposed to want him. Or be him. Or both.
And it got me thinking. Who, exactly, is the male sex symbol meant to please?
Because Superman, darling, has never really been for women. He’s been for men. Specifically, for men who want to imagine themselves as gods — and for those who enjoy watching gods cry a little.
Cape, Codpiece, And the Crisis of Charisma
There was a time when leading men smouldered. They weren’t carved. They were cracked. Paul Newman. Alain Delon. Omar Sharif with a stare that could curdle milk.
But now? The leading man is a protein shake with a jawline. Super-suited. Airbrushed. And about as emotionally available as a Bluetooth printer.
Our new Superman doesn’t seduce. He poses. He lifts large things. He frowns at injustice. He bleeds when narratively required. But where is the sweat? The danger? The scent of someone you shouldn’t trust but might anyway?
We’ve swapped lust for logistics.
When gay icons wore capes
Let’s not pretend Superman hasn’t always flirted with gay iconography. He wears skin-tight clothing, changes in closets, lives a double life, and spends an inordinate amount of time saving conflicted, emotionally unavailable men from their inner demons.
He was queer-coded before anyone knew what that meant.
Christopher Reeve had it. That wink. That slow-burn boy scout grin that said, “I’ll rescue your cat, then ruin your marriage.”
Even Brandon Routh in Superman Returns was less of a man, more of a walking cologne ad designed to quietly destroy heterosexual boundaries.
But this new Superman? He’s more Men’s Health than Midnight Cowboy. All abs, no ache.
Where’s the forbidden tension? Where’s the gay panic?
Enter the chauvinist
Now, I don’t say this lightly — but we may be entering the age of the earnest alpha. The kind of leading man who still thinks heroism is lifting heavy things while looking slightly sad about it.
He doesn’t talk. He broods.
He doesn’t seduce. He saves.
He doesn’t flirt. He frowns.
It’s like watching a mattress ad come to life.
This is what we’ve done to our sex symbols: we’ve neutered them with nobility.
We miss the mess
Give me a little danger. Give me a little dirt. Give me a man who might rob you or kiss you, depending on the hour.
Where is our Montgomery Clift? Our River Phoenix? Our young Al Pacino — sweating in silk shirts and moral ambiguity?
They weren’t safe. But they were interesting. They made you wonder, not just wander.
Superman is back — and still squeaky clean. A symbol of strength, yes. But also of cinematic celibacy. The last man alive with no discernible sex drive.
And that, my dears, is the real tragedy.
— Roger Wyllie, View Mag
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