The Male Gazed

On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men

By: Manuel Betancourt

Narrated by: Manuel Betancourt

Manuel Betancourt has long lustfully coveted masculinity—in part because he so lacked it. As a child in Bogotá, Colombia, he grew up with the social pressure to appear strong, manly, and, ultimately, straight. And yet in the films and television he avidly watched, Betancourt saw glimmers of different possibilities. From the stars of telenovelas and the princes of Disney films to pop sensation Ricky Martin and teen heartthrobs in shows like Saved By the Bell, he continually found himself asking: Do I want him, or do I want to be him?

The Male Gazed grapples with the thrall of masculinity, examining its frailty and its attendant anxieties even as it focuses on its erotic potential. Masculinity, Betancourt suggests, isn't suddenly ripe for deconstruction—or even outright destruction—amid so much talk about its inherent toxicity. Looking back over decades' worth of pop culture's attempts to codify and reframe what men can be, wear, do, and desire, this book establishes that to gaze at men is still a subversive act.

Written in the spirit of Hanif Abdurraqib and Olivia Laing, The Male Gazed mingles personal anecdotes with cultural criticism to offer an exploration of intimacy, homoeroticism, and the danger of internalizing too many toxic ideas about masculinity as a gay man.

©2023 Manuel Betancourt (P)2023 Tantor

Surprisingly Tedious

Having read positive reviews of this book elsewhere before I chose it on Audible, I was steadily disappointed as I listened. I want always to give authors and the text the benefit of the doubt when I feel like I’m missing something, but this became harder to do the further I got into this particular text. Mr. Betancourt is clearly thoughtful, and he seems to be well read. Still, I wish this critique of pop culture were rooted more securely in something deeper than pop culture. In Slant Magazine’s glowing review of The Male Gazed, Richard Scott Larson appears to like this aspect of the book’s style, saying Mr. Betancourt’s writing is “incisive without being too academic about the scholarly theory undergirding his subject,”

Given this stark contrast and other differences between the favorable reviews and my experience, I’ve wondered if I am simply the wrong audience for this book or if I should have read it instead of listening to it. Unless an author is an actor or skilled presenter (someone who knows how to bring the character and meaning of text into a voicing of it), he/she/they should leave the reading to others. Richness and actual comprehension by listeners are often lost when audiobook producers assume—or budgets force them to hope—that no one could be better than an author at conveying that author’s work.

Whatever the reason for my inability to connect with this book or its presentation, I am more than disappointed: I am frustrated. I own one of the letters in LGBTQ, and—since the cover art alone provoked in me the complicated interplay of attraction and emotion Mr. Betancourt seeks to analyze—I thought I was going to relish, even cherish, listening. I hoped these ideas would help me in my own long quest to understand my sexuality (which is, I’ve learned, another way of saying “myself”). How could I, then, ever (much less often) have felt that Mr. Betancourt wasn’t really talking to me? Maybe I should go to a book store or a library, grab a copy of the book, get a tall glass of tea, and try again.