Beefcake

Based on the life of photographer Bob Mizer who photographed young men for male physique magazines, this is an entertaining combination of fiction and documentary which examines the underground gay culture of America in the 1950s. Centred around Mizer’s trial for obscenity during the McCarthy witch-hunts, “Beefcake” features interviews with models, hustlers and muscle builders from that period as well as creating a fictional narrative about young Neil O’Hara (Joe Pearce), the traditional All-American small-town boy, who arrives in the big city of Los Angeles and becomes immersed in the world of muscles, photography and the incipient gay movement. Filmed in glorious colour which simulates the rainbow palette of the “technicolor fifties”, “Beefcake” is nevertheless a highly insightful look into the cost of repression. The film acknowledges the complexity of Mizer’s relationship with the young men he photographed, as well as his initially tender but ultimately destructive relationship with his mother, who encouraged his work but refused the evidence of his sexuality. And though “Beefcake” suggests that Mizer’s world allowed young gay men freedom for the first time in their lives, it also examines how Mizer himself was blind to the effects of drugs and loneliness on his young subjects. The interviewees include Warhol superstar Joe Dellasandro who began his career as a Physique magazine model.