The Male “Gaze” in Homoerotic Bourbon History
Queer folks have often taken advantage of ambiguity as a way to get their images and fantasies before a wider audience. Advertisements, especially, have long served as a public-facing format to create such imagery. For instance, young men reading Time Magazine around the 1950s would have been greeted by ads like this one. Though meant to advertise the whiskies of Glenmore Distilleries, this ad looks more like the opening shot of a 1970s gay porn than a bourbon ad. While they appear to be enjoying their whiskey in this locker room, there seems to be a lot more going on in this image.
The most pronounced visual aspect of this image is that the men are in different states of dressing & undressing. The central, shirtless figure is surrounded by clothed men in suits, creating a power dynamic between him and the rest of the men; he becomes something to be viewed, to be gazed upon. The ways in which the men are looking and gazing at each other also plays a major role in this scene, and this type of homoerotic, seductive eye contact can be seen in many queer artists’ work around this time. We can look to the illustrations of J.C. Leyendecker, the drawings of Paul Cadmus, and even the paintings of Kentucky-born artist Edward Melcarth to see the “gaze” as a prevalent marker of sexual interest between men. The importance of the gaze makes sense, too, when you think about the homosexual culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Much of the conversation at that time, especially when cruising and looking for sex, was nonverbal and depending on understanding different “looks.”
This specific image is not an outlier either, but rather part of a long line of Glenmore Distilleries ads that invoke this, possibly not-so-subtle, homoeroticism. Glenmore’s slogan, “for people of inherent good taste,” placed in the context of these images implies that one’s taste in bourbon is not the only thing that matters. Instead, it implies that their bourbon is meant for these high-class, masculine, wealthy men that are depicted, and can attract those of the same. As this ad shows, gay folks were there, living their lives, and having a laugh through subversive imagery like this.
