The New Hunks

There’s been a recent spate of movies that put women and female sexuality front and center: Babygirl, The Substance and Anora.

At the same time (and what’s equally noteworthy), is that there’s been a new crop of young male actors who are often the objects of female (or gay male) attention and who defy the muscular stereotype of yore.

In Babygirl, Nicole Kidman plays a powerful executive who falls under the spell of a kinky young intern, played by Harris Dickinson. While it’s somewhat shocking to see an A-list actress like Kidman completely naked (see also Demi Moore in The Substance), what may be equally noteworthy is the attention paid to Dicksinon, particularly in an extended slow dance scene to the tune of George Michael’s “Father Figure.”

Harris Dickinson in Babygirl

In Queer, Drew Starkey is the object gay writer Daniel Craig's attention. I’ve already written about how the camera lingers over Starkey’s naked body, illustrating Craig’s desire.

Drew Starkey in Queer

The New Hunk is tall and lean (and occasionally tattooed), unlike the steroid-enhanced gym bunnies of just a few years ago. (Hi, John Cena!)

Of course, the prototype of the New Hunk may be Jacob Elordi, who burst onto the scene in Euphoria and subsequently was the obsession of the nerdy character played by Barry Keoghan in Saltburn. (To be fair, Keoghan’s character in the movie is actually bisexual.)

Jacob Elordi in Saltburn

What’s also notable about this new crop of sexually frank films is that many of them were directed by women (Babygirl’s Halina Reijn, The Substance's Coralie Fargeat, Saltburn’s Emerald Fennell) or gay men (Queer’s Luca Guadagnino*). They also tend to be produced by upstart, independent companies like A24 and Neon.

All of these films represent a welcome departure from the typical heterosexual male point of view.

*While Luca Guadagnino has been in a long-term relationship with Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, he has not publicly identified his sexuality.

My Problem with Bill Maher

I was afraid to watch.

Even before I saw last Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the comments I was reading on social media about the fact that Maher had met with Donald Trump and had Steve Bannon as his guest gave me pause.

But I had to see it for myself.

I’ve been a longtime fan of Real Time. Since it first began on HBO, it’s been “appointment television” for me and—full disclosure—I even submitted a writing package to his producers. But lately I’ve been having mixed feelings about the show. Some of Maher’s guests (Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk, and the aforementioned Steve Bannon, to name a few) have been what I would consider to be beyond the pale. (Steve Bannon just got out of jail, for God’s sake!) Real Time has become the talk show equivalent of Dancing with the Stars: where disgraced politicians and other public figures go to rehabilitate their public image.

Sure enough, after his opening monologue (which, I must admit, made me laugh a few times), Maher had a direct-to-camera discussion of his meeting with Trump, in which he basically said that Trump in private was not the crazy person he often appears to be in public.

Two questions:

What difference does it make that Trump isn’t crazy in private when his public behavior directly led to the January 6 insurrection, among other things?

Secondly, what did Maher hope to accomplish by meeting with Trump? What did he think would happen? That Trump would apologize for his behavior and correct course? (Trump did admit to Maher that he lost the 2020 election—in private—but, significantly, has still refused to do so in public.)

Or, as some have suggested (and I have theorized), was he just trying to avoid being targeted by Trump as others, such as ABC and CBS, have been? (I just read that Maher was being sued for defamation by right-wing lunatic Laura Loomer.)

In normal times, I would admire Maher’s attempt to be “fair and balanced,” but these are not normal times. Trump is in a category by himself in terms of his lies, corruption and the damage he has done to this country, and he’s remade the entire Republican Party in his image.

If you want to have a conservative viewpoint on your show, how about inviting Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger? (To be fair, Kinzinger has been on his show.) I’m sure I might disagree with them on many policy issues, but at least they’re not crazy! Any Republican with a spine has either left the party or left politics altogether. That’s why it’s impossible to treat Maher’s meeting with Trump as if it were normal.

Whether it’s the economy (on-again, off-again tariffs), foreign policy (cozying up to Putin while alienating our allies), the environment (eliminating clean energy initiatives while cozying up to the oil and coal industries) or civil liberties (disappearing legal residents of the United States without due process and attacking law firms, universities and now even private citizens who served in his first administration), every day seems to bring a new disaster. (And don’t get me started on Trump’s cabinet, all of whom were chosen solely for their loyalty to him.)

But here’s the thing. Sometimes Maher is funny and sometimes he does get it right on the issues. I don’t want to make this a test of ideological purity, but I’ve noticed that Maher doesn’t like being contradicted. (He has a severe blind spot on the war in Gaza, to state just one example.)

But I can sympathize with the position Maher finds himself in as a comedian.

As a comedian myself, I have often struggled with how to talk about Trump (or whether to talk about him at all) because practically every action he’s taken has been catastrophic, and there have been so many of them.

I’ve enjoyed James Austin Johnson’s Trump impression on Saturday Night Live, just as I enjoyed Alec Baldwin’s before him. So, it’s not impossible to joke about Trump (and I love a good impression).

But lately I find Rachel Maddow’s withering sarcasm to be, perhaps, more appropriate.