MARKY MARK AND HIS KIND

"Let's admit it right off--its a Marky Mark world," William Spencer said in Manshots magazine. Spencer said this after December of 1992, when the arresting image of rap singer Marky Mark in Calvin Klein underwear ads appeared on bus stops across the country. Daniel Harris says in his book "The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture", regarding what he terms "The origin of the Underwear Revolution," "Wearing only a pair of lycra boxer shorts that hugged his muscular thighs and bulged provocatively at the crotch, he stood laughing directly out at us, tangled up in his baggy pants, which had collapsed around his ankles as if someone had just yanked them down from the preposterously low-slung position in which he customarily wears them.

"Although images of men in underwear have appeared in bus stop advertisements before (albeit in a somewhat neutered state, the faint imprint of their genitalia having been carefully airbrushed away to create a sexless, antiseptic look), the photograph of Marky Mark was in some sense unprecedented. Its impact stemmed not from its partial nudity, but from the way in which it emphatically represented an act of undressing, an exposure, a staged incident of de-pantsing in which the viewer was forced to confront underwear in a context that dramatized its forbidden intimacy."

In the new ads Marky Mark, Harris claims, was inescapably disrobed, stripped bare, kicked out into the street in his shorts, and openly giggling about appearing in the midst of people at bus stops. These people were both captivated and appalled by his gleefully unabashed expression of amusement. "Given the way in which the performer's self-satisfied exhibitionism undercuts the convention of obviousness that underwear advertisements use to sanitize their images, purging them of erotic content, the campaign represents a pivotal moment in the history of fashion."

Although this classic case of being in the right place at the right time delighted most of us, not everyone was happy about what the emergence of Marky represented. "Its true that there have always been paradigms in the gay world," Michelangelo Signorile said in OUT magazine, "but it seemed there were more choices, more leeway about what was considered a gay stud. Today only one very precise body type is acceptable--one that few gay men can achieve."

"If it's oppressive, am I a part of that oppression by tearing out Mr. Gay Hotlanta and hanging him on my wall?" asks journalist and author William J. Mann in Frontiers magazine. "How about when I choose a hunky blond 20-year old to go home with, instead of the more ordinary Joe closer to my own age?"

"Our problem now, though, is that Marky Mark and his kind have become the only ideal...All this hysteria over perfection is making gay life a meaner place. On a recent night out in New York, for example, I and my friends outside a trendy club waiting for the 'guards' to determine whether were attractive enough to be let inside. The fact that we were (eventually) chosen over others in line produced an odd, artificial sense of triumph, as if we were somehow better because we had been deemed, by the powers that be, more 'attractive' than the others."

Of course, obsession with beauty isn't new. There have always been ideals of beauty, and most people would never conform to them, says author and video reviewer Michael Bronski: "To be fair, we should blame it on the Italian Renaissance and not (Marky or) Mandate magazine." Bronski says we shouldn't feel guilty about this sexual taste, we should just recognize the implications such a policy might have on others. "The minute someone points out something where we should be more culturally sensitive, there's this cry for 'political correctness,' he says. "People see it as an attack on them, a loss for them. But nobody's saying you can't find Marky Mark and his kind attractive."

Thank goodness! Finally someone has given us permission to ignore the politically correct!

But no, even with permission from the self-appointed gay dream police, we still have a problem, voiced by Mann: "Despite being attractive, Marky Mark and his kind aren't always available." God, we thought we were the only ones who felt that! But wait, Mann goes on: "So the more we find Marky Mark and his kind attractive, the less many of us have sex at all. And when we do, its always the same, and we miss many kinds of pleasure."

"The image is so clean and ultimately so safe and non-threatening that it doesn't allow for us to explore our sexuality to see what the limits of our fantasies might be," says Bronski.

Mann continues: "That's especially ironic within the gay community, whose movement began with a mission of sexual liberation. But it wasn't always like this. A friend, edging 50, tells me about his youth in the 1960's and 70's. He tells tales of long, sweaty nights of dancing, the scent of many men, one after another. He speaks about bondage, drag, urinals, college boys, police officers and sex on the side of the road. 'There was so much,' he says, 'such a variety of men, in the activities in the way orgasms were achieved. That's what it was all about: pushing our sampling from the whole buffet..."

Signorile adds, "Before, there were all sorts of body types. Now there is only one."

"We've created a standard where eventually we all have to fail," says Victor D'Lugin, a political philosophy professor at the University of Hartford. "We set up this system that's planned for us to fail. We are going to get old. Two summers in Provincetown, then it's over."

Bronski, Signorile, and D'Lugin agree that an overbearing gay ideal has been created lately--in gay porn, in advertising, and in the clubs where the image is muscular and very white and very young and very clean," says D'Lugin.

But Mann says it's even more specific than that: "Young and buff are a given. The image is also smooth and hairless."

"I don't hear people talking about baskets and buns anymore," D'Lugin says. "We accentuate those areas that are sensuous but not sexual--pecs, biceps, triceps, nipples, wash-board stomachs."

Signorile uses the term "body fascism" to describe the current hierarchy of beauty. And while that is currently part of a wider obsession with beauty and youth in the culture at large, Signorile says, "it is much bigger in the gay community than in the straight world." He explains, "I think its part of the whole cultural experience we have. I think its because we were all insecure, we all feel inferior. One way we deal with that is to set up hierarchies of beauty. Gay men are made to feel effeminate, and that's seen as being bad. One way to feel superior is to overcompensate in being macho."

Legendary porn star and author Scott O'Hara agrees that the imagery will change again, moving away from the unattainable ideal and back to a more realistic--and multifaceted--depiction. "Body hair and other signs of maturity are becoming more fashionable,:" he says. Erotica based solely on idealized looks, he contends, results in a "homogeneity of product that is boring and insipid."

Mann reminds us, "The ad for Hollywood's David Barton Gym says, 'No Pecs, No Sex.' But that misses the main point: is our obsession with "Marky Mark and his kind" making all of us--including the buff boys--sexually unfulfilled?"

All of this would amuse no one more than Marky himself, who has had a resurgence of sorts lately.

I'll admit I was one of the legions who was attracted to Marky Mark, the street urchin from ghetto Boston who had a hit rap record and became a sensation in concerts by dropping his pants, which led to a lucrative contract as a Calvin Klein underwear poster boy. Nobody looked better in a pair of white cotton briefs that Marky! And then he endeared himself by dedicating a photo book about himself to his penis. Now, we all said, that was the boy we'd want to get to know better.

But then he got into a brawl with one of Madonna's pals and called the guy a fag (imagine!) and that was that. He lost his Calvin contract and more records, although promised, never came. He even grew tired of dropping his pants for teenage girls.

He missed his gay fans, though, and did an interview with The Advocate to prove it. He adamantly denied being a homophobe.

Nobody seemed to believe him, but it didn't matter. Marky's a fighter. He got a small part in "The Substitute," a made-for-TV movie in which he basically played himself and he was so good it led to parts in "Renaissance Man" and "Basketball Diaries." He was on his way to becoming a movie star.

In "Fear," he played with utmost conviction the murderous Lothario nightmare of every dad with a sweet teenage daughter. Apparently, as long as he's threatening, he's perfect. But the part did present problems. For the love scene, for instance, the stud said, "I had to tape this thing around myself, and the little pubic hair I had was gone. Then I couldn't get the thing off. It was torture."

Advance publicity for the film included a cover story in Details, widely read by gay men. Here again, the star refuted any notion that he's a homophobe. Details interviewer Erik Hedegaard says, "Those who know him--directors, actors--say is , at the age of twenty-four, as sweet a boy as now lives, one who deserves all that is customarily bestowed on those who attain movie stardom. I wouldn't know about that. What I do know is that for days on end he tried to let me see for myself. For instance, he graciously allowed me to watch him sleep. From this I can honestly report that his slumbers are blissfully free of teeth-gnashing and drooling--two of your more common signs of moral turpitude. For many other hours, I watched him watch TV. From this, I pass along the news that he does not stay on one channel very long, unless it has the good sense to air 'The Waltons,' 'Barney,' 'The Munsters.' or basketball. We talked cunnilingus; he didn't know the word, but once I explained it, he stated with grim vehemence, 'Man, I ain't into that!"

He ain't into that? What red-blooded American womanizer isn't into that? (Recall Sinatra and Tony Curtis and all the rest of the Rat Pack considered themselves masters of the art!) When Hedegaard asked the star why he shuns cunnilingus, Marky pointed to his trousers. "I keep thinking about him (his penis) being down there, you know what I mean (inside a woman), and then maybe somebody else's dick having been down there too."

What is he into?, you may ask. According to Details, he's honing his craft, making home movies. Details said, "I've seen some of them and can attest to his talent as an auter. Like Mark himself, the flicks are hugely comic and highly obscene. Take 'Donkey Kong, Gotta Get Off.' Its about a guy named Jay who sips a bit of magical liquid sex to get him major league horny for the girls that are coming over. Only the girls don't show. So he embarks on a desperate journey to get off any way he can, trying to get his cousin and then a call-in transvestite (played by a well-motivated Monk B) to go down on him--all sorts of wild nutty stuff. Its ends with him getting it through the back door, courtesy of the tranny's pimp, who then utters the line, 'Jay, I'm a little disappointed in you. Feels like somebody fucked you in the butt before!' When its over, Mark starts giggling and hooting, 'That's classic, man. Classic!" He's thinking of remaking Donkey Kong as a film he can release, which no doubt will secure him his reputation among those who think they already know him."

The home movies help take the edge off being a real movie star, apparently. Marky says, "It's like you become, what's the word, neurotic. Thinking about what other people think about you. Then worrying about it. Then just trying to be yourself. This shit is so complex. Sometimes I'm like, 'Just let me go back to running around in my underwear.' "

Yes, that period was the most fun we're sure, especially for gays. But even when the star's fully dressed, there's lots to feast upon. Hedegaard says, "Because its a face that begs to be studied, I study Marky's face. It's pretty amazing. With his hair all messy, he can look like a sleepy boy just up from a nap, toddling around the corner with soggy stuffed monkey in hand. At other times, his eyes narrow into slits, cold and dismissive, with the flesh around them thickening; they could be boxer's eyes. Then he smiles and all that drops away. Not to gush, but his smile is dazzling in the way it breaks across his face, opening up the hardness there, making him seem penetrable and warm, friendly even. Such considerations, however, cause Mark to tug on his ear and utter unhearables. When I ask him about his face, about all he says is, 'I see what I see and what I've seen for a long time."

Whatever the looks of Marky's thing, the star thinks his feet are his best physical feature: "They're soft, but they're ticklish as a motherfucker!"

While making "Traveler" with Bill Paxton, Marky appeared one day dressed in a nice white shirt half-buttoned, his Timberland bootlaces untied, his new khakis bagging down, his belt unbuckled, and a big fat grin. Paxton was delighted. "We love your style, kid!" he yelled. "You're coming out large, baby. You're nationwide!" To top off his look, Mark slapped on a furry Cossack-style hat and said, "Motherfuckers in one place were ragging on my hat. It's the shit right here. My pop gives the best gifts."

"I'm cashing the kid like a check," Paxton said, laughing. "I'm going to the bank with your ass."

Details revealed that Marky's entourage is like the neighborhood he grew up in, in a racially mixed bunch. Having them around keeps Marky happy. Inside the star's bungalow during filming what they mostly do is watch TV, largely because that's what Mark mostly does, stretching himself out on the sofa, plumping up a pillow under his head, giving the channel changer a workout. We also spend hours not talking, just sitting there in front of the tube's warm, suburban glow. It's cool, kicked back, quiet. The hours pass. Lots of sleeping goes on. Marky occasionally takes a phone call, speaking in a low voice. Vast quantities of cigarettes are consumed, along with a little beer, but no hard liquor, since that Marky does not touch."

"In a lot of ways, I wish I had lived differently, that I'd grown up in a different environment and stuff," he said. "There's nobody where I come from that has too much faith. But I wouldn't be the person I am today, or have the outlook on life that I have. All my experiences, for better or for worse, have helped me. Someday I'm going to make the baddest movie ever made. It'll be hard. Because it'll be from the stuff I've seen. But honestly, I've grown out of that shit.

"I tried to get out of this playing around shit for a while, because it's kind of distracting at work," he said. "But everybody sees me in a certain way. So you know, me being kind of quiet, just as nice as everybody is to me, people started to fuck with me. Then I gotta throw them the tough talk. Gotta give them a little De Niro look and a snide remark. They like that. They really want to see it."

Apparently. "I haven't come out of a theater so blown away by a movie since...well, actually, I don't think I've ever been quite as blown away by a movie as I was by 'Fear,' Gay Boy Ric said in 4-Front. "As Bette Midler once sang, 'Shiver Me Timbers,' the opening night audience, and the friend with whom I went to see the movie, agreed. Everyone came out shell-shocked and you could feel the palpable tension, shock and, yes, fear, throughout the mall-style theater. This is one of the most appealing creepy scary movies I've ever seen. If there's an ounce of you that likes Marky Mark, the entire rest of you will love every single minute of 'Fear.'

"...In perhaps the best scene of the movie, Marky slides his hand between Nicole's legs for the first time as they ride on a roller coaster together. As memorably as the Sex on a Train scene from 'Risky Business,' he brings the virginal girl to a rocky orgasm to match the thrill of the roller coaster ride. Sick, twisted and scary, yes...but also a Marky-Mark-gotta-see."

Entertainment Weekly called Marky Mark a "danger-zone stud" and agreed that he gave a genuine performance.. "He goes from slit-eyed cool to pleading fake earnestness so quickly it's funny, yet you can feel the rage coming through his white-sandpaper skin."

Amy Taublin at the Village Voice said, "As in the 'Basketball Diaries,' Wahlberg doesn't shy away from playing the bad guy. Though his role is underdeveloped in the script, 'Fear' is his vehicle, a showcase for his sexual menace. Wahlberg isn't in the Tim Roth-Gary Oldman acting league, but he proves quite nicely that you don't have to be British to smile and smile and still be a villain."

Perhaps we have met the ultimate Killer smile? Hell, we knew it right from the beginning.

We may finally get to see a lot more of Marky than ever before, because last summer Marky appeared opposite Julianne Moore in Paul Thomas Anderson's film, "Boogie Nights." Moore plays a porn star and Marky is a nightclub waiter recruited into the business, a character supposedly based on John Holmes.(Marky as John Holmes?) Anyhow, maybe all these simulated scenes on the set will lead to some hot scenes off -screen. God knows, his thing could well need some taking care of, because Marky doesn't take care of himself. "I haven't masturbated since the penitentiary. I just haven't been into it. I mean, I've done it before, I'm not gonna lie. I probably did it a couple of times. But they say it's a sin." Then he pointed to a man who is part of this entourage, a man named E Factor, and said, "Now E don't go a day without getting a fat one."

Jack-off or no jack-off, oddly enough, Marky has never owned up to even having a girlfriend. "That's the one thing I don't like to talk about," he said. "Anyway, what is a girlfriend?"