[This article has been translated into French by @CornwallBoar ]

When I first watched JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in 2012, I wasn’t out yet. I saw Jonathan Joestar, the diesel-jacked gentleman rip out of his clothes more than one time, changing into increasingly skimpier wardrobes every other two episodes. I saw vampire extraordinaire Dio Brando dress like an idiot steampunk wizard as he poisoned his foster dad before rejecting the prospect of upper-body clothing entirely (also he turned a dude into a dog at one point?). Despite the absurdity of it all, these two men weren’t afraid to cry, afraid to show affection, or even afraid to feel afraid. They were the most hyperbolised masculine pieces of meat I’d ever seen and they were emotional. Then Battle Tendency aired right after and Joseph and Caesar wore make-up and crop tops.

That same year I came out as bi. Huh.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the men (and the women) of JoJo carry masculinity in non-conforming ways. They defy the cis-heterosexual prisons of how mascs are ought to approach body language, fashion style, and presentation. Instead, characters dress freely, move dramatically, and pose sensually! To me, a queer man, it feels like an incredibly queer show in a way I haven’t seen anywhere else. I want to investigate the possible causes of why it’s so different, and what kinds of implications it has. I assume that the reader: 1) is familiar or interested in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure 2) has an open mind about the term ‘queer masculinities’ 3) doesn’t see this thesis as an obfuscation or obviation of other possible critical considerations.

My specific question is: “What possible avenues have led JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to arrive at a queered configuration of masculinity?” My goal here is to to try and establish a base discourse, meaning that deeper discussions of, for example, race, ethnicity, or women can feel somewhat sparse. In that light, I welcome any addendum, comment, and critique made for whatever reason!

Disclaimer: I’m not making JJBA out to be in any way revolutionary. Its queerness is the corollary of on one hand the art direction and the other the silence around its own queer factors, resulting in a paradoxical normalising effect. There are a couple of explicitly gay or bi characters (DIO, Pucci, Sorbet & Gelato) in the show, but its approaches to masculinity and queerness are only accidentally instructive, maybe because it is a-categorical.

POSES

Caesar and Joseph acting normal and regular

We all know the phrase ‘JoJo pose’ in reference to bombastic, fabulous, and near-anatomically impossible postures. A ‘JoJo pose’ is different than, say, a pose from more traditional masculine media like Fist of the North Star or even Rocky/Rambo. The posing in those media involves showcasing the body as a weapon: about to unleash gunfire, a knockout blow, a pressure point-press capable of exploding a skull. A JoJo pose, however, is almost never constructed as an intimidatory thing. Characters don’t move to induce fear in others or assert themselves as dominant — when they do, it’s a villain. Their posturing is weird or creepy, accompanied by the katakana for ‘menacing’.

A JoJo pose, then, doesn’t instrumentalise masculinity as a weapon, despite all the musculature going around. The masc body is disarmed, contrasting conventional cinematic choreography. Rather than emanating an aggression that causes a Ripple effect, the pose is the result of narrative tension that culminates in character (re)action. For example, Caesar and Joseph’s pose, in the story, is actually an expression of grief and anger! Caesar’s best friend (a literal Nazi oops) was just killed by an Aztec gym god. Witnessing this, both men instantly pose up, like it’s a natural answer to such a scenario.

In the classic buildup-climax-resolution structure of drama, the JoJo pose is not the climax. A crucial moment has already happened when characters assume their stances. That’s why I think it’s part of the resolution. The message the body language sends out is a responsive one, a formulation of certain emotions that don’t cause but are caused. This drama, transposed onto the masculine body, becomes an expressive display and an emotive affect. It gets treated as a passive vessel, embodying vulnerability or frustration that only finds release as a stance. In other words, JoJo men don’t do drama, they are drama.

More important than the JoJo pose as narrative device is the JoJo pose as a sexual display. To put it plainly, what causes the men of JoJo to be so incredibly fucky? I think part of the answer can be found in the conception of the poses themselves. It’s no secret that Araki uses real model references as basis, which is fine, but the poses he selects have an incredible sexualising effect on the final bodies. Main example below, but here are two other ones.

DIO’s most well-known pose was inspired by a model in Jean Patou’s Couture Collection

The pose on the right can be considered, through a lens of heterosexual male desire, as feminine. It is a stance outlined by temptation, sultriness, and mystery. With her fingers curled in beckon, it’s invitational. The woman, if you look closely, is peering over her shoulder and back at the viewer, as if confronting the spectator. Looking at someone who is looking back at you, especially when you don’t expect them to (her back is turned, after all!), is a confrontational encounter and an assumption of control/agency.

So what happens if you flip the pose to the series villain, DIO? In a sense, he adopts femininity as a choreographical principle while retaining conventional masculinity as an anatomical ideal (I mean, look at those muscles). The specific way of eroticisation is formulated through a lens of a dominant feminine sexuality as imagined and set up by heteronormative framing. Traditional male idealisation is often nude (bare-chested), but just a bare chest a sexy man does not make. Here, we can talk about something across from that: explicit male sexualisation. A masculine body is coded feminine, taking its place as the object of a straight male gaze. DIO becomes the desired, not the desiree. It is extremely homoerotic.

It also lacks vulnerability — his invitation is consensual and voluntary, nothing to take advantage of. There are no clear role division between who assumes an active role and whom the passive, who is the top and who the bottom.

(A side-scribble to DIO’s sexual control is that it goes far beyond the boundaries of his own body and that of others, which, to a point, makes it regrettably predatory. Many of the minor villains working for him in Part 3: Stardust Crusaders are under his control because of an organic tentacle device imbedded in their brain, very much a coerced partaking in his sexuality. Thankfully, his hypnotic eroticism is the only example of this kind: an excess and, I think, an exception to the rule.)

FASHION

The boys of Part 5: Vento Aureo

Another highly important factor in JJBA is its approach to fashion. Clothes are meant to be worn, so fashion designers have to project it onto a body during the drafting process. From the moment an idea is conceived, there is an assumption made about the gender and form of the body wearing it. Herein, the pervasiveness of binary gender norms dictates which bodies get to wear which clothes — or, formulated differently, which parts of a gendered body should remain covered up. Mainstream fashion is keen on sexualising feminine bodies, but doesn’t appeal much to (commercialise) the depth of masc sexuality. It only really offers suits, jeans, and navy blue shirts with prints like ‘Colorado Highway 1988 Big Stinky Burger’.

Keep in mind that roughly 150 years ago, European and American upper-class men were wearing feathered coats and brightly-coloured tights with belts wrapped around their calves to show off they fine, thick legs. Though this fashion of the bourgeoisie is rooted in a classist differentiation, it seems that in modern market societies a gendered differentiation has replaced it. Indeed, since the concurrent invention of straightness, we live in a sad reality that doesn’t let mascs wear skirts or be slutty without being branded feminine, like it’s a bad thing. Cis men don’t get to access their femininity because of homophobia, and trans men/masc NB people don’t get to because of transphobia.

Thankfully, JoJo provides us with both men that are plenty slutty and men wearing skirts (Anasui). Much like the poses, the clothes that certain characters wear are references to fashion shows, kink catalogues, and haute couture. There’s so much overlap, Araki actually collaborated with fashion house Gucci!

The men have amazing hair and wear revealing clothes. Their materials, accessories, colours, and patterns suggest that a vibrant fetish culture has merged with mainstream fashion, that open sexuality has won over shame. Shame on this axis seems to be eradicated entirely: there is literally no instance in the 30+ years of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure where a character makes a remark about another character’s style choices. Not as a quip or a gag, not even when schoolboys Josuke and Okuyasu adjust their school uniforms to their own personal preferences (Josuke grafts golden hearts and chains to it and Okuyasu is covered in money symbols).