This 1950s workout video is absurdly homoerotic

Poor Hal Thomas. The twinky stud was a full-time student and worked at night filing papers — leaving him tense and irritable. His life was stressful, boring, and sedentary. Hal needed a release!

Thankfully, he met with a physical education instructor and learned a few… exercises.

“Physical activity can provide excellence release from nervous tensions,” says the reassuring narrator.

Finally, Hal was going to “blow off some steam” — at least according to the exercise textbook he was reading.

This Coronet Instructional Film, which was released to public schools in 1949, is written in gay code. Ostensibly, it’s about the importance of exercise. The 20-minute film follows three seemingly strapping young adults–Ernie Allen, Hal Thomas and Jean Taylor–who all need to incorporate more physical activity into their daily lives.

Ernie was sick all the time; Jean struggled to make friends; Hal needed to decompress. They all read that playing sports and “working out” was a solution for their ills.

But in reality, this instructional video — that’s what it’s called! — is absurdly homoerotic.

The film begins with one chiseled twink holding another chiseled twink upright on his thighs. They’re both wearing tight white tank tops and cute little workout shorts. Their packages are showing. They are completely hairless.

“There, that’s real balance and poise,” the stiff-sounding narrator says.

That’s one way to put it.

Coronet was the company that shot and distributed all of those cheesy, black-and-white social-guidance films to public schools in the mid-2oth century. They were mostly shot in 16mm format and feature that same singsongy narrator.

Every male actor is boyishly handsome and very, very white.

It must be acknowledged: this video about “physical activity” is indicative of a racist time. Shot in 1949–15 years before the passing of the Civil Rights Act–there is no variation in the on-screen talent, and it is laughably cheesy.

But there is a strong whiff of homoeroticism to the entire production — in that suppressed, post-WW2-era way. The boys, Ernie and Hal, are well-toned, handsome and dressed like they’re ready to exercise at Mussel Beach in Provincetown.

The story is downright pornographic, in that coded 1950s sorta way. The narrator says Hal was “all work and no play,” and needed an “outlet for his emotions–something more strenuous.”

So after learning a few exercises, he joined the same acrobatics club as Ernie. What a coincidence!

When Ernie is introduced, the narrator says he has a “well-developed body.”

Mhhhhmm …

This is how the narrator describes sports, emphasis mine:

“Athletic sports involve team-play and team competition, and so are especially good ways of building health, and releasing emotional attention. These activities bring large groups of muscles into action, and train groups of muscles to work together.”

I mean, come on!

Conservatives who reminiscence about the 1950s should watch this video. It is gayer than anything kids will see at drag story hour and we are so, so, so glad it exists!

Watch.