Skeletor: Spectre of Death--OR Needlessly Sexy Skeleton-man...?
- Cordelia
- Jan 21, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 10, 2019
As ever, Skeletor remains a fascinating subject. I've only recently started watching the old "He-man and the Masters of the Universe" Filmation cartoon series from the 80's, to discover this strange, nearly-naked and needlessly buff skull-man.
Just what is going on here?
I mean it--just what exactly was intended?
The series is beautifully rich with accidental gayness, and yet seems confoundingly unaware of itself. This is also true of the classic She-ra "sister" series, and extends to characters far beyond Skeletor himself.
For reasons unknown, the creators evidently decided that every dude in Eternia should be super buff, almost naked, and sort of kinkily dressed.
Even (or, rather, especially) the monster-dudes.
You can see this, right? Skeletor and his gang are weirdly, needlessly sexy monster-dudes. Everyone is like 90% naked, except for the underwear, kinky straps, and high boots.
Maybe this is kind of He-man's fault. I mean, clearly he started the whole "barbarian" thing.
Those furry underpants. Those weird kinky armor straps that don't protect the vital organs. The absolute lack of pants, and yet the presence of high, furry barbarian boots...
And yet it's Skeletor who seems to get all the butt-shots.
He totally feels like the kind of villain who could really, REALLY use a cape. He'd just make so much more sense with a cape, to the extent that his lack of a cape seems somehow like a deliberate, intentional omission.
Anyway, it's not like it's even just the cartoon show. If anything, the original action figure line is even further down on the Kinsey scale.
Like check these dudes OUT!! They're SO KINKY!! They look like they belong on a Chippendales calendar. The action figures also reveal an interesting little secret about their armor straps:
It's a MAN-BRA!!!!
Which brings me back to Skeletor. I mean, what is up with all those back muscles? Those rippling biceps and thighs?! And of course, as the poet says, "dat ass"...?!
I mean, this is, without question, clearly a needlessly sexy Skeleton-man.
And yet, he is also the Specter of Death.
(Don't look too deeply into his eyes. Yikes.)
But the Skeletor action figure still contains yet another layer to his many fascinating secrets...
...He has NIPPLES!
It's ridiculous enough for a skeleton-man to have a six-pack. What is he doing with NIPPLES?! Skeletor doesn't have nipples on the cartoon show.
But in the action figure meant for 5 year old children to take home and play with? Yep, he's got two well-defined, hand-sculpted nips.
I mean... this is kind of indisputable proof: Skeletor is, in literal, sculpted actuality, sexier than Barbie.
...What is going ON...?
For what it's worth, I kind of look to Skeletor now as a feminist hero. The He-man series, by sheer accident and an improbable level of creative obliviousness, created a world in which men were accidentally sexualized WAY more than women.
While strange that this happened in a kid's cartoon show, it was, for once, a nice counterweight to the usual way women bear the burden of sexuality in most media. Some people complain about this by saying we should sexualize women less in movies and TV shows. I disagree.
I have always thought that a much better solution would be to start sexualizing men in equal measure. And somehow, by some implausible combination of circumstances, that is exactly what the original He-Man cartoon series managed to do by accident.
And, somehow, without any of the creative people in charge seeming to notice.
They created a world in which men were not only visibly, (if accidentally) over-sexualized, but in which any man of any kind, monsters and skull-faces notwithstanding, could be as sexy as he wanted to be--could choose not to wear a cape and show his ass to the camera as much as he desired, could have man-bras and nipples in action figure form, and who, perhaps unconsciously, sent the same subtle message to little boys that little girls receive all the time: that their gender is sexy, too.
It doesn't matter what you look like. You could have blue skin and a skull for a face. It's all in the way you carry yourself.
Comments