The Problem(s) with the Best Guess Music Video

on queer masculinity, the boxes we put ourselves in, men as our teachers

Enough people have already talked about the beige and skinny casting of Lucy Dacus’ music video for her new song, Best Guess, so I don’t need to get too far into it. Yes, there are mascs of color, but as many have pointed out, everyone passes the “paper bag test.” There are no dark-skinned folks to be found. Also, no studs. Or fat butches. Despite the fact that there were many auditions / submissions from people with these identities. Disappointing, yet unfortunately, unsurprising.

Beyond that, I want to talk about the ways in which the video, which I think aims to celebrate queer masculinity, actually manages to severely limit it.

If you haven’t seen it, the music video has no plot or storyline. It’s a bunch of mascs in identical suits arm wrestling, flexing their jaws, bringing their thumb to their lips, running their hands through their boy band hair, winking, doing bicep curls, giving sex eyes to the camera, etc. They even have a push-up contest? And they play pool, of course, they play pool and are very good at it. Someone throws a dart—they get a bullseye.

We are, I think, supposed to be charmed and turned on, in love with them all.

But instead, I can’t help but cringe, and not the type of cringe that is evoked by something earnest or wholesome—I love that type of cringe—but cringe because it’s straight up embarrassing.

If I didn’t know any better, I might assume it was a parody of queer masculinity. Which! Might actually be saying something interesting! But no. Instead, the video is what I imagine masc finishing school might be like for a young masc coming into their own:

• Must learn to pout lips! And bite, too!

• Must engage in competition in public!

• Must show off physical prowess!

• Must get the assigned haircut! (maybe it’s more like boot camp than finishing school)

• Must store feelings in big muscles!

The thing is, if we were given a music video full of cis men doing the exact same thing as the queers in this video, most of us would mock it mercilessly. And for good reason. This type of masculinity feels like a perfectly curated performance, and because of this, it is, ultimately, lifeless and lacking humanity. Passionless in its pursuit of sex appeal, specifically a sex appeal that is limited to a centuries-long notion of what makes a man or masculine person “attractive.” Be strong, be suave, be cool, suave and cool often being a synonym for inexpressive. It’s a small box. A tiresome box to try to fit in.

There is one moment of true joy in the video that feels like it lives outside of a carefully curated and performed masculinity. One person, brown with buzzed hair, peels off their jacket and throws it off-camera. They begin to dance alone, freely and abundantly, uninhibited, shaking their hips, a huge smile splashed across their face. It feels, in many ways, like it doesn’t belong in the universe of the music video. The person is too unselfconscious, the person is too free.

Here’s part of the problem: many of us mascs learned masculinity from a young age from cis men. Most of us didn’t have the privilege of learning from an older butch or masc, one with expansive masculinity, one that is creative and overflowing and ever-changing.

First, I learned masculinity from my older brother, whose AOL Instant Messenger profile once said, “I want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed.” I learned about gold chains and muscle shirts and having big biceps. About being the best as basketball and inviting girls to my games to bear witness, to be seduced by my crossover and three-point shot. I watched the male basketball players at my school, studied how they walked, how they sat, how they leaned up against lockers, always nonchalant, never giving anything away. I watched how they moved through the crowded hallways, slowly and deliberately, like panthers parting high grass. Never moving for anyone, greeting friends with a cool guy nod or a dap.

First, I mirrored them to attract women, a copycat mating call. Then, I mirrored them to affirm my gender. Every day, still, I have to resist so many of these learned behaviors. Or, rather, I have to sift through the mess to determine what gives me genuine joy and euphoria and what feels like, I don’t know, a poorly-fit suit splashed in pheromones.

I find myself wondering, what good is queer masculinity if young queers are learning and imitating the very performances we inherited from cis men? The ones we didn’t even bother repackaging?

I want masculinity to be the opposite of planned, curated, and performed. I want it spontaneous, I want it messy, I want it shaking its ass, I want it tripping over its feet, I want it twirling, I want it giggling, I want it bright and funky and weird. I want it unpredictable. And I want it smiling, god dammit. Not smirking. Smiling.