Male Models: The Female of the Species
November 21, 2012 1:35 PM Subscribe
Casey Legler is 6'2" has a neck tattoo, dark partially shaved hair, and a successful career as a male model. Which makes her fairly unique.
She's a pretty fascinating woman even without the modeling;
Casey Legler’s route to the Olympics was hardly a straight one. She took a road less traveled, and that made all the difference to her.
She plans to embrace the Atlanta Games as a member of the French Olympic swim team in the 50-meter freestyle and the 400 freestyle relay with the same zest for life she has already shown in her first 19 years.
* * *
I’m an art-maker. I work in many mediums: video, still photography, painting, pen and ink work and large 3-dimensional sculptural pieces to name a few places the work has landed. The common thread, I suppose, is that the human form is present in almost all of my work. Similarly to when I was an athlete, I definitely still use my body as vehicle and inspiration (for those of you looking, this is one of the places where you connect the dots between modeling and my body of work). (wink)
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:44 PM on November 21, 2012
Casey Legler’s route to the Olympics was hardly a straight one. She took a road less traveled, and that made all the difference to her.
She plans to embrace the Atlanta Games as a member of the French Olympic swim team in the 50-meter freestyle and the 400 freestyle relay with the same zest for life she has already shown in her first 19 years.
* * *
I’m an art-maker. I work in many mediums: video, still photography, painting, pen and ink work and large 3-dimensional sculptural pieces to name a few places the work has landed. The common thread, I suppose, is that the human form is present in almost all of my work. Similarly to when I was an athlete, I definitely still use my body as vehicle and inspiration (for those of you looking, this is one of the places where you connect the dots between modeling and my body of work). (wink)
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:44 PM on November 21, 2012
She's pretty amazing, I now have a new crush!
posted by MaryDellamorte at 1:49 PM on November 21, 2012
posted by MaryDellamorte at 1:49 PM on November 21, 2012
How cool. It's like Butler's idea of gender performance which is so fascinating.
posted by cyml at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by cyml at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
One cannot have gradations of uniqueness, one either is or is not unique (To quote Simon Fisher, child prodigy).
posted by samworm at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by samworm at 1:59 PM on November 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
She and Andrej Pejic should do something together; it would be neat.
What, like breed a new form of perfect glorious superhumans that will either enslave or devour us all? No thanks, we barely missed that with Dolph Lundgren and Grace Jones.
posted by elizardbits at 2:03 PM on November 21, 2012 [47 favorites]
What, like breed a new form of perfect glorious superhumans that will either enslave or devour us all? No thanks, we barely missed that with Dolph Lundgren and Grace Jones.
posted by elizardbits at 2:03 PM on November 21, 2012 [47 favorites]
I'm going with the informal definition, the JD Salinger version.
we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger
posted by bitdamaged at 2:07 PM on November 21, 2012
we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger
posted by bitdamaged at 2:07 PM on November 21, 2012
She's an athlete, model, and artist and I'm not sure why but I find her utterly likable and not a bit intimidating for any of her impressive talents or stature - I just think she's really cool. It's not glamour or charisma, I'm pretty certain - I know how it feels to be ensnared by those. She seems like a genuinely lovely person.
posted by Lou Stuells at 2:14 PM on November 21, 2012 [11 favorites]
posted by Lou Stuells at 2:14 PM on November 21, 2012 [11 favorites]
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls.
It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world, except for Lola...
Bravo, madam, bravo.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:15 PM on November 21, 2012
It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world, except for Lola...
Bravo, madam, bravo.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:15 PM on November 21, 2012
To be fair, the extent of her work in modelling seems to be limited an announcement by an agent and the Time piece. By that metric I'm a model too. Or at least my googling is so terrible I can't find examples of her work.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:33 PM on November 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by Keith Talent at 2:33 PM on November 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
"it would be a really beautiful thing if we could all just wear what we wanted, without it meaning something.”
Wow. I am so engrained in gender norms that I never thought of such a world before. Now I long for it!
Neato: The Time Magazine site automatically appended quotes and a link to the article when I copy pasted the above. Effective, and not too obtrusive. Way to go Time.
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:34 PM on November 21, 2012
Wow. I am so engrained in gender norms that I never thought of such a world before. Now I long for it!
Neato: The Time Magazine site automatically appended quotes and a link to the article when I copy pasted the above. Effective, and not too obtrusive. Way to go Time.
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:34 PM on November 21, 2012
She and Andrej Pejic should do something together; it would be neat.
or James Varley.
posted by unliteral at 3:00 PM on November 21, 2012
or James Varley.
posted by unliteral at 3:00 PM on November 21, 2012
I would hesitate except that it seems to illustrate part of the point here -- at 3:01 there is pantied plumber's butt. I had a sort of peak gender dysphoria moment right there.
</malegaze>
posted by dhartung at 3:39 PM on November 21, 2012
</malegaze>
posted by dhartung at 3:39 PM on November 21, 2012
Good lord.
posted by fiercecupcake at 4:03 PM on November 21, 2012
posted by fiercecupcake at 4:03 PM on November 21, 2012
I'd vote for her as the next incarnation of The Doctor.
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 4:17 PM on November 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 4:17 PM on November 21, 2012 [7 favorites]
I would hesitate except that it seems to illustrate part of the point here -- at 3:01 there is pantied plumber's butt. I had a sort of peak gender dysphoria moment right there.
Would peak gender dysphoria mean that we're running out of uncomfortable or coercively-assigned gender roles? And soon there won't be enough to go around?
Because if so, oh man I WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:35 PM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Would peak gender dysphoria mean that we're running out of uncomfortable or coercively-assigned gender roles? And soon there won't be enough to go around?
Because if so, oh man I WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:35 PM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
What The Gender Industry Doesn't Want You To Know!
Sustainability tips: how to live without any gender whatsoever for weeks or months at a time!
A loopy-ass splinter group insisting that peak gender is a fraud! Vast untapped gender reserves are being hidden from us by a shadowy cabal of cross-dressers with like nine or ten genders apiece!
Weird post-apocalyptic sci-fi revenge fantasies, all like gloating over the riots and looting and panic we'll see as the mass-produced genders run out, and how we'll all be sitting in our bunkers with our guns and our homegrown heirloom genders laughing our asses off!
This is gonna be the best newsletter ever....
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:58 PM on November 21, 2012 [8 favorites]
Sustainability tips: how to live without any gender whatsoever for weeks or months at a time!
A loopy-ass splinter group insisting that peak gender is a fraud! Vast untapped gender reserves are being hidden from us by a shadowy cabal of cross-dressers with like nine or ten genders apiece!
Weird post-apocalyptic sci-fi revenge fantasies, all like gloating over the riots and looting and panic we'll see as the mass-produced genders run out, and how we'll all be sitting in our bunkers with our guns and our homegrown heirloom genders laughing our asses off!
This is gonna be the best newsletter ever....
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:58 PM on November 21, 2012 [8 favorites]
Awesome. Though she doesn't read as male to me; she reads as butch. I'm not sure I can articulate the difference, but I know it when I see it.
posted by rtha at 5:52 PM on November 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
posted by rtha at 5:52 PM on November 21, 2012 [12 favorites]
Actually what I think is the most interesting is that she is represented by a major modeling company as a "male model." Signs of progress?
posted by radioamy at 5:55 PM on November 21, 2012
posted by radioamy at 5:55 PM on November 21, 2012
She actually reads less butch than Jenny from the 90s; she rocks that fluidity in a way that is really fucking hot, like how she talks about how queens told her how to rock the heels and the dress. I want to do things with her and to her and for her.
posted by PinkMoose at 9:10 PM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by PinkMoose at 9:10 PM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
This is probably going to sound really strange, but one summer well over a decade ago I went down with a couple friends to visit another friend in Tucson. Near the college it's dead quiet that time of year, as all the students are gone. We'd walked up to the 7-11 to play some video games mid-afternoon and as we were leaving we check out these two cute girls who were leaving as well. It was about 10 blocks to my friend's place, and we took a random route back. One of the friends I was with decides to display both his angst for some girl he's pining for and his mad karate skills in breaking a rock with his fist. He failed, but as we are gathered around him at the curb, these two girls arrive, and we are right in front of their house. The neighborhood was like a ghost town, and amazingly, they invited the four of us in for beers. Eventually when it got dark, the girls invited us to go swimming. They said they did it all the time. Late Night. At the university pool. Naked. (For the record, it was dark and I am totally blind without my glasses.) After what seemed like an hour, we all made it back over the fence and managed to drive away before campus security got to there. (We'd spotted them coming.) But yeah, one of those girls was Casey. Studying architecture down there at the time, as I recall. How often do you meet someone so wickedly smart and tall who's on the French Olympic swimming team?
Btw, last I saw in Tucson earlier this year, the U of A pool seems just as easy to fence hop into.
posted by Catblack at 9:50 PM on November 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
Btw, last I saw in Tucson earlier this year, the U of A pool seems just as easy to fence hop into.
posted by Catblack at 9:50 PM on November 21, 2012 [6 favorites]
Damn.
Also, looking at that Ford Men page, I'd imagine she's in for some pretty considerable success, because about 3/4 of the men on that page have exactly the same face. Say what you will about female modeling, they at least go in for diversity in facial types -- on the Ford women's page, you have women with pointy faces, oval faces, round faces, square faces, long faces. On the men's, it's strictly the ol' chiseled rectangle. She stands out a mile in a really good way.
posted by ostro at 10:52 PM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Also, looking at that Ford Men page, I'd imagine she's in for some pretty considerable success, because about 3/4 of the men on that page have exactly the same face. Say what you will about female modeling, they at least go in for diversity in facial types -- on the Ford women's page, you have women with pointy faces, oval faces, round faces, square faces, long faces. On the men's, it's strictly the ol' chiseled rectangle. She stands out a mile in a really good way.
posted by ostro at 10:52 PM on November 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Love this story, and her.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 2:53 AM on November 22, 2012
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 2:53 AM on November 22, 2012
This, and Andrej Pejic, confuse me.
I need boxes to put people in.
Boxes!
posted by Mezentian at 3:29 AM on November 22, 2012
I need boxes to put people in.
Boxes!
posted by Mezentian at 3:29 AM on November 22, 2012
you put them in the sexy human box
posted by elizardbits at 8:18 AM on November 22, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by elizardbits at 8:18 AM on November 22, 2012 [6 favorites]
There is also a model named Erika Linder who does male and female modelling. Her photos with Andrej Pejic are amazing.
posted by 41swans at 9:07 AM on November 22, 2012
posted by 41swans at 9:07 AM on November 22, 2012
I'm not seeing that difference, ostro -- both pages look about the same to me, except the men have more clothing and last names.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:58 AM on November 23, 2012
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:58 AM on November 23, 2012
Oh, she's so lovely; I think I just got addicted to her laughter.
posted by desuetude at 10:00 PM on November 23, 2012
posted by desuetude at 10:00 PM on November 23, 2012
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Also making her unique: she was an Olympic swimmer for France.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:44 PM on November 21, 2012 [2 favorites]