Beefcake Babylon: An Entire Exhibit Devoted to Loincloth

Next week will see the launch of “Beefcake Babylon: The Iconography of Sword and Sandal Epics,” a Los Angeles exhibit dedicated to the 1950s and 60s era of where bodybuilders were thrown into acting roles and minted as cultural icons. Perhaps the most famous was Steve Reeves, who played Zeus in 1958′s Le Fatiche di Ercole — known to American audiences as Hercules. Along with Reeves, “Beefcake Babylon” will showcase movie posters, photographs, and memorabilia of other actors and films of the “peplum” film epoch. The selected images – “chosen … for their eroticism and beauty from the most noteworthy films which deserve reappraisal in this overlooked genre – will be on display July 14th through Sept. 23. And the imagery? It’ll last in our dreams at least that long.

Beefcake Babylon

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