Exclusive! Not! Nicola Formichetti’s NSFW X-Tube Thierry Mugler Video, “Brothers of Arcadia,” eXamined in Amazing Detail!

“Brothers of Arcadia” (NSFW) is the artsy/sexy video by Nicola Formichetti for fashion disastah-lady-gone-body-builder-&-Groom-of-Bride-of-Wildenstein-look-a-like, Thierry Mugler. In the early 90s, Mugler hit it big when former Julie Newmar minced down Mugler’s runway and he dressed Linda Evangelista in day-glo dresses with big shoulder pads.

Formichetti made this campaign video, NYMag.com writes, “for his new Mugler menswear collection, chopped it up into photos and cryptic clips, and then sprinkled them around the web for bloggers to scrabble over.” No scrabbling here, we just searched X-Tube and found the video, all pastiche & 80’s attitude and cast with Nick Scotti look-a-likes (standing in for Madonna in “Cherish.”) Making a 6:09 minute video about underwear & chains takes some moxie.

Here’s my blow-x-blow. Sorry about the detailed analysis, but this deserves close eXamination:

The opening of Formichetti’s B&W “piece” begins with a sequence (waves! slo-mo hunks running in the water! bouncing bulges in lycra!) that kind of made me want to click … CLOSE.

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B-b-b-b-b then … THE BUTT. This one’s amazing, made possible by genetics you probably (I certainly don’t) have, and carved from a combination of extreme dieting, and living the gym.

But/butt that’s just a tease. Like a flirty girl, Nicola doesn’t continue with full frontal, he cuts back to the clingy black, lycra male bikini suit shots. The models wrestle/wrasl’ in the sand/surf, sublimating their desire to strip, and do the nasty like characters from Bret Easton Ellis’ 1998 Glamorama.*

When the sand starts getting tossed, the B&W blinks to color (!). This moment made me less hot & bothered than sad for Cindy Lauper. Why can’t these boys just “Justify Their Love”? Maybe b.c. they’re all Yale graduates chosen by Nichola for their interests in “baroque, and classical architecture, and sculpture everywhere,” and thus are so pure, they don’t know they’re “Born This Way”? A video truce is declared, and there’s lots of intense, beautiful boy emo angst (twisting of thick chains, and sullen looks – awwww!)

Moving off the beach, the action cuts to what looks like a late 80’s male brothel staffed with the same boys. Now everything’s in color (lurid!). A “subtle” threat of some sex and violence is present in the “provocative” bow & arrow pointed by a Hermes type hottie at a gender indeterminate Peggy Moffitt look-alike.

Pulling away, the joke’s on … the you! This isn’t dangerous! Nichola has tricked us! This is a … send-up of soft corn “porn,” circa late 80’s, overseen by a b-ball cap wearing auteur (director) waving his arms (he’s in Twilo but doesn’t know that it’s closed?). The costumes have been “styled” and the black bikini’s “accesorized” with calf high, black motorcycle boots. Rad!

But what’s a homosocial video without some male bonding and female degradation? An Anka Radakovich (the Details magazine sex columnist who was famous for her “startled” look, and blow up doll red mouth, and Betty Page looks) lookalike gets on her knees while the angsty emo boys pour bottles of Evian on her face. No – wait! – she’s not a victim! She’s a gladiatoress! Insert pix of fighting lions here (pick up shots from David Bowie’s Cat People) and cut back to her Faster Pussy Cat Kill! meets a (female) Ben-Hur. Those necklaces, twisted to such great beautiful affect, are made of super strength tensil metal–they double as chariot gear! And Anka’s the driver!

So where’s the X in all this? 3:48: The angsty emo boy’s stroking (briefly!) before plowing the Anka look-a-like. She loves it & shows her appreciation by dousing his face with breast milk. I worry: Is he lactose intolerant? And, if this is a porn hommage, should he be the one dousing her face? Oh, this isn’t porn, it’s “fashion,” and therefore meant to confuse. More butt/motorcycle boot/breast milk shots (yawn).

4:00:  There’s…. some low hangers! And gold chains! And fondling of man self! He likes to watch – himself. If I looked like that, I would totally ignore everyone else, too. Obligatory porn mag flipping (angsty boy wearing a metal hat, and feigning boredom flipping through porn), shower scene and shaving scene shot. Close-ups of nipples and razor blades. (Formichetti’s hinting this an anti-cutting video?) Feet are washed & lavished with some extra special, Shrimp love.

The End.

At 4:46, roll credits, a full MINUTE AND 15 SECONDS worth. Yes. A six minute video with feature length credits. And what have I learned? Tossed sand triggers shazaam blinking between B&W, and color, and angsty boys close their eyes when people run their hands through their hair because their took some bad LSD and are waiting for Madonna? Me, too.

*”They’re not like, g-a-y,” Madison Moore wrote on ThoughtCatalog .”It’s just sex, which is how I think it should be.” Ellis’ Glamorama features model/terrorists, and closet case model, “Victor Ward” in a steamy three way (Chapter 28, pgs. 334-340) on a yacht with “Bobby” & “Jaime.” Totally hot, flagged, and worth keeping within reach on on your nightstand when you tire of Mugler vidoes and/or RocketTube.com.

Tomas Mournian is the author of the novel, Hidden, available at Amazon.com and great online bookstores everywhere.