Macho Camp

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
You, ordinary guy, are a sissy girl in their eyes.

Every man ought to be a macho macho man

Have the kinda body always in demand
—The Village People, "Macho Man"

Usually in most Western media, a man who is Camp Gay is of thin or average build. Not so here. Macho Camp is what you get when a Camp Gay character looks large and muscular, most often to bodybuilder level builds. Some are in the Transparent Closet, and vehemently deny their gayness, while others are quite open about it, but one thing's for sure: it's really not something you want to tease them about. They do have muscles on muscles, after all.

Though the trope usually involves campy behavior, such characters are also often portrayed as being so overly manly that it becomes impossible to take seriously. These types tend to be prone to flexing and talking about how macho they are, all the while being a rather obvious gay stereotype.

This stereotype is somewhat more common in Japan (where it has become the default gay stereotype, as fashion-conscious pretty boys are more associated with heterosexuals there) than in the US, but is still seen in Western media. Almost always Played for Laughs, such characters are often introduced to be Comic Relief, or to hit on the straight guy who can do little to stop it.

See also: Camp Gay. Contrast with Invisible to Gaydar. If a muscular-looking character is gay, but not a stereotype, then he's Manly Gay.

Examples of Macho Camp include:

Anime and Manga

  • Scarron from The Familiar of Zero.
  • Muscle Okama from Zettai Karen Children. Besides the leather getup, his psychic ability is crotch beams. As if calling a Macho Camp character "okama" weren't enough...
  • Despite the large number of cute Petting Zoo People girls in the show and Keita's clear interest in them, Inukami! has plenty of manservice in the form of Hard Gays; disturbingly so. Keita is on the receiving end of most of it, and is respected among the fetish and hard gay communities. The show has plenty of Censor Steam in the form of elephants on top of all this. It even goes so far as to give these men their own version of the ending once.
  • Parodied in the Fan Service showdown in Aoi House In Love!
  • Borderline case: Gateau Mocha from Sorcerer Hunters. More exactly, a Hard Bisexual who loves to flirt with not only girls but with his friend Marron, a very girly-looking bishonen. Even more in the dubs.
  • In Bleach, one of Barragan's fraccion is the very flamboyant, yet very muscular Charlotte Cuuhlhorne. Though there is a small chance he may just be a crossdresser...
  • Fullmetal Alchemist's Garfiel. Though he might be more of a Camp Gay character depending on how you interpret him (he even cross-dresses from time to time and has an over-the-top feminine walk).
  • It's somewhat doubtful that Geki Hyuuma, the comm-crushing, tanktop-spacesuit-wearing, ever-flexing (even in space) Lancer of GaoGaiGar's Gutsy Galaxy Guard is actually gay. But it is certain that he takes this trope as far as his Hot Bloodedness, which is to say that eleven is a good start.
  • Hapshiel the Angel from Macademi Wasshoi. Finea, Eneus' little sister, is repeatedly sent to him by Eitarou in episode nine and, despite the scarring she most likely got from seeing a muscular man in very little kiss her multiple times over, keeps going back.
  • In the Distant Finale of Dragon Ball Z, Trunks is horrified to discover that his opponent (named Otokosuki, or "man-love") looks Manly Gay but acts Camp Gay and is positively thrilled that Trunks is such a pretty young man.
    • Trunks himself does his best to skirt this trope, what with being a musclebound Dragon Ball Z character, his extreme attachment to his "best friend" Goten and his seeming indifference to girls.
    • General Blue of the Red Ribbon Army from Dragon Ball also comes across as both Camp and Hard Gay (but calling him gay is his Berserk Button). General Blue, the humorously homosexual, yet frighteningly powerful villain who gives Goku a run for his money until he is killed by billion-zeni mercenary Tao Pai Pai.
  • Lussuria from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. See also Depraved Homosexual and Camp Gay.
  • Mokoyama from Yakitate!! Japan is a big muscle-man who's into crochet and baking pastries, and likes to refer to his rival Ken Matsuhiro as "Ken-chan".
  • Alain Delon in Beelzebub is turning (maybe Flanderization?) into such a Camp Gay, with touches of Gayngster, working for Hell and all. There may still be Obfuscating Stupidity at work, but nothing's sure.


Film


Literature

  • Laharl's uncle Vesuvius from the Disgaea novels is a very feminine macho man. He talks like a women and literally wear pink, but it unknown if he is truly gay because he is married to a women, a really horrible women at that. Though it just might be because he is such a masochist and she is a Torture Technician.
  • Mua, the huge, muscular valet to the Dancers in "Cata", the John Ringo and Jody Lyn Nye story in the Shared Universe book Exile: Clan of the Claw. Interesting twist in that he's a non-human version of this being a feline humanoid. Word to the wise, do not hurt his lover Emero or he will get Bronze Age on your ass.


Machinima

  • Montrose from Leet World is this and Camp Gay, with his character model being with bared, muscled arms and a bandana, being called the best shot on the Terrorist team aside from Cortez by Cortez, and having an unforgettable comeback line—but he has said something which really make you say "gay." And was the character most pre-concerned with cleaning up the house.


Music Videos


Professional Wrestling

  • Wrestlers with particularly flamboyant stage personalities get accused of this even if its not part of their angle. One of the earliest was Ric Flair (who would often make his entrance in floor length sequined coats with fur trimming).


Video Games

  • In Final Fantasy VII's famous Honeybee Inn sequence, if Cloud chooses the "Group Room", he ends up stuck in a room full of these types.
  • Breath of Fire often tend to feature battles with muscly, oily men in speedos... often with absolutely no explanation whatsoever.
  • An enemy type in Elona. Despite the name, the Hard Gay has the appearance of a punk or gang member (also enemy types), and explodes on contact as their primary and only method of attack, making them almost no different from the Kamikaze Samurai.
  • Cho Aniki is largely based on this, especially the later games. Nearly nude muscle men fly around space shooting gooey energy out of their phallic heads to do battle with other naked space monsters that are usually conglomerations of big muscular men with fairy wings or something. Please see here for a comprehensive analysis of this series. It's something that should not be missed. Really.
  • Muscle March.
  • Konami's Violent Storm side-scrolling beat'em up has Julius, who even ATTACKS BY FLEXING. Beauty Is Power indeed.
  • Silver and Gold from God Hand. They look Manly Gay, they act Camp Gay. It's funny until they start beating the ever-loving hell out of you.
  • Jean Armstrong from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations is a beefy fellow obsessed with aromatherapy, the color pink, and other feminine things. He even refers to himself as a woman (occasionally, he obviously does not believe he is a woman), and flirts with both Phoenix and Godot fairly blatantly.
  • Kanji from Persona 4 is afraid of being seen as this, or even stereotypically gay, just because he's, well... confused. Unfortunately for him, his Shadow plays it up for all that its worth, with a boss fight against it in the form of a muscle-bound body, a rose bouquet for a head (which is the 'gay male' flower), and Shadow-Kanji's naked torso hanging out of it, escorted by two Cho Aniki-style bosses.
  • Chousen, the Genderflipped version of Diao Chan in Koihime Musou. Enjoy the Nighmare Fuel, kids!
    • Let's not forget half of Kessen II's cast is running dangerously close with extravagance piled upon muscles piled upon extravagance. And funny hats.
  • Joachim Valentine carries a noticable aura that says basically, "just because I'm gay doesn't mean I can't crush your bones." The Great Gama too for that matter.
    • In the same game, you unlock another character's special modes by paying a Camp Gay tailor with trading cards of men.
  • In Super Gem Fighter, Sakura has a special attack that summons a bunch of Macho Camp men to grab the opponent, run offscreen with him, and... well, whatever it is that they're doing to him, it involves about 20 hits of damage...
    • And when the affected character (male or female) was thrown back onto the screen they looked like they actually enjoyed it.
  • The third game in the Streets of Rage series had a Hard Gay miniboss named Ash who ran around, bodyslammed you and then giggled like a little girl. When you beat him, he'd sit on the ground and cry. After beating him, you could use him as a player character. For obvious reasons, he was Dummied Out of the US version although it was still possible to play him using game genie codes.
  • A very distinct version of this trope, the often crazy Mystical Ninja Goemon game series. The psychics that tell you where to go to advance the story are wearing very little, surrounded by dancing, buff male statues. Similarly, the game "punishes" you for getting a game over by showing the "Continue?" option surrounded scantily clad men hulu-hooping at you. I'm not kidding.
  • Gallacher from Absolute Obedience is an example, and the only main character to not actually engage in any of the sex scenes. Which isn't all that surprising, given the target audience.
  • Ryan Yamazaki in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle. He's fittingly the owner of a gym and gives Travis Training from Hell while also flirting with him.


Western Animation

  • He-Man, the titular hero of He Man and The Masters of The Universe, has often been interpreted as such, as his character design seemed based around revealing as much skin as was legal in a G-rated cartoon, and in his civilian garb he wore a pink shirt. Many camera shots also seem intended to have shown his flesh, but his onscreen behavior sometimes did, and sometimes did not, corroborate the fan theory.
  • The second Johnny Bravo pilot ends with the titular character getting stranded on an entire island of them. Needless to say, after trying to score with an entire tribe of Hot Amazon women, this was most certainly NOT what he was hoping for.
  • The Simpsons: "Homer's Phobia"' featured a number of this type at a steel mill. Homer had thought that seeing American Joe's hard at work would "cure" Bart of his (believed) homosexuality. It didn't. "We work hard - we play hard!"

Bart: Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?
Homer: I... don't know.

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