What was Sean thinking?
You can kind of see the logic.
In retrospect Sean Connery was the first of a new kind of masculine icon. Bodybuilders turned actors (Connery placed 3rd in Mr Universe) who expressed an ever more exaggerated masculinity.
So Sean Connery starring in Zardoz isn’t all that different from Jason Momoa starring in Aquaman.
Except there’s a huge difference.
Sean Connery couldn’t see what is obvious today. That the waxed steroid pumped bodies of Marvel and DC superheroes aren’t really for women
they’re for other men.
Hypermuscularity is an indicator to male audiences that the star is above them, is a man of superior status that can be admired as an icon, and a fantasy of masculinity.
Sean just looks too much like a real man to fulfill that fantasy for other men. And so he becomes instantly ridiculous.
Even if Sean had followed the Momoa Workout for 6 months before Zardoz, audiences in the 1970s would still have tittered at the red nappy.
But 50 years later in the 2020s our culture is now obsessed with the hypermuscular male body. It seems that as men lose status and self-esteem, the masculine icons get bigger and more absurd.
Damien Walter 