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Charles Collins was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was raised to have good morals and values and lived his life as a kindly person. He thought his life was perfect. Everything was seemingly in order, and he never questioned this perfection. Until Richard. Richard was an openly gay man who was so beautiful in all his masculinity one had to do a double take when they saw him—and this was both women and men. It was no different for Charles. This was when Charles realized his life was not perfect in the way he was led to believe and lived. He had to make a choice to live his life as he had been taught or live his life according to his heart. These are the trials and tribulations of Charles Collins.
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Exam board: AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas, WJEC Level & Subject: GCSE English Literature First teaching: September 2015 First examination: June 2017
HIRAETH engages boldly with masculinity - its origins, how it shapes relations and individual identity - however it is also undeniably queer. Through framing, lighting and pose, Collins evokes a queer masculine desire of his subjects. They are young, able bodied and traditionally beautiful, and almost-exclusively white, positioning the images in a tradition of high end gay erotica. (These sorts of publications, waning now due to the collapse of print media, would often draw on Classical references, seen also in HIRAETH, to refer to an imagined history where same-sex attraction was not only permitted but celebrated.) Hand in hand with queerness is the visual vocabulary of camp, Collins' images demonstrating a fixation on luxurious materials, decorative details, and other 'feminised' aesthetics. The traditional masculine archetypes depicted are thus complicated by a desire both to attain their status, and to consummate a union. Collins articulates the oft-contradictory relationship that queer men have with masculinity, one of repulsion and desire, of exclusion from the patriarchy and the desire to be loved and accepted.