Hey Pretty Boy...

To Youngblood, winning wasn't everything - proving himself was.

Sooo... there's a hazing scene near the beginning of 1986's Youngblood. In the locker room, 17 year old Dean Youngblood (Rob Lowe) is grabbed by his teammates, held down and stripped.  Then, teammate Derek Sutton, (Patrick Swayze) uses a jock-strap as a doctor's mask, picks up a scalpel, then shaves off Dean's pubic hair.

I have seen bits and pieces from the 1986 Peter Markle directed film many times, especially the scene with Rob Lowe in a jock strap.  I hadn't however, actually seen the movie in it's entirety until last weekend.  I think I avoided watching the flick thinking it was a sports movie.   I'm a big sports fan, especially hockey, a game I played, but I usually don't get into sport focused films.  This film, really wasn't a sports movie.

I was actually pretty surprised how blatantly homoerotic Youngblood actually was.  The first thirty minutes looked as if it was directed by David DeCoteau.  Shirtless locker room scenes, towel snaps, jockstraps and tons of close-ups of Rob Lowe dripping with sweat.  The second half of the movie was a bit more straightforward with it's hockey focus, but the first half was all about getting as many hot shots and angles of the leads pretty face and body as they possibly could.

I have to admit, although I've always thought Rob Lowe was handsome, I never really appreciated his beauty until recently.  When I was a kid watching his 80's films on VHS, I usually preferred his co-stars.  I was more into Andrew McCarthy than Lowe who I didn't really think was especially talented.  He was hot no doubt, but the fact he seemed to know it was a bit of a turn off.  Like so many actors however, my appreciation for Lowe, as an actor, and as object of lust, has grown as I've gotten older.

Lowe isn't the only hottie in the film.  In addition to Lowe and Swayze, Youngblood also featured Keanu Reeves and Jim Youngs, (who I previously featured HERE:) as Lowe's older brother. Although Dean Youngblood has a female love interest, (Cynthia Gibb) the main relationship, well, the one that gets the homoerotic bonding montages, are between Lowe and Swayze.

If you want to see more from the film, including Lowe's embarrassment scene in just his wet jock-strap, check out the NEXT PAGE HERE: