Tom of Finland

I have never been a fan of the drawings of Tom of Finland, skillfully executed but to my mind grotesque caricatures of gay sex role models, from leather bikers to sadistic cops, all with bubble butts and humongous genitalia. However, they were phenomenally popular; when I was in California in the mid-1970s, researching my biography of Christopher Isherwood, they seemed to be everywhere. Until yesterday, however, I had virtually no idea about the man behind these homoerotic works, but after watching Dome Karukoski’s biopic of the artist Touku Laaksonen, Tom of Finland, at the ICA, I feel wiser and more positively inclined. A decorated officer in the Second World War, mainly fighting the Russians, Laaksonen found it difficult to adjust to civilian life as a gay man in a particularly homophobic environment. That environment only improved gradually and it is no exaggeration to say that Tom of Finland helped the cause of “gay liberation”, which really started in America, where he briefly rode the crest of a wave of success before the whole scene was clouded by the arrival of HIV/AIDS. One might imagine that this subject matter would make for grim, even sordid, viewing, but in fact Karukoski’s film is beautifully and sensitively constructed and features a stellar central performance by Pekka Strang in the title role. Laaksonen was clearly a very thoughtful as well as talented man who dared to express himself in a way that would inevitably at first provoke outrage and censorship, but which later became an important part of the counter-culture of the second half of the 20th century.