Glen Powell’s GQ photoshoot is a satiric look at modern day males—and he’s in on the joke
Is the modern man simply a gym-going, power-seeking, protein-hungry guy? The idea of masculinity, in real life and on the internet, has become a somewhat strange and loaded battleground. While it’s important for conversations about the dangers of the manosphere to be had, it’s also important to be in on the jokes that make up its centre and orbit around it.
That’s exactly what the October GQ magazine spotlights. The latest issue reports on the state of the American male in 2025, and sees cover star Glen Powell have a bit of fun with the idea of hyper-obsession around self-optimisation.
Powell can confidently be described as a Hollywood heartthrob, but who needs to see more images of him looking as though he’s being photographed accepting his trophy for Sexiest Man Alive? What GQ have done is intriguing; it’s not just weighing in on existing conversations, it’s ‘New Masculinity’ issue challenges stereotypes and highlights the struggles that men face in a way that hasn’t been seen before.
GQ reports on the state of the American male in 2025
The images show Powell dressed up in various hyper-masculine roles and situations. He’s pictured as an overly shiny and preened Americana Ken Doll politician, he’s on the hospital bed waiting to be surgically enhanced, he’s an Ibiza final boss lookalike taking selfies, a vaping cowboy, an egg-guzzling gym bro, and he dons an exaggerated muscle suit to accentuate his bulging biceps, thighs, calves, and Calvin Klein package for the cover. The images may get weirder and weirder, but audiences are realising that GQ and Powell are attempting to tackle difficult realities with a bit of satire.
While some people are reacting to the photoshoot of the Hit Man and Twisters star, saying he looks like Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants, many others are celebrating the issue.
As @blakelythornton explains on TikTok, the GQ images elicit an immediate reaction and tell a relevant cultural story for today’s man. They are “original, introspective, and somewhat grotesque.”
@blakelythornton ♬ G.Rossini, Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Overture - AllMusicGallery
But, as the video adds, it is also a clever move from Powell and his team. The user explains: “After 2024, there were certainly no more ways to play a traditionally attractive photoshoot of him. Even the cute photos [in the GQ shoot] take the piss out of his leading man image while saying something about the state of what some would call the toxicity of modern masculinity. Because from what I see in the industry, the celebrities who last don’t take themselves that seriously. To be of the culture, you must be in on the joke.”
Glen Powell is not ‘Mr Cool’—but he’ll play him in films
And Powell is fully in on it. In the accompanying interview, he discusses being cast as the cocky guy, the love interest who is a bad boy you don’t want to take home to meet the parents, like in Anyone But You, where he starred opposite Sydney Sweeney. He admits that he has never been “Mr Cool” in real life. And adds: “What’s funny is you start getting cast in certain things—like Hangman [in Top Gun] is not me, right? I’m not that guy.”
The article may also describe him as having “old-fashioned masculine competency,” “alpha energy,” and add that Powell “feels like a man.” But he believes “vulnerability is the greatest sense of masculinity. Not acting like nothing hurts and not trying to act like that journey is painless.”
Powell looks like the epitome of masculinity, but he also thinks “it’s cool and tough to be open and vulnerable.” Hopefully, this encourages others to take his view, prying them away from worshipping at the feet of men like Andrew Tate.
