Actor Dolph Lundgren as He-Man in the movie ‘Masters of the Universe’
Photo: Golan-Globus/Cannon Film

He-Man Is My Gender Icon

By the power of Greyskull, he made me a man

Humungus
Published in
8 min readAug 9, 2020

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Thirty-three years ago last week I begged my mother to take me to see the movie Masters of the Universe, a big-budget adaptation of a cartoon series based on a popular collection of toys about a neverending battle between the heroes and villains of a faraway space kingdom.

The movie starred Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, the musclebound hero of Eternia. The Swedish actor — and chemical engineer — had become famous a few years prior as Soviet bad guy Ivan Drago Rocky IV. He seemed perfect: he was blonde and muscular and blonde. The Masters of the Universe filmmakers then turned to a celebrated and serious stage actor to play their supervillain.

I do not know any other way to write this, but Frank Langella acts the hell out of Skeletor, a living skull with evil plans and a cape. He-Man’s greatest enemy is a flamboyant Grim Reaper played by the award-winning star of stage and screen—one hopes he was paid well.

Langella’s Skeletor is all camp and fury. His performance is enthusiastic. Playful. He…

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John DeVore
Humungus

I created Humungus, a blog about pop culture, politics, and feelings. Support the madness: https://johndevore.medium.com/subscribe