Tom of Finland
Directed by Dome Karukoski
FINLAND’S official selection for Best Foreign Language film at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018 is the untold biography of one Touko Laaksonen (portrayed by Pekka Strang), known to the world, albeit only to the gay world, as “Tom of Finland.” Laaksonen’s erotic drawings shaped the fantasies of a generation of gay men who had lived in the closet for decades.
Born in 1921, Laaksonen served in World War II as a lieutenant in the Finnish army. Finland was on the Axis side, fighting against the Allies, which included its old enemy Russia. When Russia invaded Finland, Laaksonen’s platoon was defending the country from Soviet air attack. In one of the most graphic scenes in the movie—startling for such a gentle man—he kills a young Russian parachutist who has just landed, taking his enemy totally by surprise and stabbing him to death. The Russian’s traumatized face is a sight that Laaksonen can never get out of his mind. But the soldier’s face is not all that he remembers; there was also that uniform…
Laaksonen becomes obsessed with uniforms and powerful men in leather. His first sexual encounter takes place in the woods with his own squad leader, Captain Herriki, and the relationship becomes a lifelong bond. Laaksonen soon falls for a handsome young dancer named Veli, who has also caught the eye of his affectionate yet unenlightened sister Kaija, with whom he shares a flat.
Like the rest of Europe in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, Finland was sexually repressed, and gay men were hounded and hunted by the police, who raided night clubs, tea rooms, and cruising areas. Anyone caught in a restroom soliciting sex was the object of a beating and jail. The images of the repressed ’50s and ’60s in Europe are gray in color and tone, and that mood is captured perfectly. Laaksonen goes on a trip to Communist-controlled Berlin in the 1960s, his erotic drawings hidden in a secret compartment in his suitcase. In a gay bar, he meets a man who says he’s an American publisher who can help him get distributed in the USA. But after a night of sex, Laaksonen awakes to find not just his drawings but his passport and wallet stolen. He runs away from the hotel without paying and is quickly caught by the German police. They suspect not only a thief but also a homophile.
However, as a Finnish citizen, Laaksonen cannot be jailed if the Finnish embassy will vouch for him. An embassy official is unimpressed with his tale and doubts that he’s even Finnish. In desperation, he mentions the
name of his captain and says that he will verify that he’s an Army veteran. By chance, his captain is now a diplomat, and at great risk to his career, he gets Laaksonen out of Germany, and even invites him to come to his parties in Helsinki.
The second half of the film goes from gray to full color with Laaksonen’s arrival in Southern California. An American porn distributor named Doug and his lover Jack get a copy of Laaksonen’s drawings, and his new pseudonym, “Tom of Finland,” is born. Tom’s drawings depicting men heavy with leather and slickly polished boots, having huge muscles and sex organs, become a global hit, giving hope to gay guys who saw themselves as weak and puny. Tom of Finland’s hypermasculine men even add fuel to the nascent gay liberation movements. This, however, comes at a cost: Tom is later blamed, and blames himself, for stoking the AIDS epidemic by enticing gay men to put themselves at risk. However, his leather friends forgive him in some of the movie’s most poignant scenes.
This powerful film has some elements that are surprisingly un-PC. The porno moguls are unabashedly Jewish and venal, interested in only one thing—the almighty dollar. The only publisher willing to touch Tom’s work in the age of Reagan is a Hassidic L.A. man and his daughter. “We could go to jail for this,” he remarks. “Plus I need help. I only have my daughter.” “Don’t worry,” Doug replies; and in the next scene dozens of leather-clad “Toms” are helping with the binding and packaging of 10,000 copies of Tom’s new book. He was by now globally famous—though his enjoyment of this status would be short-lived. Laaksonen died of emphysema in 1991.
Finnish director Dome Karukoski, with the help of Scandinavian and German film commissions footing the bill, has produced a film that joins a growing body of movies about the 1970s porno world—the 1997 movie Boogie Nightsand 2013’s Lovelacecome to mind—and a fascinating world it was. Tom of Finland’s contribution to this world went beyond the basic raison d’être of erotica, bringing together a new community of gay men that hadn’t existed before.
Jack Nusan Porter is a Boston-based sociologist who writes widely on sexual politics and World War II.
