Wiping Off the Whipped Cream: Unveiling the sexual power dynamics of Cazwell's "Ice Cream Truck"

The artist Cazwell is clearly forty years old but he's performing with a bunch of super sexualized twenty year olds, trying to pass himself off as such.  He also talks about the 'school yard' as though he were still in high school (or even younger?) when he is obviously far too old.  Cazwell indicates that he is available on the sidewalk "May to July", the months during which school is out, again implying that he is still a school boy.

The images of a child's xylophone, 'rainbow sprinkles', the iconic ice cream truck are also all part of the process of self-juvenilization.  The performers do not consume ice cream that is more typically considered for adults, but rather, those associated with ice cream trucks and children: red popsicles, ice cream pies, Drumsticks, watermelon Icees.  I am surprised there was not a red rocket popsicle.  There is a transparent veil of innocence over the abundant sexuality, from the obvious metaphors to the sexualization of the simple act of consuming ice cream.

Meanwhile, the song has an extended metaphor of ice cream = sex, using phallic popsicle imagery.  Cazwell persistently offers to buy the object of his affection 'ice cream', implying an imbalance within this sexual relationship.  Although he engages the object ("you") with a semblance of equal standing, in reality, he is the one in charge.  He insists, "Meet me at the ice cream truck [emphasis mine]."  He tells "you" to finish the ice cream before "it melts on the floor."  But in another verse, he talks about the object of his affections as a third party.  "You", 'he", it is all ultimately interchangeable as anonymous sexual objects.

The exploitative aspect of this pursuit is made more apparent through the examination of racialized dynamics.  Cazwell is a white man while many of the young men around him appear to be Latino, perhaps implying sex tourism where the image of the school yard is a metaphor for a sexual wonderland of young, nubile, tan flesh such as some ambiguous Latin American stop for the moneyed white man.  Cazwell's insistence on using his limited Spanish ("Uno, dos, tres, cuatro") indicates his shallow appreciation of the Latino sexual object.  And all the dancers are light-skinned, reflecting that, even as the Latino lover is fetishized, fair-skinned beauty is what is valorized among gay male culture.

The final image is whipped cream being wiped off a brown chest to reveal Cazwell's name tattooed over a nipple.  But examination of the video reveals that this tattoo does not appear on the artist's own chest, but rather, the flesh at the end is one of the brown dancers.  He has branded this silent dancer for himself.

This music video demonstrates the gay male pursuit of youth (conflated with perfection and desirability) through the commodified trading of sex.  If the aging gay man can obtain sex from a beautiful young man, he is essentially obtaining youth from the man, through validation of his own desirability.  And far from an equal exchange in this sexual relationship, the aging gay man predates on the object like a vampire, exerting dominance through his masked but undeniable age, his comparative wealth, his white privilege.