Touko Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland, via Becoming Tom of Finlandīy day a senior art director at an advertising agency McCann Erickson, Touko Valio Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland spent his spare time drawing his sexual fantasies that featured homoerotic archetypes such as lumberjacks, sailors, bikers, blue-collar workers, policemen and men dressed in leather. It provides an immersive, handsomely crafted look at how Tom of Finland came to create his iconic drawings of hyper-masculine, leather-clad men that ridiculed authority figures. Premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, the film was written by Aleksi Bardy and has Pekka Strang starring. The celebrated Finnish artist and illustrator has been brought above the radar of cultural history in a new biopic by the acclaimed film director, Thomas “Dome” Karukoski. Combining his love of machismo with his natural artistic talent, he created a groundbreaking body of work that celebrates the idealized male form.Ī grand master of homoerotic art of the twentieth century and beyond whose images of masculine gay men helped smash stereotypes and produce new diversity, not only did Tom of Finland create new role models for gay men, but he also had an impact on global culture, style and attitude towards liberated sexual expression. As Tom of Finland himself has once noted, during his whole life, he did nothing but interpret his dreams of ultimate masculinity, and draw them.