Nope, no politics, just critiquing a couple of examples of advertising art.

The "look" is entirely dependent on context, of course. At the top of the ski run it probably means "your bindings look good, how about mine?" or "I see your feet planted ready to push off, I'm ready too".

Looking at it purely as art, you have to account for all the elements that the artist put into the scene. I still can't figure out why Tom's insisting that there's a radio at the end of that glance, because a later frame clearly places the radio well behind the pair. And there's the chronological sequence of looks between the two that tell a tiny narrative. Those are the things I summarized in the animated GIF.

Now, Tom's trying to blow the whole thing out of proportion, probably to try and make me squirm somehow. Which is silly. There's no deep message in this little device, it's as I explained to Eri: Little anomalies like this sharpen our attention and heighten our awareness of the rest of the production. And that's a highly desirable state to induce when your goal is to persuade, and your client is spending millions of dollars to accomplish it. The message isn't homoeroticism, the message is "keep watching for more oddities like that".

If they actually were trying to convey something homoerotic, they'd risk offending the homophobic portion of the audience, and why in the world would they do that?

It's interesting on a purely intellectual basis. I watch enough TV that objectifying the commercials this way is partly a defensive technique to defuse their persuasive power. I want to understand the tricks being used against me, because this is nothing less than a battle for the integrity of my own mind.

Do I decide, or do advertisers decide for me?