Women and men alike seem to flock to the imagery of the biker. In the 60s, The Shangri-Las sighed, pined, and swooned over dead biker boyfriends in their haunting music – their 1964 hit Leader of the Pack, as Nichols points out, actually has motor engines revving in the background, and the song of theirs he uses as a motif throughout The Bikeriders – 1965’s Out in the Street – echoes across the film. With its lyrics of attraction/repulsion (“He don’t comb his hair/like he did before/And he don’t wear those dirty old black boots no more/But he’s not the same”), it reflects what’s felt by Kathy, too.
“There’s this tension in masculinity, because we know there’s so much of it that’s just silly and ridiculous. The idea that these guys can’t express themselves, they’re creating all these rules for themselves,” Nichols points out. “We see as a society that masculinity doesn’t have to be cornered in this way and she sees the absurdity of it, but she’s also drawn to it. And that’s real. It’s attractive. To not admit that is not being true to ourselves, because she is in love. Not just with Benny, but with the idea of riding on motorcycles and the idea of this culture. She’s pulled between these two things, and so she’s not just an observer. She’s actually a participant in this tension.”
Their homoerotic draw
Men, too, have long found homoerotic appeal in the subculture, from Tom of Finland drawings to films like Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963) or William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980). There seems to be a nod toward this in Nichols’ reference to a so-called “love triangle” in the film, and the mounting tension between Kathy and Johnny for Benny’s attention. In one scene at a campfire hangout, Johnny attempts to pass on leadership of the Vandals to Benny, who refuses – albeit softly. The two speak with a quiet intimacy, faces close, softly burnished by the fire beyond; there’s a pregnant pause where it feels inevitable their lips will meet. They do not, but the moment is noted.
For men who felt like outsiders for their interests, their class, or perhaps even their sexuality, biker culture provided a brotherly niche and a place for friendship. But that male camaraderie might well lean into a different kind of tenderness for one another, Nichols implies. That this need for belonging might melt into violence is another possibility.