Jansen Panettiere: Gay-positive actor buddies with Jake T. Austin, stars in fundamentalist and "Girl of His Dreams" movies

Teenagers often find themselves pushed into heterosexist vehicles, regardless of whether they support gay inclusitivity or not. Jansen Panettiere is no exception.

The younger brother of female star Hayden Panettiere, Jansen was born in Palisades, New York in 1994, began securing guest roles on tv in 2002, at the age of eight.  He also did voice work on cartoons and appeared with his sister in the thriller Tiger Cruise (2004).

His first star vehicle was the Nickelodeon movie The Last Day of Summer (2007), in which the 12-year old Luke (Jansen) relives the same day over and over, and uses it to win the girl of his dreams.  Yawn.

At least he took his shirt off, in case any gay preteens in the audience weren't too upset by the heterosexism to look.

After the fundamentalist Secrets of Jonathan Sperry (2008), Jansen starred in The Perfect Game (2009), about a group of Mexican boys who become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.  It's an underdog-triumphing film, with nearly every Hispanic child actor in the business, including Moises Arias (Hannah Montana), Jake T. Austin (Wizards of Waverly Place), Ryan Ochoa, Gabriel Morales, and Carlos Padilla.

No girls around, and Jansen became best friends with the gay-friendly Jake T. Austin. They uploaded a youtube video called "The Closet Chronicles," which doesn't appear to be about the gay metaphor.

Next came 8, a 2012 movie version of the play about the fight to repeal Proposition 8, the amendment that banned gay marriage in California. Many actors, gay and allied, appeared, including Kevin Bacon, Matt Bomer, George Clooney, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brat Pitt, Martin Sheen, and George Takei.

More after the break

Here the Whole Time: Brazilian "Heartstopper," with chub Felipe and athletic Caio trying to figure it out. Plus a hunky bully and dad

Quinze Dias (15 Days), or Here the Whole Time in English, is the Brazilian answer to Heartstopper.  The guys even met Kit and Joe when they visited London for the premier of Heartstopper Forever.

Chubby femme boy Felipe (Miguel Lallo) hasn't been in his apartment building's pool since he was bullied as a kid.  He's still being bullied by the same four guys, on the street and in class, so he's looking forward to a 15-day holiday, where he can stay in his room and imagine himself as the heroine in old movies.

Nope, not gonna happen. The next door neighbors are going out of town, so their son Caio (Diego Lira) must stay with Felipe and his mum.  They are homophobic -- "Miguel doesn't even try to hide it!" -- but there's no other option.

This is the worst!  Miguel tells his therapist that they used to be friends, until he stopped going to the pool.  Caio grew up to be...ugh...straight, and athletic.  He hangs out with jocks, plays soccer, and knows nothing about movie musicals.  How can he stand sharing his apartment with someone so crass for 15 whole days?

After an incident involving paint in the pool, Caio defends Miguel from the bullies (including João Pedro Chaseliov, top photo). At the community center, he is ok with taking dancing lessons -- and dancing with Caio.  He's even ok with watching a movie musical.

Maybe they could be friends after all.

When Caio invites him to a movie with his friend Beca -- "You'll love her!" -- Miguel imagines a wafer-thin supermodel girlfriend.  Surprise -- she's chubby, and a lesbian!  

Big reveal: Caio is gay!  "You didn't know?  Everybody knows."

"He can't be gay!" Miguel exclaims. "He's masculine!  He plays soccer!  He doesn't know who Lady Gaga is."

The therapist asks if Miguel is going to treat Caio differently, now that he knows that he's gay. 

"No...but...things are going to be awkward now."  Because athletic, masculine guys don't fall for chubby femme boys.  Miguel stalks Caio's social media, and finds that he has "liked" 30 boys, all of them athletic and masculine.

After another bully-rescue, the guys have a rooftop heart-to-heart.  Caio reveals that he not out to his parents because they're homophobic.  He wants to run away, find a gay mecca somewhere, maybe in São Paulo, but Miguel advises that you can't run away from your problems.

First kiss (actually second, third, and fourth kisses).

More after the break.  Caution: A bedroom scene.

Rick Gomez: What has Endless Mike of "Pete & Pete" been doing lately? Is Steve Zahn his boyfriend? Is he really endless? With Rick d*ck

Link to the n*de photos

Remember this?

Hey smiin' strange
You're lookin' happily deranged
Can you settle to shoot me?
Or have you picked your target yet

It's the theme to The Adventures of Pete and Pete (1991-95), the first of the Nickelodeon "adults are insane" teencoms.  Two brothers, both named Pete, negotiate the weirdness of the city of Wellsville, where no one is really well. 

A bowling ball has mystical powers.

A garage band vanishes overnight.

Little Pete accidentally erases baseball from existence.

I liked Rick Gomez as Endless Mike, who knows more about the town's weirdness than he lets on.  He sometimes bullies and humiliates Big Pete, and sometimes acts as his ally and protector. You might even find a gay subtext in their interaction.

No one ever explains why his name is Endless.  Maybe the teenage boy is a manifestation of a transdimensional being who exists beyond time and space as we perceive it.

Or maybe he's endless in the beneath the belt region (example on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

When Pete & Pete ended, I moved on to other things, and thought about Endless Mike rarely, if at all.  And the years passed.

Recently we started watching Silo (2023-), a dystopian science fiction series where 10,000 people, all of surviving humanity (that they know of) live in a huge underground helix.  They can't go outside, or ever open the single door, because the air is poisonous (or so they are told). 

And there in the cast list was Rick Gomez!

He plays Patrick Kennedy, a maintenance worker with a dead wife (of course) who sells strictly-forbidden relics from the Before Time.  He starts to suspect that they are being lied to (they are, sort of), and joins the Resistance. 

Right: Steve Zahn plays Solo, who survived a rebellion in his own silo, where everyone went outside and died.  They buddy bond in Season 3.

A few years have passed, but you can still see that insoucient, all-knowing smile.  

I wanted to check what Rick has been doing since 1995, whether he is actually gay in real life, and if he is really endless.

Searching for "Rick Gomez," "actor," and "n*de" yields a lot of photos of Rick kissing guys (top photo) and showing his backside (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), but it turns out to be a Google Images misdirection.  The gay/backside actor is Ricardo Gomez.

Our Rick starred in five tv series between Pete & Pete and Silo.

1. Hitz (1997), about workers at a record company (remember records?)

2. Band of Brothers (2001), about World War II soldiers. Rick plays George Luz, who does some buddy-bonding during the War, but then returns to Rhode Island for the married-with-children bit.

Not much of gay interest so far.

More after the break

Ben Lewis Doherty: Doc Martin's Plus One, a gay journalist, and the son of a gay gangster. All by age ten. With Smith and Pelphrey p*nis

 

Link to the n*de photos

 I've been watching Best Medicine (2026), about a curmudgeonly doctor in small-town Maine, where there are at least three gay characters: Greg and George, who run the only restaurant in town; and sarcastic high school student Liam.  But could there be four?  How about 10-year old Peter Cronk, played by Ben Lewis Doherty? 

Kids are usually presented as straight by default, to promote the myth that boys are born longing for feminine smiles, and "turn" gay as as teenagers or adults.  But you never know.

Peter appeared in eight episodes in Season 1, and displays queer codes in most:.  

Episode 5:  He wants to stay after class to help teacher Louisa, and the other kids make fun of him, thinking that he has a crush on her.  He denies it: he's actually interested in the astronomy presentation she's preparing. A denial of hetero interest.

Later he tries to "fit in" by putting a whole apple in his mouth, and can't get it back out again.  Doc Martin cuts it out, and tells him don't bother trying to fit in, just be yourself. The oral stuff and the "be yourself."

Episode 7: On Halloween, the townsfolk put on a haunted house called the Blood Factory.  Peter hates it: he gets so scared that he wets his bed.  Doc Martin suggests that he face his fears, so he dresses as a vampire. And bonds with a buddy.

Episode 8: Peter is rather swishy as he criticizes Elaine's true crime podcast. (Femme behavior).  

Afterwards, her cameraman Al (Carter Shimp, right) calls her his girlfriend, and she shoots him down: "We're frisky friends, that's all."  Hurt, he quits.

 "What's a frisky friend?" Peter asks.  Lack of awareness of hetero-romance terminology.

Episode 10: Trying to spend time with Doc Martin, Peter comes in every day with invented symptoms, and invites himself along on his birdwatching date with Louisa.  Are you looking for a father figure, or do you have a little crush on the Doc? 

Later, he complains of a stomach ache, but Doc Martin thinks he's faking -- until the pain spreads to his shoulder, and his spleen ruptures!  Tense scenes in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Episode 12: Peter asks Doc Martin to come to his school presentation on Norway, since his mom works and his dad doesn't care about him. Doc Martin says he's too busy, but shows up anyway.  Peter is overjoyed, and hugs him.  More crush potential.

Episode 13: Peter is the ring bearer at the wedding of Greg and George. The teenagers attend the weddding, but he's the only child, suggesting a special affinity with the gay guys.

 At the reception, he sits at Doc Martin's table as if he's the Doc's Plus One.  

It's probably not canonical, but it's enough to check out the other work of the 11-year old actor.

Ben Lewis Doherty lives in Massachusetts, where he began modeling and acting at age six.  His first on-screen role was in the short Weighted (2020): Macauley (Hudson Koonce) longs for the times when he lifted weights with his dad, before MS took its toll, so he strives for one last bench press.  Ben plays the young Macauley, and the cast includes bodybuilders George Sandalakis (left), Ismail Bronson, and David Arquilla (top photo).

Nice company for your first acting role, kid.

Next Ben appeared in Haze (2024): Joe, a young journalist (Cole Dolman),  returns home after rehab, uncovers the secrets of the town's psychiatric center, and gets a boyfriend (Brian J. Smith, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  Ben plays the young Joe.

A gay character, already!  Things are looking good for you, buddy.  Plus you're already buddying up to hot guys like Cameron Matheson.

More after the break.