Paul Petersen's Family Values

I've never seen a single episode of The Donna Reed Show (1958-1966).  It was before my time,  and it hasn't been rerun often.  Apparently not a lot of people were watching in the early 1960s.  Like other nuclear family sitcoms, such as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver, it barely hit the top 30, regularly being trounced by Westerns (Gunsmoke), medical dramas (Dr. Kildare), and reality tv (Candid Camera).   

But the squeaky-clean suburban sitcom left a lasting legacy: Paul Peterson, aged 13 to 21, played Donna's dreamy teenage son, Jeff.  I don't know if his character was portrayed as girl-crazy or not during the later seasons, but the teen magazines  seemed oddly obsessed with pushing him into girls' arms.

In the shirtless shots, he is almost always shown with a girl -- even if that girl is his little sister, and he's reading to her in pajamas.  What were they trying to prove?

Paul had the clean-cut handsomeness beloved in 1950s teen idols, and a dreamy voice, so he began recording songs in 1962: "Keep Your Love Locked," "Lollipops and Roses"; "She Can't Find Her Keys."   Before long he released five albums and contributed to a sixth.   His biggest hit, "My Dad," was, of course, a paeon to his real-life father, with no girls mentioned.

After Donna Reed, Paul continued to perform, acted occasionally, and published a series of novels about a macho adventurer named The Smuggler.  His most enduring legacy came in 1990, when he founded A Minor Consideration, dedicated to improving the working conditions for child actors and helping them transition to adulthood.

While no one would deny that this is a praiseworthy goal, and there are no specifically homophobic statements on his website, there is also not a word about gay child actors in a heterosexist workplace -- not one word -- and the editorials veer uncomfortably toward exclusionary family values" rhetoric.

See also: Beefcake Dads of 1950s Sitcoms

Taxi and Tony Danza

Everything WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82) did wrong, Taxi (1978-83) did right.  It was a hip, urban workplace series, like WKRP, except that it followed the adventures of the employees at the Sunshine Cab Company in New York.

Alex (Judd Hirsch) was the only professional cabbie; the others were just driving a cab until their Big Dreams came true: Elaine (Marilu Henner), art; Tony (Tony Danza), boxing; and Bobby (Jeff Conaway), acting.  To round out the ensemble were smarmy Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito), the dispatcher, and innocent Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), the mechanic.

What did they do right?

1. Beefcake.  A cab company doesn't lend itself to shirtless shots, but the producers always found some way to get Tony's clothes off  -- usually at the gym or a boxing match during his off hours.

During the early 1980s, his shirtless shots became a mainstay of the teen magazines.  He also appeared in the gay magazine In Touch, though the famous nude shot is probably a fake.

2. Bonding.  Tony and Bobby became so inseparable that even teenagers in the Midwest, barely aware that gay people existed, noticed their subtext.

3. Not much homophobia.

When Elaine is stiffed by a fare, she threatens to retaliate by accusing him of attempted rape, until he announces that he's the president of the Gay Alliance.

A 1980 episode called "Elaine's Strange Triangle" sounds like it will be homophobic, but when Elaine's boyfriend gets a crush on Tony, Tony handles the "problem" with tact, nonchalance, and an utter lack of homophobic panic.  Meanwhile, Alex goes to a gay bar, and ends up teaching all of the gay men how to dance.

4. A mostly gay-friendly cast.  In spite of his pro-gay character, and his gay tv son (Danny Pintauro from Who's the Boss), Tony Danza has become quite homophobic.  Jeff Conaway and Andy Kaufman died without revealing their attitudes toward gay people publicly. But today Judd Hirsch has made pro-gay statements, and both Marilu Henner and Danny DeVito are supporters of marriage equality.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

Winsor McKay's Little Nemo (1905-1914) comes from the era when comic strips were works of art, intricately detailed and gorgeously realized. It is about a boy who visits a dreamworld every night, only to be awakened at a climactic moment, usually when he was about to be eaten or destroyed.  In early strips, his goal was to reach Dreamland, where he would become the consort of the Princess.

But soon a boy named Flip came into the picture.  The exiled son of the Sun and nephew of the Dawn, he wore worn hobo costumes and green clown makeup, and chomped on a cigar to demonstrate that he was a Lord of Misrule.  He decided that he didn't want Nemo to reach the Princess, so at climactic moments he would shout "Wake up!" or display the words "Wake up!" on his hat, and Nemo's quest for heterosexual fulfillment would be foiled for another day.

Why was Flip so obsessed with ruining Nemo's quest for the Princess?  Because he had designs on Nemo himself!  He was a trickster, a "queer" character, disrupting the presumed naturalness of the heterosexual bond.

It seemed to work.  Within a few years, the Princess was forgotten, and Nemo and Flip were constant companions, exploring little-known corners of Slumberland, diving under the ocean, taking a dirigible to Mars.

Eventually Nemo picked up the Imp, an African stereotype (though he was actually from a cannibal tribe in Slumberland), who spoke only in gibberish, but proved a brave and loyal companion.  Naturally, Flip was jealous, and the two argued and fought constantly.

The queer subtext is obvious: two boys bonding, rescuing each other, forming an emotional attachment, jealously guarding against potential interlopers, with the original heterosexual goal of the journey long forgotten.

See also: Alphonse and Gaston

Jason James Richter

Several of the boys who starred in various Neverending Stories had brief but memorable teen idol careers. Born in 1980, Jason James Richter was already famous before playing Bastian in Neverending Story III (1994) for his role as Jesse, best friend of the killer whale in Free Willy (1993).

The Free Willy franchise lasted through two sequels (1995, 1997).  Meanwhile Jason was busy in a caper movie (Cops and Robbersons,1994), a sci-fi thriller (Laserhawk, 1997), and some tv, including the teen favorite Sabrina the Teenage Witch.









With all that acting exposure, you'd expect the teen magazines to be gushing in ecstasy and filling their pages with shirtless photos, but they virtually ignored Jason -- only a few shots, none shirtless. Maybe it was because he was a little. . .um. . .chunky, not thin and androgynous or a man-mountain in training.

But most gay boys couldn't care less about a few extra pounds.  He had a nice smile, and he had lots of roles that minimized girl-craziness to emphasize platonic friendships with giant aquatic mammals and elderly Native Americans.

Jason still acts on occasion, but recently he has been concentrating on his music.  He plays bass guitar for a band called Fermata.  He is no longer chunky, but he still has a nice smile.

Jack LaLanne

During the 1960s, gay boys who were too young to go to school, or home sick, could get their beefcake quotient at noon, when The Jack LaLanne Show was on.

Born in 1914, Jack LaLanne was one of the old school of bodybuilders, hanging out on Muscle Beach with greats like Joe Gold, John Grimek, and Charles Atlas before there was such a thing as Mr. America or the International Federation of Bodybuilders.  He opened his own "health spa" in 1936, and began airing The Jack LaLanne Show in 1951 (national syndication in 1959).

It was aimed at an audience of housewives, and quite sexist, with exercises designed to not only promote fitness, but to keep the ladies "beautiful for your husband."  LaLanne never seemed to notice the queerness of a man teaching you how to accentuate your bust, firm up your butt, and create "a figure that will make men sit up and take notice."

But lots of gay kids did, and even followed his tips to become not only healthy but beautiful.











LaLanne didn't make a lot of homophobic comments during the 1960s, but during the 1970s the homophobia came out.  In 1979, he announced that he intended to parade down Hollywood Boulevard with a 350-pound barbell on his shoulders to protest "the damn queers and homos and little boy prostitutes" who had "taken over."  He never actually followed up on his protest march.

In 1979, homophobic comments didn't cause a furor, so he continued broadcasting his show until 1985, when he retired to promote his fitness books, line of juice-makers, and hate his former fans.  He died in 2011.