Supah Ninjas (2011-13) was a Nickelodeon teencom about a boy, Mike Fukanaga (Ryan Potter), who learns from the hologram of his dead grandfather that he's a supah-ninja.
1. Mike and Owen are scripted, according to teencom tradition, as absurdly girl-crazy. But they have a strong, overt, amazingly physical buddy bond, behaving precisely like boyfriends.
2. Mike is obviously being played as gay, regardless of the girl-craziness the script calls for.
3. The boys tacitly acknowledge the existence of gay people. When they are assisting a woman, Mike asks "Is there anyone you could call? A husband or a boyfriend?" Owen adds "Or a life partner?"
4. You're not going to find many teenage actors who are more aggressively gay-friendly than Ryan Potter (here voicing his opposition to California H8, the ban on same-sex marriage).
5. For a change, there's a lot of Asian and Black beefcake.
6. Grandpa is played by venerable gay icon George Takei.
7. Dad is played by Randall Park, a busy comedian who starred in the gay Asian-themed movie The People I've Slept With (2009). He's not actually gay, according to the article "Randall Park's Coming Out Story" in The Korean-American Experience (he came out as an actor).
8. Brandon Soo Hoo has a recurring role as Cousin Connor, who is scripted as even more obnoxiously girl-crazy than his older cousin (writers seem to think that barely-pubescent boys making graphic sexual propositions to older girls is hilarious). But he has also been involved in several gay-friendly projects, such as the buddy-bonding movie Everyday Kid (2010).More recently Ryan has starred in Senior Project, Underdog Kids, and Lab Rats: Elite Force. He's also a martial artist.
I remember Supah Ninjas.. I only caught a couple of episodes, and I thought maybe I was just imagining it, but I remember thinking Mike was a coded gay character also.. In fact, in the first five minutes of the pilot episode his best friend makes some comment about Mike writing fan letters to Justin Bieber, and Mike replies (half-heartedly), "I just like his hair!" or something like that. I thought he was a cutie but he scores major points for participating in the "No H8" campaign (whether he's gay or not, it's just good to see young male stars on the right side of history).. BTW: What film/project is that last photo from? Is that a publicity shot for 'Ender's Game' or for something else?
ReplyDeleteThe last photo is a behind the cameras shot from the "Ender's Game" set
ReplyDeleteWow! Looks like "behind the scenes" might be more interesting than the movie!
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