Chace Crawford and Gossip Girl

I never heard of Chace Crawford, the Travis Turner lookalike, until about 20 minutes ago, but apparently he's muscular enough to get hired to take off his shirt in multiple tv programs, especially aimed primarily at an audience of heterosexual ladies. And pretty enough so that every time he even glances in the direction of a guy, the gossip mongers yell "Aha!  Proof positive that he's gay!"

Born in Dallas, a graduate of the conservative Trinity Christian Academy, Chace got his start in the teen horror movie The Covenant (2006).

I remember the trailer -- he and the girl literally leap into each other's faces to kiss. I'm surprised they didn't crack their jaws.

Next came more teen horror and Twelve (2010), which may have some buddy-bonding: White Mike (Chace) sees his best friend arrested for his cousin's murder.  And What to Expect When You're Expecting  (2012) may have some buddy-bonding among the four guys who are all expectant fathers.

But his main celebrity came with Gossip Girl (2007-2012), a CW series about privileged teens who live on New York's Upper East Side.  Sort of like Beverly Hills 90210, but with skyscrapers instead of palm trees. "Gossip Girl" writes revealing exposes about them; the ongoing mystery is, "Who is she (or he)?

Chace played Nate Archibald (left, using his crotch to advertise 90210).  

He's a rich, powerful "golden boy" who dates most of the girls on the series.  But he does get to do a gay scene when Dan (Penn Badgley, left) writes a book and makes his character gay.

In the first three seasons, there was also a recurring character: Eric (Connor Paolo, left), who had a lot of confused/depressed/suicidal problems.  Big reveal: he's gay!  (The hot pink shirt should have given you a clue.)

Unfortunately, he's the only gay person in Manhattan, so he has relationship problems.  He dates the bisexual Elliott for a while, and then he makes out with Asher,  but Asher gets all homophobic and defensive.

At least when teens appear in programs aimed at adults, they are allowed to Say the Word.  Teens in programs aimed at other teens must always pretend that there are no gay people in the universe.

Johnny Dangerously

 I spent 1984-85 teaching at Lone Star College, aka Hell-fer-Sartain State
College.  A student took off his clothes in my class, I got some nice visits from Bruce and Viju, but otherwise it was miserable.

I read a lot of science fiction and went to a lot of movies.  The one I remember most was not based on a novel by a gay writer, like The Razor's Edge and A Passage to India; it didn't have extensive beefcake or bonding, like  Terminator, The Falcon and the Snowman, and Nightmare on Elm Street; it didn't even have an extraordinary amount of homophobia, like Dune and The Breakfast Club.

The movie I remember most clearly from my year in Texas is Johnny Dangerously.

It's a spoof of those 1930s crime dramas like Dead End, with two men on opposite sides of the law: Johnny (Michael Keaton)  and his brother Tommy (Griffin Dunne of American Werewolf in London).  Originally a good kid, circumstances force Johnny to go to "the dark side," where he becomes a successful gangster, even paying for Tommy's law school tuition. 

Meanwhile rival gang leader, the flamboyantly gay-vague Danny Vermin (Steve Piscopo), exhibits a love-hate attraction for the dashing young gangster. 

Later, Tommy disapproves of Johnny's gang activities, so Johnny agrees to "go straight."  He's framed for murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair.  Then Tommy is captured by Danny Vermin, so Johnny escapes and mounts a daring nick-of-time rescue. 

There isn't a lot of beefcake, though Joe Piscopo (top) and Michael Keaton (left) have displayed their muscles elsewhere.  There are some of the standard 1980s homophobic slurs. Johnny and Tommy get girls -- Johnny's is played by Marilu Henner of Taxi.  Not a lot of gay connections in the actors' other works.

But sometimes a classic gay subtext, complete with a same-sex rescue, is enough, especially on a bleak January afternoon when you're playing hookey from your job at Hell-fer-Sartain State College.