Austin Butler and His Boyfriends

This  amiable, grinning face -- and this well-defined chest -- are familiar to millions of gay and straight teens. They belong to Austin Butler, an Orange County boy who was discovered by a talent agent in 2005, when he was 13 (apparently such things still happen).

Soon he was appearing all over the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, on Hannah Montana, ICarly, Zeke and Luther, The Wizards of Waverly Place, Zoey 101, and Jonas, usually as the boy that Hannah or Carly or Alex has a crush on.

And not just the Disney Channel. In Rudy and the Rockits (2009-2010), Austin played Jordan Gallagher, son of former teen idol Patrick Gallagher (Patrick Cassidy), who has a crush on his cousin Ruby (daughter of David Cassidy's character).

 In 2011, he starred in the High School Musical spin-off Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure, as the boy Sharpay hooks up with.

He's currently starring in the tv series The Carrie Diaries (2013-), a prequel to Sex in the City about Carrie's high school years, as one of the boys Carrie hooks up with.

You'd think that with so many roles as the object of a girl's crush, Austin would have little time for buddy-bonding. Incorrect.

In Aliens in the Attic (2009), the nerdish Tom (Carter Jenkins of Unfabulous and Struck by Lightning) and his hunky cousin Jake (Austin) must work together to save the world from the aliens in the attic.  When Jack is captured, Tom must lead a daring rescue, along with his sister (Ashley Tisdale) and her boyfriend Ricky (Robert Hoffman).  Jake doesn' display any heterosexual interest, but seems to like Tom quite a lot

In Switched at Birth (2011), his character Wilke has a passionate, quasi-romantic friendship with the gay-vague Toby (Lucas Grabeel).

You get the idea -- when girls crush on him, there's lots of semi-nude scenes.  When boys crush on him, the shirt stays on.

In The Intercept (2012), four college students solve crimes.  I haven't seen it, but it looks promising.

He hasn't made any public statements about his gay fans, but his girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens kissed a girl and liked it.

Chris Young's Book of Love

I saw Chris Young in a performance of the musical Pippin when I was an undergraduate in 1978.  Of course, I had no idea who the 7-year old playing Theo was, or that we would arrive in Los Angeles at about the same time.  I first noticed him on Max Headroom (1987-88), the sci-fi series about the cyber-journalist rebelling against a future dystopia. Chris played Bryce Lynch, Max's agoraphobic computer-whiz sidekick who expressed no interest in girls.

But that was the end of his gay-vague roles.

In Dance Til Dawn (1988), he's a high schooler who spends prom night with it-girl Alyssa Milano.

On Falcon Crest (1989), he's a rich vintner's son who has an affair with a married woman, and is killed by her husband.\

Book of Love (1990) was one of the many, many "nerd wrests the it-girl from her jock boyfriend" movies of the 1980s. But at least it had the cute Danny Nucci.

Then Chris played a newlywed in Married People (1990-91).

I was about ready to give up on Chris completely.  But then he was photographed surrounded by boy-girl couples, but standing next to a boy himself -- coincidence or not, he deserved another chance.

Besides, he took off his shirt a lot.

Next came the "boys-alone" December (1991), as a prep-school boy in December 1941, when the U.S. enters World War II.  His classmates include just about every young adult hunk in the business, including Balthazar Getty, Jason London, and the main homoromantic couple, Wil Wheaton and Brian Krause.

And Breaking the Silence (1992), which is not actually about homophobic silence, but about a kindly lawyer (Gregory Harrison) dredging up memories of sexual abuse as he defends a teen (Chris) accused of murdering his father.

And PCU (1994), about a duo (Chris, Jeremy Piven) battling "political correctness" at their college, is not as homophobic as it sounds, and even has some buddy-bonding.

Chris was still playing high schoolers in Killing Mr. Griffin (1997), about a high school prank that goes wrong.  His character, a basketball star, has a crush on sociopath Mark Kinney (Scott Bairstow). His girlfriend wants them both.

So we see the opposite of the usual pattern of adolescent buddy-bonding followed by a New Sensitive Man adulthood: Chris Young's Book of Love starts out heterosexist, and then moves into gay subtexts.

Fantastic Planet

Fantastic Planet (La Planete savage) first appeared in 1973, a cut-out stop-motion animated movie (based on a  novel by Stefan Wul).  It has been a standby of film festivals and film classes ever since, praised for its weird, surreal imagery and "can't we all just get along" message.

The plot: humans, or Oms ("hommes"), live on a weird, surreal planet where the dominant species are the gigantic but serene Traags.  Not realizing that the Oms are sentient, the Traags keep them as pets, dress them in weird costumes and force them to do tricks.

Others are "wild."  Planet leaders often complain about the Om infestation, and suggest extermination.

An Om boy named Terr ("Earth") becomes the pet of a young Traag girl, who gives him access to her mechanical-learning device.  Eventually he grows into a young man.  He manages to steal the device, run away, and live with a tribe of wild Oms.  Under his leadership, they become guerilla warriors, sabotaging the Traags' spiritual migration to another planet, disrupting the civilization so effectively that they call for a truce.

In the coda, centuries have passed, and the two species are living in harmony.

The gay connection:

1. Lots of male nudity. Terr become particularly attractive as a young man.

2. I can't recall Terr getting a girlfriend or expressing any heterosexual interest whatever.

3. The gay symbolism of being trapped in a world where the rules don't make sense and the slightest misstep could mean disaster.




A stage version appeared in 2010 at the Transmodern Festival in Baltimore, with actors in weird masks playing the Traags and Tim Paggi (top photo) in a revealing green-and-yellow jumpsuit as Terr.

The Mickey Mouse Club: Were any of the Mousketeers gay?

When Annette Funicello died on April 8, 2013, the world mourned one of the iconic figures of the Boomer generation.  She was the first crush for many heterosexual boys and gay girls who watched her every week on The Mickey Mouse Club, and later in the beach movies with Frankie Avalon

If you are too young to remember, The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59) was the first children's television program that starred real children, "the Mouseketeers."  They wore wore mouse ear-shaped caps and white sweaters emblazoned with their first names, and performed song-and-dance numbers interspliced with Disney cartoons, amateur talent contests, and dramatic serials.







24 kids were hired in 1955, but only nine made it to the Red Team, the starting lineup.  Four were boys. In the hyper-masculine 1950s, singing and dancing were widely labeled "sissy" pursuits, so they were all gay-coded, though none are apparently gay.

1. Bobby Burgess (born 1941), who was very tall, well-scrubbed, and always smiling.  He went on to dance on The Lawrence Welk Show.

Here's a shirtless shot of Bobby in middle age.

2. The short, sandy-haired Lonnie Burr (born 1943) was the intellectual of the group (his website commemorates Annette Funicello's death with the Latin phrase "ave atque vale"). He is a poet and playwright as well as an actor.


3. Tommy Cole (born 1941) was hired primarily for his singing ability, though had a handsome face and the hunkiest physique among the Mousketeers (left). After MMC, he had a stint in the air force and then became a makeup artist.

4. Cubby O'Brien (born 1946), the kid of the show, became a professional drummer.

Many Boomer kids also remember the boys who stayed for a year, or less, including : Don Agranti  (Don Grady), Johnny Crawford (right, with his older brother Bobby), Dickie Dodd,  Larry Larsen, Mike Smith, Paul Petersen (The Donna Reed Show), Jay-Jay Solari, Ronnie Steiner, and Don Underhill.

Davis Day, the only original Mousketeer who has come out as gay willingly (Tommy Kirk was outed), stayed for two years










The dramatic series (Spin and Marty, The Hardy Boys, Clint and Mac, Annette) typically offered cute boys in shirtless and semi-nude swimming pool shots:  Jonathan Bailey, Tim Considine (left), Kevin Corcorran, Tommy Kirk (right), Larry Larsen, B.J. Norman (top photo), Sammy Ogg, Steve Stevens, David Stollery.

And some even offered some strong buddy-bonding subtexts, counterpoints to the heterosexism of the main song-and-dance numbers.

David Mendenhall and the Older Man

Born in 1971, David Mendenhall spent his adolescence doing voices for cartoons (The Berenstain Bears, Rainbow Brite) and starring in movies in which his characters are mentored, nurtured, and rescued by a series of bicep-bulging older men; all fathers or father-figures, but still, they allowed many gay boys to fantasize about riding off into the sunset with a hunky older boyfriend.

 Space Raiders (1983): Space pirate Hawk (Vince Edwards) bonds with 12-year old stowaway Peter (David), and rescues the boy when he is captured by evil bounty hunters. But in the end the two part company.

Over the Top (1987): Truck driver/arm wrestling champion Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) reunites with Mike (David), the 15-year old son whom he hasn't seen in many years, and rescues him when he is kidnapped by thugs hired by his evil grandfather.  In the end, they start a trucking business together.

They Still Call Me Bruce (1987): Korean martial artist Bruce (Johnny Yune) mentors the orphan Billy (David), who gets assaulted by a gang and goes into a coma. But he wakes up in time to inspire Bruce to win an important karate contest.

In Going Bananas (1988), David is nearly 17, but still small and slim, with a boyish face that makes him look like a child rather than a teenager, especially when paired with plus-sized actors (Dom Deluise and Jimmie Walker) in a plot about a talking chimp.

But his small starture facilitates gay subtexts: in the tv drama Our House (1986-88): he played J.R. Dutton, best friend to the teenage David (gay actor Chad Allen), but he actually seems more interested in the feminine-coded friend Mark (Thomas Wilson Brown).

In 1990 David retired from acting to go to college, getting a law degree in 2003.  But recently he has returned to show biz to guest star in some tv series and produce the game show Take it All.