Josh Hutcherson: Straight but Not Narrow

In April 2012, 19-year old Josh Hutcherson became the youngest person ever to win the GLAAD Vanguard Award for the "Straight but Not Narrow" anti-homophobia campaign that he started (with buddy Avan Joggia of Victorious).

Paradoxically, his on-screen performances have veered toward the heterosexist.

I first noticed him in Bridge to Terabintha (2007), about two preteens who escape from the horrors of real life into an imaginary world, but find that it can't help them.  Real life is too awful.

I hated it: the trailers led me to expect a Chronicles of Narnia-style adventure about a "real" fantasy world, not two mentally ill kids who were hallucinating.  And one of them dies. Oh, and Josh's character gets a girlfriend.

And Firehouse Dog (2007), about a movie-star dog who goes to work in a struggling firehouse, and revives it with the help of a boy, Shane (Josh).  Who gets a girlfriend.

So far this actor's work was depressing, but being a Jules Verne fan, I gave him another chance in the latest adaption of Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008).   In search of his missing brother, geologist Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) explores the Center of the Earth, along with his nephew Sean (Josh) and their teenage guide Anita.  Both Trevor and Sean are into Anita (she picks Trevor).

Ok, what about Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009), based on the gay-subtext novel series by Darren Shan?  There's some buddy-bonding: Darren (Chris Massoglia) offers to become a vampire to save the life of his buddy Steve (Josh).

And The Kids are All Right (2010): Josh plays Laser, teenage son of a lesbian couple.

But The Hunger Games (2012): Peeta (Josh) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) are chosen to participate in a teenage survival-death game where the last one alive wins.  They fall in love, and find a way to both survive.  Fade out kiss.

The Forger (2012), with Jansen Panettiere, looks promising. But Paradise Lost (2014) will star Josh as a young surfer who meets "the girl of his dreams" in Colombia.

Besides, I'm still mad about The Bridge to Terabintha.

Ben Hur: A Gay Tale of Christ

Ben Hur (1959), based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ, by Lew Wallace, was one of those big-budget epics with "a cast of thousands" that studios in the 1950s hoped would draw people away from television.  And it worked: 11 Academy Awards, second-highest grossing movie of all time to date (after Gone with the Wind), re-released in 1969, broadcast on tv in 1971.  With a palpable gay subtext.

Gore Vidal, the gay author who wrote the screenplay, apparently included a gay text: around the time of Christ, the Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd) is made tribune of the province of Judea, and looks up his boyhood lover, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston, previously seen in Peer Gynt).  But Ben-Hur refuses to rekindle the romance, and the enraged Messala tries to destroy him.

The gay text was removed -- you can't have lovers on screen in 1959 -- but the subtext was strong enough, with Messala and Ben-Hur gazing into each other's eyes and linking arms to drink out of each other's cups.  The only problem is, there's no real explanation left for why Messala suddenly turns evil: when a stone from Ben-Hur's roof accidentally falls and injures the Governor of Judea, he seizes on the incident to sell his former "friend" and his mother and sister into slavery.

After three years as a galley slave, Ben-Hur makes a new "friend," Roman Consul Arius (Jack Hawkins), who brings him back to Rome, trains him as a charioteer, and adopts him.

But Ben-Hur wants revenge, and he wants to find his mother and sister.  So after a few years of domestic bliss with his older boyfriend,  he heads back to Judea and challenges Messala to a chariot race.  Messala dies, Ben-Hur is reconciled with his mother and sister.

Ben-Hur gets a girl along the way, but no fade-out kiss.  The final scene shows Ben-Hur and his family witnessing the Crucifixion, where they learn to forgive the Romans.








"Admitted heterosexual" Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur) was no gay ally: "I find my blood pressure rising when [President Bill] Clinton's cultural shock troops participate in homosexual-rights fund-raisers..and claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts."

But Stephen Boyd (Messala) was gay. Here he buddy-bonds with David Wayne in another gay-subtext movie, The Big Gamble (1961).

See also: Ramon Novarro, who starred in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur.