Cody Simpson and His Gay Crew

When I was little, I thought of Australia as a "good place," where same-sex desire was open and accepted.  Visiting Australia in the summer of 1986 (just before moving to Japan with Alan) didn't change my mind.  But I might have to change it after hearing about Cody Simpson.

Born in 1997, Cody Simpson began to record songs on youtube, and was discovered in 2009.  He has four albums to date.  The most recent, Surfer's Paradise (2013), includes the following songs:

"Pretty Brown Eyes": a girl with brown eyes.
"La Dee Dee": a girl he likes.
"No Ceiling": no ceiling on our love.
"Sinking In": falling in love
"Summertime of Our Lives": being young and in love
"Imma Be Cool": he can't find a girl who gets him.
"If You Left Him for Me": the girl he likes, likes another boy
"Love": "love, love, love, love, love."

You get the idea: not a lot about social issues or friendship, lots of "girl! girl! girl!"

He has one acting credit, playing one of the "ambassadors for peace" along with other surfers and models in Isolated (2013), along with Chris Galya and BooBoo Stewart.

Many musicians are gay-friendly in real life, even when their music is heterosexist, but in January 2012, Cody and best friend  and occasional collaborator Jake Thrupp (left) appeared in a UStream discussion with fans, and dropped the "g" bomb:

Jake: Do we have to say their names when we respond?
Cody: All that gay stuff, like 'No, I'm not gay like Campbell [Carsley].
Jake: Look at their twitter [names]

Cody took down the UStream and apologized to fans for "calling them gay."  Big insult. no doubt.

Campbell Carsley (left) is another of Cody's friends and occasional collaborators, who also throws "gays" around at random to mean inept, inane, or uncool. He has apparently invented a dance called the "Are you gay?" shuffle.

Other friends and occasional collaborators include Josh Winnington and Oliver Crane.

Sorry, I can't tell them apart.  They're all blond, buffed Aussie teenagers who think "gay" is something bad.

For gay-positive Australian performers, check out Xavier Samuel and Ryan Kwanten.

Beerfest: Gay-Positive Guys Behaving Badly

The first thing you notice about Beerfest (2006) is the lack of emphasis on female breasts.  The DVD cover zeroes in on the breasts of a fraulein serving beer, but in the movie itself, the frauleins are tastefully dressed, and manage to serve the beer without the camera going wild.  In fact, there's minimal girl-ogling, no hetero-romantic plotline, and no fade-out kiss.

The second thing you notice is the lack of homophobic panic and gay slurs, very unusual for a "guys behaving badly" movie.  In fact, one of the protagonists is gay but not a swishy stereotype.

It's about two brothers, Jan and Todd Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Eric Stolhanske) who must defend their grandfather's honor by winning an underground drinking competition.  They bring their friends, competitive eater Landfill (Kevin Heffernan), scientist Fink (Steve Lemme), and gay prostitute Barry (Jay Chandrasekhar).  Each uses his special talents to defeat the evil German team.  There's also a stolen beer recipe, a spy, an identical twin brother, and a great-grandma who was a prostitute.

Not a great movie, but the lack of homophobia and non-stereotyped gay character are both refreshing.

The main cast belongs to the Broken Lizard Comedy Troupe, formed when they were students at Colgate University.  Their Super Troopers (2001) also lacks homophobia, and has a bisexual character who isn't evil: the cop Ramathorn (Jay Chandrasekhar), who makes a date with a male-female couple, and approaches them both with equal gusto.

Kevin Heffernan bragged that his  nude scenes (including this frontal) got him named Bear of the Month by a gay magazine.  Steve Lemme complained that he hasn't won any gay awards, though he is quite muscular and  often semi-nude.

I don't think any are gay in real life, but they certainly sound like gay allies.

However, Club Dread (2004) contains a homophobic slur, and Slammin' Salmon (2009) contains a panicked reaction to an implication of gayness.

Why do they alternate gay-positive and homophobic?

Conan the Barbarian

Robert E. Howard created Conan, the barbarian hero who wanders an antediluvian sword-and-sorcery world,  in a series of stories for the pulp Weird Tales beginning in 1932.  Though not terribly muscular, according to the taste of the age, Conan was aggressively heterosexual.  Other barbarian heroes in 1930s pulps traveled alone or with same-sex sidekicks and disdained women as unwelcome harbingers of civilization.  But Conan rescued women, fell in love with them, and usually intended to marry them before they were killed by sorcerers or turned out to be witches.  He had no room for a sidekick; those men he did manage to befriend invariably betrayed him before the story ended.

The stories fell out of favor for a generation or two, but they were rediscovered during the Swinging Sixties.  In 1966, heroic fantasy writers L. Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter put them in chronological order, added additional materials, and published the series.  Other authors added their own tales to the mythos, specializing in endings in which Conan ravishes the naked lady after rescuing her (the original stories kept Conan chaste).

The covers, often by Frank Frazetta,  showed a nicely muscled Conan, but it was hard to find one that didn't also show a naked lady.

Marvel began the comic book series in 1970, with both adaptions and original stories. In 1974, the magazine-size Savage Sword of Conan printed more "adult" material (that is, you see breasts).

I bought the comic books whenever the covers DIDN'T show a naked lady lying on the ground, clutching Conan's leg (couldn't they stand up?).  So about one issue in six.

The stories inside had not a hint of bonding; women exist to be rescued and then either betray Conan or fall in love with him, and men exist to torture him.

But at least there was plenty of beefcake.

Meatballs: Bill Murray mentors a gay kid at summer camp

I never liked Bill Murray. When he first appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1977, I was still somewhat homophobic, and I found his flamboyantly feminine manner and Castro Clone outfits disquieting.  Though I was out by 1979, my initial disquiet remained, so when my brother recommended Meatballs (1979), I said "No way!"  But then he made a cryptic comment: "It's the kind of move you'll like."

Bill Murray played hetero-horny summer camp counselor Tripper Harrison, who leads the boys in his care on panty raids at girl’s camp across the lake, and meanwhile romances female counselor Roxanne (Kate Lynch). Heterosexual desire is assumed the goal of every journey and the motivation for every action; an Internet Movie Database reviewer writes that it is about: “teens and young adults living their summer with no concerns other than guys hooking up with girls and girls hooking up with guys.” Even in his pep talk to the track team, Tripper presumes that the only reason boys participate in sports is to get girls:

Even if we win, if we win, hah!. . .It just wouldn't matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk [the rival camp] because they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or if we lose. It just doesn’t matter!

Director Ivan Reitman got his start with the sleaze-fests Foxy Ladies (1971) and Cannibal Girls (1973), and went on to produce Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), films that manage to defuse the erotic potential of man-mountains Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sylvester Stallone by making them comedy dupes. Could we expect even a moment of love to intrude into Meatballs?

But then there was Rudy.

Chris Makepeace, a fifteen-year old Montreal native with dark blue eyes, pale soft skin, and oddly red lips, plays the shy and feminine Rudy, who falls in love with the boisterous Tripper. In an early scene, Rudy notes that Tripper jogs past his cabin every morning, so he conspires to jog himself and arrange an “accidental” meeting. Though oblivious to the romantic signals -- or pretending to be to avoid having to tell the boy "sorry, not interested" -- Tripper accepts Rudy’s friendship with panache, and even adopts him as a special project, coaching him to become star of the camp track team.

 Oddly, Tripper never tries to force heterosexual desire upon Rudy, never asks what girl he would care to sleep with or invites him on a panty raid. Perhaps on some level, everyone concerned with the film knew that it would do violence to the character of Rudy to make him abandon his sweetly romantic attraction to Tripper and fixate on some girl.

Chris Makepeace went on to play many other characters informed by same sex desire; he fell in love with high school bully Adam Baldwin in My Bodyguard (1980), sleaze-teen Lance Kerwin in The Mysterious Stranger (1982), and a young Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters (1982), before settling down to the more heteronormative Captive Hearts (1987) and Aloha Summer (1988).

 More recently, in Synapse (1996), he played a man who gets his brain transplanted into a woman’s body, allowing him both gender-bending and nudity. To the best of my knowledge, he has never married.

Cameron Monaghan: Being Not-Gay is a Choice

I've never seen Shameless, the long-running British series (2004-) or its American counterpart (2011-), about the antiheroic Frank Gallagher and his sociopathic brood.  One of his "problems" is a gay son, Ian (played by Gerard Kearns in the U.K. and Cameron Monaghan, left, in the U.S.).

My problem: Ian often has relationships with women (at least in the U.K. version).  In the sixth season, he settles down to a long-term relationship with a woman.  Asked if he's bisexual, he replies "No, I've just found the right person."  Apparently every man, gay or straight, is looking for the Woman of His Dreams.

It's become quite a film convention to present "gay" male characters who prefer relationships with women (other examples can be found in Party Monster, Transamerica, Noah's Arc, Chelsea Boys, and of course Will and Grace).   Instead of stating that the characters are bisexual, producers insist: "No, they're gay.  It's just that, like all men, they find sex and romance with women infinitely superior." A blatant Uncle Tom attempt to demean, diminish, and erase same-sex desire.

Gerard Kearns apparently disliked playing a "gay" character for six years; in an interview, he said that the gay sex scene were "awkward" and "made him squirm."

But Cameron Monaghan doesn't seem to have a problem with it.  He previously played a gay teenager in the short Two Boys (2010).

And in the Disney movie Prom (2011), his gay-vague Corey helps best friend Lucas (Nolan Sotillo) get a date with the Girl of His Dreams, but Lucas realizes that he would rather be with Cory.  They blow off the prom and go to a concert together.

Still, the actor doesn't seem to be very savvy about gay identity, implying in an interview that his character "made the choice" to be gay.

He is so often rumored to be gay that he recently "came out" as not-gay on Twitter: "No, I'm not gay. Yes, I play a gay character. No, the question should not be relevant."  Apparently he is not familiar with the terms "straight" or "heterosexual."

Sam & Cat: The Gayest Show on Children's TV

Nickelodeon has been rather skimpy in the gay subtext department for the past few years, after the glory days of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Fairly Oddparents, and Drake and Josh.  Other than the obvious bisexual Spencer, ICarly tended to prefer homophobia to subtext, and the aggressively gay-friendly cast of Victorious was mostly silenced on screen.

So I wasn't hopeful about the new Nickelodeon teencom Sam & Cat (2013-).

It sends cynical, streetwise Sam Puckett of ICarly (Jeannette McCurdy, left) from Seattle to Los Angeles (presumably she has broken up with Carly).  She meets the upbeat, naive Cat of Victorious (Ariana Grande).  

They become roommates in a fabulous apartment, which they finance through an after-school babysitting service (I'd like to see their rate schedule.)  Their interaction is heavily physical, and Sam all but states that she finds Cat hot.  Oh, wait, she says that.

Did I mention that Sam is pushy, aggressive, masculine, and favors jeans and leather (seen here off-camera with costar Cameron Ocasio), while Cat is soft, passive-aggressive, feminine, and favors pastel dresses?  It's a little unusual for lesbian couples to have such a blatant butch-femme configuration nowadays, but not unheard-of.  

I can't think of anything else producer Dan Schneider could do to make it any clearer that they are a lesbian couple.  Maybe have them watch gay-themed tv or movies.  

Oh, wait: their favorite tv show: What a Drag, about a family of crossdressers.

Maybe keep them from the standard teencom convention of expressing heterosexual interest every five seconds.

He does that, too: they express no heterosexual interest.

On the masculine side, next-door-neighbor Dice (Cameron Ocasio, left), a 12-year old operator, manages a mixed-martial artist named Goomer (Zoran Korach, center).  They also have an aggressively physical interaction.  

Ordinarily I wouldn't count a bond between a 12-year old and an adult as a gay subtext, but Goomer is a big kid, effectively younger than Dice (he requires a babysitter when Dice goes out of town).  It's hinted that he suffers from brain damage from his fighting career. 

 Unconventional, but arguably a gay-subtext couple.

Dice and Goomer don't express any heterosexual interest, either, at least in the nine episodes to date.

That could all change in Episode #10, but for now, Sam & Cat is the gayest show on children's tv.

Big Wednesday

Big Wednesday (1978)  covers twelve years in the lives of a trio of goldenboy surfers: troubled Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent, fresh from his homoerotic role in Danger Island); blue-eyed, curly-haired innocent Jack (William Katt, who would go on to star in Greatest American Hero); and joking outsider Leroy (Gary Busey).

Beach scenes in most movies involve slow-motion close-ups of bikini-clad women,  with an occasional guy in the distance, but Big Wednesday lingers over shots of glistening male bodies so tight that you can see the veins running across biceps and count the vertebrae on backsides.  Even scenes set far from the beach are populated chiefly by gorgeous muscleboys.





The trio shares a quiet, subdued homoerotic bond from the first moments, when they awaken on the beach in 1962, wrapped in each other’s arms under blankets, then surf “the morning glass” on a single board.  But Leroy goes even farther, eschewing the girl-grabbing that most buddy movies emphasize to “prove” that the protagonists are all heterosexual.  When they invade the Star Burger Café (still shirtless) and flirt with a pretty waitress, Leroy pointedly ignores her, horsing around with Matt instead.  Later, at a party, dozens of (still shirtless) muscleboys locate girls to grab and kiss, with the exception of Leroy – he’s in the kitchen, half naked, being oiled up by some male friends (to facilitate sexual congress, I presume).

When Matt and Jack get girlfriends, they all head down to Acapulco, and Leroy remains a “fifth wheel” who doesn’t even flirt with the local girls.
Years pass, and the water grows cold.  Matt battles the bottle, Jack goes to Vietnam, and Bear (Sam Rockwell), the South of Market leatherman who runs the beach surf shop, becomes a wealthy surfboard magnate.  All of them (except Leroy) abandon the homoerotic paradise of surfing for marriage.  Yet at Bear’s wedding, he proposes a toast:
Jack: What are we drinking to?
Bear: Only to your friends.  To your friends, come hell or high water.

It is an odd toast for an occasion that usually marks the end or severe circumscription of same-sex friendships in favor of heterosexual bondng, and striking when one notes that Bear’s fiancee appears only in that scene.  It is as if he married simply to celebrate his love of his friends, “the most important thing you got.”

The trio concurs.  Heterosexual practice comes and goes; there are flirtations, sexual interludes, marriages, and divorces (except for Leroy, whose romantic interests are never specified).  But their most important, most permanent bonds are with each other.

In 1974, at the end of the movie, they gather for another “Big Wednesday” at the beach, and the camera lingers again (for a full ten minutes) on their bodies glistening and straining under the bright summer sun.

We don’t have to look far for clues about how the possibility of same-sex desire became so overt into this plot-riddled extension of Endless Summer (1966): director John Milius, a surfer in his own right and sometime workout buddy of Arnold Schwartzeneggar, specialized in the bonding of brawny, heavily-muscled buddies in Conan the Barbarian (1982), Red Dawn (1984), and Flight of the Intruder (1991), and here he cast three goldenboys who would play much the same roles throughout their careers.  Jan-Michael Vincent plays troubled, aging muscleboys. Gary Busey has played soldiers, villains, lunatics, rock stars, and heavily-muscled regular guys, pairing with Willie Nelson in Barbarosa (1982), gay-friendly Corey Haim in Silver Bullet (1985), and Fred Williamson in South Beach (1992), but he is almost always a lost soul aching for love.

14 Snappy Comebacks to Stupid Questions Gay People Are Asked

1. Why do gay men always act like girls?
It's an attempt to avoid discrimination by imitating people who are never, ever discriminated against.  Is it working?

2. What do gay men think about ___
I don't know, I missed the last board meeting, but I'll get back to you.

3. My cousin is gay.  Do you know him?
I'm not sure.  We all look alike.

4. Are you the boy or the girl in your relationship?
We're both Martians.

5. I've got nothing against gays, but what you do in bed makes me sick.
How did you find out I'm into feathers and ice cream?  Have you been reading my diary?

6. Why do you need parades to announce that you like gay sex?
It's really, really great.

7. Why do gay men all like Judy Garland?
She takes our minds off current problems, like the Depression and World War II.

8. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me.
And yours is safe with me!

9. There weren't any gay people a hundred years ago.
You're right.  Everyone was straight until that lab exploded in 1965.

10.  There aren't any gay people in this college (neighborhood, town, state).
You're right.  After you get your gay card, they give you two weeks to relocate to San Francisco.

11. There aren't any gay men over age 40.
You're right.  At age 35 they all turn into elderly Jewish women and move to Fort Lauderdale.

12. Don't you know that God hates you?
When did this happen?  He sounded fine when I talked to him earlier today.

13. How old were you when you turned gay?
Well, I decided to turn when I was 16, but it took a couple of years to get through the entire procedure.

14. Haven't you ever tried being straight?  You might like it.
You're right.  It's impossible to tell if you find someone physically attractive just by looking.