Victor McLaglen: Boxer turned Silent Movie Boyfriend

Victor McLaglen was a British boxer who retired in 1920, moved to Hollywood, and became a popular character actor, mostly in parts that emphasized his towering height and bulging muscles: Hercules, Strong Boy, Biff Williams, Bull Stanley, Big Steve Andrews, Big Ben Wheeler

 He often appeared in movies directed by the homophobic John Ford, costarring with the homophobic John Wayne.

Yet the gay subtexts were everywhere.

1. The Unholy Three (1925). Three circus performers, a strong man, midget, and transvestite, form a "queer" criminal family.

2. Beau Geste (1926).  Buddy-bonding in the French Foreign Legion.

3. The Cock-Eyed World (1929).  Two marines (Victor, Edmund Lowe) compete over girls in Russia, Brooklyn, and Latin America.

4. The Lost Patrol (1934).  Soldiers lost in Mesopotamia during World War I take their shirts off while trying to find their way back home.

5. The Great Hotel Murder (1935).  Victor and Edmund Lowe are back, now novelist and detective competing to see who can solve a murder.

6. South of Pago Pago (1940).  Victor and Jon Hall take their shirts off while competing over a girl in the South Pacific.

7. The Quiet Man (1952).  Victor plays an Irishman who doesn't like the idea of American John Wayne marrying his sister, so they fight, tearing up the town, and end up buddies.

8. The Abductors (1957). Victor and buddy Gavin Muir plot to steal the remains of Abraham Lincoln.  No nudity, but by this point he's 69 years old.

Victor was married 3 times, but if you look closely at his personal life, you can find any number of provocatively intimate same-sex friendships.

Mighty Med: Comic Book Fans with a Secret Life

In Mighty Med, which just premiered on the Disney XD Channel, two comic book fans, Kaz  (Bradly Steven Perry from Good Luck Charlie) and Oliver (Jake Short from Ant Farm, left) go through a secret portal to a hospital for superheroes, villains, and various sci-fi and fantasy characters.  

Upon discovering that they have a special rapport with the ailing superheroes, the Chief of Staff, Horace (Carlos Lacamara), offers them jobs.

They must now juggle the "normie" requirements of home and school and heterosexual crushes with their secret life at the hospital, where they must fend off the evil machinations of various anti-normie factions, including Horace's nephew Alan (Devan Leos).

There's certainly a lot of potential gay symbolism in the disdain that the fantasy beings feel for "normies."

And a lot of gay subtext potential: the two besties are tailor-made for bromance, and the supervillains who want to infiltrate Mighty Med, Wallace and Clyde, appear to be a couple.

Not a lot of beefcake so far, but superhero patients like Tecton (Jilon Vanover) and Titanio (Chris Elwell) always have spectacular physiques, and it's only a matter of time before one doffs his leotard.

Gay Supervillain in Training: The Thundermans

The latest in the "my secret" teencoms is Nickelodeon's The Thundermans, which premieres on November 2nd.  It's about is a retired superhero, Thunderman, who is trying to live a "normal life" incognito in Hiddenville (!).

First thought: you might want to change your name.

Hank Thunderman (Chris Tallman) and his wife Barb (Rosa Blasi) are the standard fat-doofus-husband-hot wife couple that we see everywhere on tv, but Hank is particularly doofus-like.  He's constantly trying to revive his superhero powers and failing miserably, like a former high school football player trying to relive his gridiron glory after losing the battle of the bulge.

We aren't told exactly why they have to go incognito, but I suspect that it has something to do with Hank's increasing impotence around supervillains.

Their four kids also have superpowers to hide.

Teenage Phoebe (Kira Kosarin) is a "good girl," a straight-A student who plays by the rules, including the rule of "no non-supes in the house," which sort of keeps her from having friends and negates the desire for a "normal life."

She has a best friend, Cherry, who suspects her secret.

Her twin brother Max (Jack Griffo who doesn't want you to say "gay") is a wannabe supervillain who wants to attend Villain University in a few years.  Apparently he's going to be a stereotypic gay villain, pushing up the feminine-coded mannerisms, although he'll be dating a girl by the third episode.

The younger kids, Billy (Diego Velazquez) and Nora (Addison Riecke), have super-speed and heat vision, respectively.

Oh, and there's Dr. Colosso, a supervillain transformed into a bunny who acts as Max's mentor and confidant.

There is an inevitable comparison with the Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place, about a family of wizards, complete with a Dad who has lost his powers, two teenagers, one conniving and one straitlaced, a best friend who suspects the secret, and a rambunctious preteen.  It's too soon to see if it will have as many gay subtexts, or as much beefcake.

Georgy Girl: Lesbian Mother in the Swinging Sixties

The song "Georgy Girl" (1966), by the Seekers, is about a girl who is too fat and unfashionably dressed to get a man:
You're always window shopping but never stopping to buy.
So shed those dowdy feathers and fly

Just the thing to create a generation of shallow, vapid party girls with eating disorders.  

But the movie Georgy Girl  is a queer subtext classic about doing what you need to do to make a nontraditional family.

In the Swinging Sixties, Georgy (Lynn Redgrave) has a masculine-coded name and doesn't care much about attracting men -- lesbian subtexts start here.  But she does want a child.  

Her roommate, Meredith (Charlotte Ramping) likes men a lot, but doesn't want a child -- she's already had several abortions.  Now she's pregnant again.

What to do?

They both move in with Meredith's boyfriend Jos (bisexual actor Alan Bates).  Meredith will provide sex, and Georgy will raise the baby, Sara.

But  Jos decides that he likes Georgy better, so she gamely provides him with sex, and eventually Meredith leaves.  They continue to raise Sara until Jos gets bored, and leaves, too.

Now Georgy has what she wanted all along -- a daughter.  But she's not a blood relative, and single women can't adopt children, so the state intends to take Sara away.

What to do?

There's a deus ex machina in the wings.  Georgy's old boss, Leamington (James Mason), suddenly arrives and proposes marriage.  She's not attracted to him, but with a husband, she can adopt Sara.  And did I mention that he's loaded?  The movie ends with Georgy gazing lovingly at Sara and ignoring her new husband: "who needs a perfect lover when you're a mother at heart..you're rich, Georgy girl."

I'm pretty sure that director Silvio Narizzano was gay.  He really likes shooting Alan Bates semi-nude.  Besides, according to wikipedia, he became depressed after the death of his "long-term friend" Win Wells, who wrote about Getrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

Alan Steel: Hercules' Boyfriend

Sergio Ciani knew how to fill the audiences in a sword-and-sandal epic.  Born in 1935, the hefty bodybuilder got his start as the body double of Steve Reeves, then, under the stage name Walter Reeves, played Macigno, which means "Millstone," in Samson (1961).  Most foreign editions dubbed him as "Hercules," and called the film Samson vs. Hercules, even though the two characters were allies.

Renamed Alan Steel and given blond hair, Sergio spent seven years playing the Muscle Guy in the Toga. The names were all interchangeable, so he might be Goliath in the credits, Maciste in the dialogue, Samson in the subtitles, and Hercules on the movie posters.

His movies with the biggest gay subtexts are:

1. The Fury of Hercules (1962), aka The Fury of Samson and The Son of Samson, where he plays the buddy of Hercules/Samson (Brad Harris).

2. Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963), where he hangs out with the legendary 17th century lover Don Juan (Mimmo Palmera), and gets a cute gypsy boyfriend.

By the way, it's double-billed with Hercules against the Mongols (1963), where Mark Forest as Hercules/Maciste buddy-bonds with the bulgeworthy Ken Clark.

You should also see Hercules and the Moon Men (1964), because it received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment from Joel and the Bots.  The Queen of Samar agrees to help Moon Men conquer the world, and it's up to Maciste/Hercules to stop them.  He rescues Prince Darix a few times, but then they both get girlfriends.  Go figure.

When the peplum fad ended, Sergio tried his hand at spaghetti Westerns. In Un colpo da re, which means "Rim Shot" (1967), he plays someone named The Swede, who rams heads with Moulin Rouge.

In Sapevano solo uccidere ("I Only Knew How to Kill," 1971), playing Pedro, an evil Mexican outlaw who rams heads with Boomer Smart (Kirk Morris).  He also did some dramas and comedies before retiring at the end of the 1970s.

Jim Morrison: Bisexual Poet of the Dark Side

I didn't know Jim Morrison of the Doors until 1980, when a biography by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman appeared on the racks at Readmore Book World, with a shirtless photo and a provocative title, No One Here Gets Out Alive.

It made Jim Morrison into a tortured poet with ties to the world of magic and the occult, a hippie rebel against convention of all sort.  That read Gay to me, although the book made him sound exceptionally homophobic.  But in the 1980s, every biography of a gay or bi man made him sound like a homophobic heterosexual.

Other biographers have mentioned that Morrison was bisexual, usually in a negative light.  Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison (1992), says that his search for "the dark side" led him to "unpleasant places," like gay bars. Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend (2005) talks of his "midnight ramblings in the gay underworld."

But there's a lot of gay symbolism in the Doors' lyrics:


"Break On Through" (1967) seems to be a search for a "good place":
You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day
Tried to run, tried to hide, break on through to the other side

"Strange Days" (1967) sounds like nights at the levee, looking for love in the darkness:

Strange days have found us..we linger alone
Bodies confused, memories misused
As we run from the day,  to a strange night of stone

And "The Soft Parade" (1969) seems to include a reference to same-sex love:
There's only four ways to get unraveled:
One is to love your neighbor 'till his wife gets home









And Jim Morrison's writings:

Boys get crazy in the head and suffer
I sacrifice my c*** on the altar of silence. (The American Night).

Every gay and bi man in the 1960s sacrificed himself on the altar of silence.