The Big Men of American Tall Tales

In the mid-1980s, Shelly Duvall (fresh from playing Olive Oyl in the Popeye movie) hosted a Showtime series of Tall Tales & Legends, featuring live-action versions of Big Men (and Women) from American folklore: Pecos Bill (Steve Guttenberg), Johnny Appleseed (Martin Short), John Henry (Danny Glover), Davy Crockett (Mac Davis), Annie Oakley (Jamie Lee Curtis).

It was dreadful.  It brought back terrible memories of childhood, when those "colorful figures from our nation's past" were pounded into my brain through incessant classroom assignments and Wonderful World of Disney episodes.

Pecos Bill rode a mountain lion instead of a horse, used a snake for a lasso, and ate dynamite for a snack.

Davy Crockett was once swallowed by a bear, so he turned it inside out and escaped.

Paul Bunyan carved out the Grand Canyon by dragging his axe in the dirt.

Mike Fink (left) was half horse, half alligator, and half snapping turtle.

Who cared?  I much preferred Tarzan, Batman and Robin, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.  For that matter, Li'l Abner and Alley Oop from the comics page.

For that matter, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

And some of the tales weren't even very tall:

Casey Jones ran a railroad engine fast.

John Henry...well, he drilled a million holes in rocks, and then died.

Johnny Appleseed...um, well, he walked around planting trees.

But, on the bright side, they weren't given many heterosexual exploits.

Pecos Bill had a girlfriend, and I just discovered that Paul Bunyan had one, but she doesn't appear in any stories that I recall.

The other Big Men were portrayed without Big Women.

And there was a a lot of beefcake.  Big Men were by definition as muscular as Superman.

You could ask your parents for a Davy Crockett action figure, and then strip him out of his clothes.

John Henry was portrayed as a hard-iron bodybuilder, as in this 8-foot tall statue in Talcott, West Virginia.

 And Paul Bunyan?  Just think about the possibilities.  If he is 30 feet tall, then he must have a three-foot long....

See also: G.I. Joe and Ken; Roadside Beefcake

Star Wars: Admit it, you thought Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were boyfriends

Like Silver Streak, Star Wars (1978) is often read as a heteronormative fable. Luke Skywalker (25-year old Mark Hamill), an innocent, sleepy-eyed young man from the provinces, becomes involved with Rebel forces struggling to defeat an evil intergalactic Empire (in 1977, code for the Soviet Union), and, inevitably, meets a Girl. Except there’s no romance with the girl – in later episodes she turns out to be his sister. And there is a romance with the handsome space cowboy Han Solo (35-year old Harrison Ford).

Han is a loner (“Solo”), traveling with no one but a hairy, six-foot tall Yeti-like creature named Chewbacca (another animal sidekick to diffuse homoerotic potential), and unwilling to investigate potential human relationships.


At first he refuses to speak directly to Luke, and when he lets down his guard sufficiently to acknowledge Luke’s existence, he calls him by the diminutive “Kid.”


We wonder what he’s afraid of, and so does the Girl, brassy Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher): “Your friend is quite a mercenary!” she snaps at Luke. “I wonder if he really cares about anything. . .or anybody!”

Han finally warms up to Luke: they fight together, rescue each other, hug; at the end of the movie, Han asks Luke to go away with him (“I could use a partner”), and, when he refuses, decides to stay with Luke. But now Luke has competition in Princess Leia, who is “infuriated by” (that is, infatuated with) Han. She manages to insert herself into every shot featuring the two together.

When they are slamming against each other in a jubilant bear-hug, she squeezes between them, so they are actually hugging her.

When Han tries to walk off with his arm around Luke, she squeezes between them again.

Even in the last scene, when Han and Luke receive medals and then turn to receive the applause of the Rebel troops, the camera pans out to present the illusion that Princess Leia is between them (she is actually standing behind them).

Director George Lucas, not well known for accentuating the homoerotic potential of his films, worked very hard to ensure that Han and Luke never connect in any substantive way. What was he afraid of?

Cinderella: Men in Tights

Let's face it -- 90% of the reason we go to the ballet is for the beefcake -- to look at the muscular male dancers in skin-tight leotards.  10% or less is for the bonding -- gay subtexts are scarce, even when the choreographer is gay.

And Cinderella is the most heterosexist of the lot.  It's based on the most iconic of Charles Perrault's fairy tales:

1. Cinderella escapes from her horrible childhood home to a fancy dress ball, with the help of a fairy godmother and a furry-animal makeover.
2. The Handsome Prince falls in love with her.
3. She flees at midnight, before she turns into a pumpkin.
4. The Handsome Prince tries her shoe out on every woman in the kingdom, but it only fits Cinderella.

Cinderella has no female friends, only bullying stepsisters.  The Handsome Prince has no male friends, just fawning courtiers.  It's male-female pas de deux, heterosexual love! love! love! from here to eternity.

There have been about 20 ballet versions, but the most commonly performed is the 1945 version with music composed by Sergei Prokofiev.

It adds some comedic touches, such as having the stepsisters performed by men in drag (as they are in the popular British pantomimes).  In 1948, it was re-choreographed as a full-blown comedic ballet.

Still entirely heterosexist, from stem to stern.

Fortunately, costumers usually compensate by dressing the Prince in the most tightly revealing leotards they can find.

So audiences who are bored by the heterosexual love! love! love! mantra can still find something to look at.

See also: The Midsummer Night's Dream Ballets.

The Gay Werewolf of Steppenwolf

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College in the early 1980s, I took three German classes with tall, gray-haired, constantly-scowling Professor Weber, who was obsessed with demonstrating that homosexualitat did not exist in modern Germany.

Stefan George, Thomas Mann, the Physical Culture Movement, Robert Musil, Magnus Hirschfield, the Kit-Kat Club of Berlin between the Wars?

"Posh!  Nonsense!  About friendship and the nationalist ideal, not homosexualitat!"

He would allow no discussion of current campus favorite Steppenwolf  by Herman Hesse: "Posh!  Nonsense!  A book of monsters!  Fit only for the Late-Late Show!"

So of course, I had to read it.

The cover illustration of two nearly-naked women nearly turned me away.

As did the clueless school librarian who kept trying to point me to the music section, insisting that the book was about the rock band Steppenwolf.

But finally I managed to get a copy.

I saw immediately why Dr. Weber forbade the class from discussing it.

The protagonist, Henry Haller, feels depressed, friendless, and alienated from the world he no longer understands -- what adolescent hasn't felt like that?  Especially gay adolescents.

The source of his alienation: he is a werewolf, a man with two natures, one civilized and stable and heterosexual, the other wild.

Wild, savage, untamed, homoerotic.

While wandering aimlessly through the city, he sees an advertisement for "Magic Theater -- not for everybody." (Or, in this Spanish sign, "for lunatics only.").

 Maybe in the Magic Theater he will find a way to reconcile his two natures.  Or maybe it will lead him to oblivion.  He resolves to seek it out.

En route, he meets two people.  Hermine nurtures his "civilized" side, introducing him to the pleasures and constraints of heterosexual normalcy, including sex with women.

Seductive saxophonist Pablo offers him a "walk on the wild side."

(In the 1974 film version, Henry is played by Max von Sydow, and Pablo by Pierre Clementi).

Eventually Henry kills his "civilized side," and Pablo announces that he is ready for the Magic Theater. He walks inside, through a narrow corridor into the future.

For the gay men of my generation, it sounds precisely like your first visit to a gay bar.  You circle the block a few times, then park, and walk slowly, terrified, to that door marked "Magic Theater: Not for Everybody."  Your future lies behind it.

Hesse envisioned several other close male "walks on the wild side," in Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and Magister Ludi (1943).  

See also: Death in Venice; and Male Nudity in German Class;

Bring on the Spider-Men

I'm not a big fan of superheroes in general, and Spider-Man is at the bottom of my list.  I walked out on the first movie (2002) starring Tobey Maguire, and I've never seen The Ultimate Spider-Man, in spite of its 10 Ultimate Hunks.

So the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Night (2011-2014) was not high on my must-see list.

It was one of the most expensive musicals in history, riddled with production accidents (Spidey has a lot of web-swinging to do).

It was panned by critics, who complained that it combined the worst set-pieces of the 2002  with pretentious Greek-chorus stuff, and ignores Spidey's comic book origins.

It was certainly heterosexist, with Mary Jane being captured and melting into Spidey's arms every five minutes.

But it has something that the comic book never had:  multiple Spider-Men.

You need a lot for all the stunts, and because they keep getting injured.

Spider-Men include man-mountains like Matthew Wilkas (top photo), Reed Kelly (left), Adam Ray Dyer (below).










Jake Odmark, Justin Matthew Sargent, Matthew James Thomas, Marcus Bellamy, and on and on and on....






And the Spider-Men's costumes seem particularly bulge-worthy.  Apparently being bitten by a radioactive spider adds considerable bulk beneath the belt.  How many can you count in this curtain call of four Spidermen sans mask?

How about now, with nine Spidermen strutting their stuff on Times Square?

New productions are being planned for major cities in America and Europe, so you may yet have a chance to gawk at your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Men.

Henry Danger: A Nickelodeon Gay-Subtext Classic?

The Disney Channel loves teencoms about kids who are training to become singers.

Nickelodeon puts them into bizarre, unexpected situations.

Which would you rather watch?

In Henry Danger, the Nickelodeon teencom, average kid Henry (Jace Norman) lands his dream job: Danger Boy, teen sidekick to superhero Captain Man (Cooper Barnes).

He gets to wear a superhero costume, hang out in a cool futuristic hideout, and fight colorful Batman-like villains.

Did I mention that the job pays $9 per hour?

Of course, Henry can't tell anyone, but that's part of the fun.  What kid doesn't want to live a secret life?

Especially a gay kid.

Jace Norman is exceptionally androgynous -- with a change of outfit, he could easily be a girl -- so the gay symbolism seems almost deliberate.

He has two best friends, the sarcastic, sassy Charlotte (Riele Downs) and the rather dimwitted Jasper (Sean Ryan Fox).  No doubt a heterosexual romance is in the offing with one, and a gay-subtext romance with the other.









Captain Man (Cooper Barnes) was heterosexualized in the first episode with a set-piece of his alter ego romancing a woman, but he's probably going to be up for some gay symbolism, too.

Cooper Barnes, seen here as Hawkman, is no stranger to gay subtexts.  He starred in a short video about football fans engaging in unconscious homoerotic behavior,

And Nickelodeon seems dedicated to filling supporting roles with musclemen.

Like Ben Giroux, seen here flexing in a commercial, as the villainous Toddler.