The Gay Content of "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"

The View Askew peeps, Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, and their friends, tend to make movies with a lot of subtle or not-so-subtle homophobia.  I try to avoid them whenever possible, and when I can't, I go in bracing myself for the onslaught.

In Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), the slacker buds(Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks) go to their 10-year high school reunion, where Miri aggressively propositions her old crush Bobby (Brandon Routh), without realizing that he is "gay now." Has he just, like, switched teams or something?

Bobby gets into an argument with his boyfriend, porn actor Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long).  Zack looks on in amusement, commenting "They fight just like real people."

After that brief scene, the gay people disappear, but they give Zack the idea of making some money by producing a straight porn movie.



His friend Delaney (View Askew regular Craig Robinson) agrees to bankroll it, and Zack and Miri hire a ragtag band of amateurs to perform.

Such as Lester (Jason Mewes, the perennial Jay to Silent Bob), whose talent is getting aroused very quickly.

Yes, we do see his butt, his rather impressive penis, and his rather scrawny body.

The dimwitted Lester mistakenly believes that there will be gay sex in the film, and remarks "I'll make it with a guy if I have to, but I'd rather make it with a girl."

Delaney exclaims "What the hell is wrong with you?" in homophobic contempt.  Obviously any guy who would do something as disgusting as engage in same-sex activity must have something wrong with them.

So according to Kevin Smith, gay people are mentally ill? Not a big revelation.  Most of his movies make similar statements.

Later Lester demonstrates a way for two guys to have sex without doing anything gay.

They also hire Barry (Ricky Mabe), a chubby actor in young-adult theater.  He doesn't mind being an anal bottom, as long as the top is a woman.  In one scene his testicles are on display, probably (they could be a prop).

Deacon (View Askew regular Jeff Anderson) agrees to direct.

Naturally the group becomes a family, and work together to help Zack and Miri in their hour of need.

The porno is started but never finished.  Instead, Zack and Miri fall in love.

I'll bet you didn't see that plot twist coming.

So, to sum up, the gay content consists of: two gay characters who vanish after the first ten minutes, three homophobic statements, Ricky Mabe's testicles, and Jason Mewes' penis.

Not a bad way to spend 90 minutes.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: Beefcake and Homophobia in the Worst Movie Ever Made

Long before he became nationally famous with Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, back when he was still a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert collaborated with schlockmeister Russ Meyer on what is probably the worst movie of all time, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970).

I've known about this movie for years, as a conundrum: how does a film critic produce such a bomb?  But last night I watched it for the first time.

And probably the last time.

It really is a horror, full of pretentious dialogue, ponderous moralizing, jerky jump-cuts, an infinite number of characters who look and sound alike, and a lot of homophobia.

Oh, and it's a Russ Meyer movie, so there are women nonchalantly walking around naked all the time, and closeups of their breasts instead of their faces when they talk.

As best as I could make out, the nonsensical plot follows the fortunes of Josie and the Pussycats or some such teenage all-girl rock group.

They all go to California to stay with lead singer Kelly's rich aunt Susan, in spite of the objections of their manager, Harris Allsworth (David Gurian) -- he thinks there are too many "perverts and fruits" in L.A.





They begin playing at the wild Laugh-In-style parties of the indescribably wealthy, ultra-flamboyant, ridiculously theatrical Z-Man (John LaZar).  There are both gay and straight couples hooking up in the various rooms of his mansion.

Z-Man becomes the group's new manager and pushes them into fame.  I think.  It looks like the same party, but I think time passes.


Everybody starts hooking up, in hetero-sex scenes with the naked woman atop the man, so most of his body is hidden.

1. Kelly starts dating hustler Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett).

2. Harris is seduced by an aggressive female porn star, who calls him "gay" when he is unable to perform adequately.  He tries to commit suicide, and becomes paraplegic.  Kelly dumps Lance to devote herself to caring for him.

3. The black girl starts dating law school student Emerson Thorne (Harrison Page), then boxer Randy Black (James Inglehart).  But she dumps him when his violent temper comes out.

4. Somebody else gets pregnant and starts a lesbian affair.

5. Aunt Susan re-connects with an old flame, I think (Charles Napier, seen here as a space hippie on Star Trek)

There's also some generation-gap pontificating and a muddled plotline about Kelly's inheritance.

One night Z-Man invites Lance and two women (I don't know who) to his house for a private drug party.  The women go off to be lesbians, and Z-Man tries to seduce Lance.  When Lance rejects him, Z-Man reveals that he is actually a woman, with breast and everything!

Lance still rejects him, so he kills everyone in the house in a psychotic rage.

Including his servant, who has become a Nazi, for some reason.

The three conventional heterosexual couples rush over and subdue Z-Man -- a little too late, but it took time to get Harris's wheelchair into the Scooby-Mobile..

Then there's a long, pretentious, moralistic voice-over about what was wrong with each character, including the minor ones, followed by a triple wedding (Aunt Susan-old flame, Harris-Kelly, the two black characters).

 Got all that?

Ebert hadn't originally intended this as a standard "transvestite killer" movie, with the twist that it's a female transvestite.  He thought of it at the last minute, after the filming was over -- the actors themselves had no idea. I guess he wanted to get in one last homophobic dig.

This is by no means the most homophobic movie ever made -- that honor goes to Chuck and Buck.  But it's an interesting example of the homophobia that formed an ongoing backdrop to Ebert's reviews throughout his career.

Holy Mortadella, Batman: The Boy Wonder's Beneath the Belt Bulk

Every Baby Boomer boy knows why we couldn't wait to see Batman (1966-68), with Adam West and Burt Ward as campy, corny Caped Crusaders.  It wasn't the over-the-top villains, or the "Zap! Pow!" fights, or the buddy-bonding between Batman and Robin.

It was Robin's jaw-dropping beneath-the-belt bulge.

Burt Ward is, by all accounts (including his own), massive.  He won't give his exact measurements, but I'm guessing Mortadella.

It was hard to cram him into that Robin Hood costume without his something extra showing.

Especially when he was tied up, struggling to escape from the latest diabolical trap.

Which happened in nearly every episode.

Check out these two pictures.  As the ropes get tighter, Robin gets warmer.

Well, he couldn't help it. Burt Ward was in his early 20s, and he often had to spend an hour at a time restrained, with nothing to do but wait.  Extras and guest stars often took advantage of the opportunity to play with him.

Female extras, he claims.  I'm not so sure.













Gay actor Cesar Romero, who played the Joker, claims that the show gave him many opportunities for an "accidental" grope, and at least once they went farther.  Burt didn't mind.  In fact, the younger actor looked up to Romero as a comedic mentor, and they became lifelong friends.

I also have a correspondent who claims to have hooked up with Burt right on the set.

About a dozen episodes into the first season, a "Save the Children" watchdog group complained, and the directors and crew found ways to underplay Burt's package.  Or hide it altogether.

But it remains the stuff of legend.

See also: Lane's Hookup with Batman, Robin, and the Joker.; A Hookup with Robin the Boy Wonder

Danny Kaye was Gay

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, one of our traditions was watching White Christmas (1954), actually a backstage comedy about rival singing acts, with nothing to do with Christmas except the final scene.  It was my first backstage comedy, my introduction to Bing Crosby, and the only thing I've ever seen Danny Kaye in.

But when my parents were young, Danny Kaye was everywhere.  Born in New York in 1911, he was a Borscht belt and Vaudeville comedian before moving to Hollywood at the start of World War II.  He played fast-talking, mugging Russians (The Inspector General, 1949), wistful dreamers (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 1947; Hans Christian Andersen, 1952), and, of course, dopey sidekicks (White Christmas).

Plus he had his own radio program (1945-46) and cut many records with both sentimental and novelty songs: "The Woody Woodpecker Song," "I've Got a Lovely Box of Coconuts," "Tchaikovsky" (which involves saying the names of Russian composers at breakneck speed).

He had his own tv show from 1963 to 1967 (I never saw it), and appeared as himself on Laugh-In, The Tonight Show, Dick Cavett, Ed Sullivan, The CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People, and The Muppet Show.

His last role was on an episode of The Cosby Show.  He died in 1987.





Comedic actors need a great deal of upper-body strength to do their pratfalls.  As this photo from Baby Jane Collectibles reveals, Danny Kaye had a respectable physique for his era.

But I understand that his stage presence was feminine, even swishy, nearly as gay-coded as Jack Benny, and he played a string of "sissies" who use their wit to triumph over muscle-men. Was he gay?

Yep.  Well, he liked ladies.  He was married to Sylvia Fine from 1940 to his death, and he had various other hetero-affairs with women ranging from Eve Arden to Shirley MacLaine,  But he was also open to same-sex activity and even romance. 

Sir Laurence Olivier is mentioned most often as his partner: they met in 1940, and saw each other off and on for the next twenty years, in plain sight of their wives and everyone in Hollywood.  The rule in those days was to pretend not to notice.

12 Current and Future Beefcake Stars of "Freaks and Geeks"

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) was a high school comedy-drama created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow.  Although it won a lot of critical acclaim and regularly appears on "best tv" lists, it couldn't find an audience -- an hour long comedy that kept switching time slots, competing with Veronica's Closet, Ally McBeal, and Everybody Loves Raymond, then dumped to Saturday night?  18 episodes were produced, but only 12 were aired.  All 18 are now streaming on Netflix.

I find it derivative of 1980s high school nerd movies, complete with sneering bullies, sadistic teachers, and The Girl walking across the room in slow motion while every guy in the class stares at her in rapture.  Hetero-horniness is endemic; gay people do not exist.

And I have a lot of nit-picks:
1. It's Michigan, but always warm and sunny, even in winter.
2. Characters are introduced, then vanish, never to be seen or mentioned again.
3. The fundamentalist Christian girl crosses herself -- only Catholics do that.
4. And her church holds a dance -- fundamentalist Christians do not dance.
5. The time frames make no sense.  They go trick-or-treating for hours in broad daylight.  Lindsay goes to dinner at the Mean Girl's house, hours of plot time pass, and she goes home -- where her family is just sitting down to dinner.  Do they eat at 9:00 pm?

Still, the characters have an endearing quality, the 1980s references give me a nostalgic glow, and there is ample beefcake.

Here are the top 12 beefcake highlights:

The Freaks: a group of slackers and stoners (although they never mention pot).

1. Teddy bear Ken (Seth Rogen)

2. James Dean wannabe Danny (James Franco)













3. Aspiring musician Nick (Jason Segel).

If these three sound familiar, it's because they've been starring in each others' movies for 17 years.

Plus Mean Girl Kim (Busy Phillips) and focus character Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini)







The Geeks: a group of underdeveloped, non-athletic Star Wars fans:

4. Tall, thin, laconic Bill (Martin Starr).  He's still tall, thin, and laconic.

5. Jewish stereotype Neal (Samm Levine).  The hottest of the cast, then and now.

















6. Prepubescent focus character Sam (John Francis Daley) was 18 at the time, although he could easily pass for 14.  He's grown up a lot since.










More after the break.

Dorno of the Herculoids, Grown Up and Tied Up

These are The Herculoids, Zandor (middle), Tara (left), and Dorno (right), protectors of the planet Amzot in a Saturday morning cartoon series that ran 18 episodes from 1967 to 1969.  A few more episodes were aired in 1981-1982.

They were barbarians with sci-fi powers and a lot of cool pets: a space dragon; a giant ape; a rhinocerous with a laser cannon for horns; and two blob-beings.

Most episodes involved one of the three getting captured by Bird Men, Mole Men, Spider Men, Bubble Men, Electrode Men, Sun People, Crystallites, Reptons, Monkey People, and so on. 

Dorno, of course, ignores the orders to "stay here where it's safe" and either initiates the action or stumbles upon a way to perform a daring rescue.

Although it's been 35 years since we saw any new episodes, the Herculoids have not been forgotten. They've appeared on Harvey Birdman and Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and in various comic books, including DC Comics' Future Quest (2016).

And there's a lot of fan art of Dorno tied and threatened.

Usually he's aged into young adulthood and buffed up a bit, to appeal to adult sensibilities.

Sometimes he is threatened by villains from the show, and sometimes by new characters.  There's a whole series of Dorno fighting Freddie Kruger.

Here Jonny Quest and Hadji gang up on the barbarian hero.

Jonny and Dorno have some romantic moments, too.

But there's not much time for romance when every monster, pirate, and villain in the galaxy wants a piece of you.

And the rule in the Villain's Code about hurting kids no longer applies.

All pictures are copyrighted by their respective owners on deviantart.com.

See also: Saturday Morning Muscle

11 Reasons John Smith Was Probably Gay

Not the animated Pilgrim of Pocahontas, the beefcake actor fondly remembered by the first generation of Baby Boomers as the star of Laramie (1959-63). 

1. He was a shy, sensitive, artistic child.  He appeared in the choir in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945).

2. He signed on with casting agent Henry Willson, who single-handedly started the beefcake fad of the 1950s.  Willson filled studios with gay, bi, and gay-for-pay hunks: Ty Hardin, Rock Hudson, John Saxon, Dack Rambo, Farley Granger. His all-male Sunday afternoon parties were legendary.

Wilson also named him "John Smith."  Rather a serious lack of creativity.

3. Laramie aired on Tuesday nights amid a profusion of Westerns, it is distinctive for the strong gay subtext between the two cowboys, Slim (John Smith) and Jess (Robert Fuller).

4. It also starred Spring Byington, a lesbian actress who is best known for the sitcom December Bride.  Not a romantic interest for either of the male characters.
















More after the break

Brokeback Mountain for the 1950s: Laramie

Fifty years before Brokeback Mountain and twenty years before Zachariah, the tv Western Laramie gave us a portrait of two cowboys in love.

Shortly after the Civil War, Slim Sherman (played by an actor with the regrettably anonymous name John Smith) and his teenage brother Andy (Bobby Crawford) run a ranch and a stagecoach relay station in Wyoming Territory.  A hunky drifter, Jess Harper (Robert Fuller) comes to town and draws Andy's attention (for obvious reasons).   

Robert Fuller and Bobby Crawford also became friends in real life, and were often seen in Hollywood hotspots together.

But Slim found his own romantic intentions stymied, so after the first season he shipped Andy off to boarding school so he could have Jess to himself.  After that they were blatantly physical, emotionally intense partners. Not even the third-season addition of Spring Byington as single mother Daisy Cooper could detract from their gay subtext.

They were unusual among 1950s cowboys for their occasional shirtless and undewear shots on-screen (as opposed to just in the muscle magazines), thus enhancing the homoerotic gaze.

John Smith was one of talent agent Henry Willson's stable of gay and gay-friendly 1950s hunks (others included Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter), so he may have been gay or bisexual, though of course he never made any public statements.

He had a long career in Westerns and actioners where his shirt had to come off, including The Women of Pitcairn Island (1956), Cimarron City (1958-59), Island of Lost Women (1959), and Hondo (1967). 

Robert Fuller was one of the movie magazine hunks of the 1950s, eagerly photographed when he was seen in public with either men or women (he was married twice).  After Laramie, he had starring roles on Wagon Train, The Big Valley, Emergency!, Guns of Paradise, and Walker: Texas Ranger.

Star Trek Beyond Homophobia

I don't usually post reviews of single episodes of tv series, but I'm being forced to work my way through Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005), the classic Trek prequel about smug, simpering Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and his best buddy Trip (Connor Trineer) leading the Earth's first baby-step exploratory mission into deep space.

It's awful.  No continuity at all.  Sometimes they're hundreds of light years from home, sometimes close enough so friends can visit.  Sometimes space is empty, and sometimes it's crowded with dozens of species.

Every species looks, dresses, acts, and eats exactly like us, with a few very minor differences.  The universe is depressingly monotonous.

And they all speak perfect colloquial English.  In the first season they at least tried to introduce some translation problems, but by Season 2, there was no question: aliens (or should I say humans with things on their foreheads) don't need a translator.  English is the universal language of the galaxy.

Oh, well, at least Connor Trinneer's physique is on display a lot.  He is  jaw-droppingly huge beneath the belt.

They should call the show "Star Trek: Trip in His Underwear."

But last night's episode was bad.  Really bad.

In "Cogenitor" (April 30, 2003), the Enterprise encounters the Vissians, exactly like us in every way except for some forehead bulges and the fact that they need three sexes to reproduce.

Members of the third sex are treated as slaves, or the handmaidens in Margaret Atwood's novel -- no, worse.  At least slaves have names.  At least the handmaidens got to do the shopping  Cogenitors, referred to only as "it," are passed around from couple to couple like shared property, not allowed to do anything but eat, sleep, and make babies.

After Trip overcomes his homophobic horror over the thought of sex between beings other than a man and a woman, he takes an interest in the Vissian cogenitor, teaching it -- "her" -- to read, giving her a tour of his ship, showing her some movies, encouraging her to rebel against her oppression.  The Vissians are furious.  So is Captain Archer!  Trip has no right to interfere with the "customs" of another species!

When the cogenitor realizes that her condition will not change, she asks for asylum aboard the Enterprise.  Archer refuses -- oppressing the "third sex" is part of their culture!  She is returned to the Vissian ship, where she promptly commits suicide.

Archer calls Trip into his office and chews him out.  This is your fault!  You introduced subversive ideas into her head, made her think that she wasn't inferior to the Vissians, encouraged her to rebel!   Now somebody is dead, just because you were stupid enough to promote social equality.  We should never lift a hand against oppression if it's part of their culture!

Trip, contrite, agrees.  He should never have interfered.

The episode was probably meant as a homophobic rant against gay rights: LGBT people should not try for social equality, because it's part of our culture to treat them like scum.

But it goes far beyond that, to condemn the abolitionist movement -- enslaving black people was part of their culture!  And women's suffrage -- denying women the right to vote was part of their culture.  And the Holocaust -- if genocide was part of Nazi culture, we have no right to criticize it.

 Wow.

The episode was written by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.  I'm not going to do any research to determine how prejudiced they are.  It's rather obvious.


I don't think that a picture of Trip's chest is going to be able to fix this one.