The Lord of the Rings: Good Beyond Hope

It's one of the iconic stories of my life, told over and over again until it becomes myth.

How, in fifth grade, I stumbled across a copy of The Hobbit in the folklore section of the Denkmann School library, and read for the first time: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

I spent the next two days immersed in a new world, Middle Earth,with hobbits, elves, dwarves, goblins, magic swords, giant spiders, a dragon, a gollum,  and a beautiful, evocative map.

And no damsels-in-distress to gum up the works; Middle Earth was occupied entirely by men.

How, two years later, in seventh grade, the Scholastic Book Club offered The Two Towers, blatantly advertised as the "sequel" to The Hobbit.  I ordered it, waited patiently, and when it arrived, rushed home and began to read eagerly.  Aragorn, Boromir, Frodo..who were these people? This was not a sequel at all; it was the second book in a trilogy.  I had been swindled!

How I snuck a ride to the Readmore Book World downtown and bought the rest of the trilogy, and read...well, most of the Fellowship of the Ring.  The Shire scenes, with gay couples Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin wending through the Old Forest, fighting off Dark Riders and Barrow-Wights, meeting Tom Bombadil, reaching Rivendell, setting off with a fellowship of nine, including gay couple Legolas and Gimli.  Around the time they reach the Mines of Moria, it bogged down, and I started to skim.

The Two Towers was mostly unreadable, sheer boredom.  I skimmed through everything except for Merry and Pippin among the Ents.

The Return of the King, more of the same, with Frodo and Sam, especially Frodo, suffering for no reason, as if Tolkien delighted in torturing his heroes.  I skimmed through everything until the end, when they return to the Shire to discover that it has been broken up by the Industrial Revolution.

I couldn't bring myself to admit it for many years, but The Lord of the Rings is not a great novel, or even a good novel.  30% of it is torture porn (let's see what other horrible things can happen to Frodo!), and 60% is repetitive, ponderous, and dull.  Everyone has twelve names, everyone's sword has twelve names, and they're always stopping the action to sing.

And talk about anachronisms:  The Shire is 18th century England; one expects to hear the bothersome War of Independence being fought in the Colonies. But outside the Shire, it's the early-Medieval world of the Anglo-Saxon thanes.

Yet still I thought of it as the greatest book ever written.  I pressed it into the hands of my friends as if it were a religious tract.  I revered it as sacred writ.  I began working on my own fantasy world in imitation, with my own elves and dwarves, magic sword, and fabulous maps.

It seems like a paradox.

But the Lord of the Rings wasn't for reading.  It was for gazing at the covers.  The artist, Barbara Remington, had not read or even seen the book before drawing the covers, so she drew from magic and myth.

My favorite was The Two Towers, with its stylized sharp mountains, red sky, and dark flying riders.

It was about reading the cover blurbs, with quotes from Loren Eisley, W. H. Auden, and C.S. Lewis (none of whom I had heard of yet): "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart....good beyond hope."

That line is better than anything in the book itself.

It was about gazing at the maps, and marveling at all of the mysterious places. I particularly liked the edges, the places not mentioned in the books: Rhun, Far Harad, the Ice Bay of Forochel, and Carn Dum ("here was of old the witch-realm of Angmar").

It was about reading the appendixes, with the languages, the indexes, the genealogical charts, and the timelines, with the discussions of what happened to the characters after the War of the Rings ended.

And it was about discovering the fates of the gay couples:

Merry and Pippin lived together for the rest of their lives

Legolas and Gimli crossed to the Elf paradise together

Frodo crossed over alone, while Sam pursued a heteronormative life of marriage and children.  But at the end of his life, he, too crossed over.

Was there ever a book so filled with gay romances?

That's what, in the end, rendered The Lord of the Rings "good beyond hope."

See also: The Lord of the Rings

Who the Heck is Kumail Nanjiani, and Is He Gay?

"Kumail Nanjiana is now ripped as hell, and he is refreshingly honest about it!" my twitter feed exclaims.

Three questions:
1. Who the heck is Kumail Nanjiani?
2. Why is having a nice physique such a big deal?
3. Is he gay, posing with his boyfriend?

1. Who the heck is Kumail Nanjiani?

The twitter link goes to Comicsands, which I can't stand because there are two lines of text per page, hidden amid endless popups and slow-loading videos that scroll down with you.  So I checked wikipedia, just in case this obscure bodybuilder had his own page.

One of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to Time magazine!  Why have I never heard of him?

He was born in  Pakistan in 1978, but didn't show up on screen until a Saturday Night Live episode in 2008.  He had a recurring role on the buddy-lawyer series Franklin and Bash (2011-2014), and after that a lot of guest spots and voice roles: Prismo on Adventure Time, Skip Marouch on Bob's Burgers.

Nothing particularly influential so far.

Kumail's only significant role seems to be in The Big Sick (2017), which he also wrote with his then-wife Emily Gordon.  It's a slightly fictionalized memoir about their romance. dealing with cultural differences and Emily's life-threatening illness.  In the end, she recovers, and they break up.

It sounds awful.  Who wants to watch a movie about a life-threatening illness?  But, depressing or not, it was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay, and pushed Kumail up into the ranks of the 100 most influential people in the world.

I'm pretty sure I could name 100 actors more influential than the star of one depressing movie, but ok, next question.

2. Why is having a nice physique such a big deal?

Apparently he was rather chunky just a few years ago.  Hitting the gym for the first time when you're over 40 is rather daunting, and Kumail deserves praise for sticking with it long enough to see results.













3. Is he gay, and posing with his boyfriend?

An article in Entertainment Weekly called Emily Gordon Kumail's "former wife," implying that they are divorced or she has died.  But Wikipedia just says that they've been married since 2007.  Which to believe?

He appeared in an episode of the Game of Thrones parody Gay of Thrones, but he doesn't play a gay character: one of the Queer Eye guys gives him a haircut.  That's entertaiment?

Also, Kumail and Emily are currently producing Little America, about the lives of immigrants.  Episode #8 features Rafiq (Haaz Sleiman), a gay refugee from Syria.

I'm going to go with "straight."

A straight guy who starred in a depressing movie and has a nice physique.  Big deal.

By the way, the other guy in the photo is Barry Keoghan, Kumail's costar in the upcoming superhero movie The Eternals.  

This is obviously a photo from a gay romance.  I wonder if he's gay in real life.

Google, here I come.

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Teen Tristan Strong's father and grandfather were famous boxers who want him to follow the family tradition -- he has the physique for it --but he would really rather do nerd things with his best friend Edward.  They make up stories, which Edward records in a journal.

You've got my attention.  

When Edward dies,Tristan is so distraught that he starts to hallucinate, seeing a green light glowing from the journal.  No one else can see it. His parents send him to Grandpa's farm in Alabama, hoping that a change of scenery will help.

Definite gay subtext!  I'm listening.

On his first night on the farm, a strange doll-like being, the Gum Baby, appears in his room and steals the journal.  Tristan pursues her to a Bottle Tree, and accidentally punches one of the bottles, opening up a hole in the sky.  They fall through into a scalding-hot ocean, pursued by ships made of human bones.  They are rescued by Ayanna, a girl-warrior...

Uh-oh.  The Girl!  I'll just skip ahead to the last chapter to see if they fall in lo--ooo---ove.  

All clear.  Tristan is talking to the Gum Baby and someone named High John (High John the Conquerer Root from African-American voodoo?)

Ayana is piloting a boatload of survivors from a disaster of some sort, including humans and talking animals. Like Brer Fox....

What the heck is going on? 

Tristan is trapped in the Midpass, a world populated by figures from African-American folklore. Such as the old trickster god Brer Rabbit.  And John Henry, the super-muscular 19th century railroader with the powerful...um...hammer.  

His story actually involves convict leasing (African-American men were arrested for the crime of being black and put to work on railroads and in coal mines, basically slavery by another name).

Whoa, heavy.  African-American folklore was born in adversity.  

When Tristan meets John Henry, he has to stop himself from asking to touch  his..um hammer.  

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Is this kid canonically gay?

That would be telling.  It's a nonstop race, with things trying to kill or eat them every moment, to the Warren, a temporary haven against the darkness that threatens to encroach all of the land.  There a council consisting of Brer Rabbit, John Henry, and a lesbian couple from the folktale "The People Could Fly" discuss the Book (which has been lost) and discover that Tristan is...guess what...the Chosen One.  

Tristan has to be the Chosen One, or else he couldn't participate in the adventure. The adults would just say "Wait here where it's safe."

He has to travel to the other side of the world to convince Anansi the Spider to come out of hiding and repair the hole in the sky. But there are complications.  

Of course.  Otherwise be lousy story.

When he meets High John the Conqueror, the ultimate Power, Tristan finds him him obnoxious, irreverent, and arrogant.

Whoa.  Now I know Tristan is canonically gay!  I'll check out the author, Kwami Mbalia.

Ok, but that's another story: he's  "a husband, father, writer, New York Times bestselling author, and pharmaceutical metrologist, in that order."  He grew up in the Midwest, graduated from Howard University, and now lives in North Carolina. This is his debut novel.

Nothing jumps out at me saying "I'm going to make the protagonist of my young adult novel gay."  But you never know....

The Great Cock of the Darking Wood, and Other Hunks from "The Magicians"

Back in 2015, I watched half of the first episode of The Magicians, now in its fourth season on Netflix.  Quentin and his childhood friend Julia are invited to apply to Brakebills University, a secret magical academy that's not Hogwarts. 

Quentin is admitted.  He meets various eccentric classmates and teachers, plus he discovers that the fantasy world from his favorite childhood novels, not The Chronicles of Narnia, is real.

Meanwhile Julia fails the exam.  Failed applicants get their memories erased, but in her case the erasure doesn't work (for Reasons)  so she starts learning magic on the downlow in a dream world.  Plus she wants to find out why her brother died at Brakebill five years ago. 

That was enough.  I just didn't have the patience for yet another mythology-heavy, secret-agenda-filled series.  Besides, it was way too heterosexist, with men and women constantly glimmering at each other.

Four seasons later, The Magicians has become as complex as Lost meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with endless secret agendas, people who are not what they seem, parallel worlds, poltergeists, dragons, and maguffin piled onto maguffin.  Just listen to this plot synopsis from Season 3:

Elliot and Fen, along with their now-grown child Fray (who is secretly a spy for the Fairy Queen) try to retrieve the First Key from a priest on Alter Island.  Meanwhile Quentin realizes that Emily has the last of Mayakovsky's batteries, but Kady steals it before he can get to it.  Then the Lamprey posseses him.

Whatever happened to The Golden Girls?  Season 3, Episode 5: The girls have to fly to the Bahamas for a funeral, but Rose is afraid of delivering the eulogy, Dorothy is afraid of flying, and Blanche is afraid of bald men.

But if you want to stick with it, The Magicians has been acclaimed as "the queerest show on tv."  Most of the main cast has been revealed as bisexual -- starting in the second season, after the homophobes get invested.  There are same-sex liasions and relationships. 

Personally, I don't have the time for it.  I'll make do with a list of Top 10 Hunks.

1, Hale Appleman (top photo) as Elliot, the world-weary, well-seasoned, hookup-happy upperclassman.  Later he becomes the Monster at the End of the World.

2. Jason Ralph (second photo) as Quentin, the newby who has an unrequited crush on Julia but also falls in love with Alice and Elliott.  Later he becomes The Beast.

3. Arjun Gupta (third photo) as Penny, an upperclassman who becomes Quentin's rival/best bud and later Librarian of the Neithrlands (don't ask).

4. Adam DiMarco (left) as Todd, a miscellaneous student at Brakebills.

5. Arlen Escarpeta as Prince Ess of Loria.

6. Mackenzie Astin as Corrigan, a member of a free trade alliance who is taken over by Reynard the Fox, a trickster god who is searching for his mother, the Greek goddess Persephone. Huh?

7. Jesse Lukan as a miscellaneous hunk who shares Elliot's bed.  Aren't you glad he's not the Mercurian Azaroth who is taken over by Seth the Unyielder?

8. Charles Mesure as Martin Chatwick, one of the kids from the not-Narnia books who became High King of Fillory, then turned evil and started breaking through to Earth in order to cause havoc.

9. Markian Tarasiuk as Prince Micah in the episode where Quentin and Elliot go to a parallel world and grow old together, or else see each other in a parallel world, or else...

10.  Darien Martin as Lunk.  I just like the name "Lunk." 

The cast also includes characters named Tick Pickwick, Bender (not that Bender), Our Lady Underground, the Stone Queen, Santa Claus, Bacchus, Fairy Ambassador, and:

The Great Cock of the Darkling Wood.

That's who I want to invite to my Christmas party.

Why I Walked Out on Tony Danza

October 10th, 1978, a Tuesday night.  I'm 17 years old, a freshman at Augustana College, studying in the tv lounge at the student union.  It's crowded with jocks and their girlfriends, Dungeons and Dragons nerds, future Lutheran preachers, and ironic-artsy types. Tuesday is the power night of must-see tv: Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, Taxi.

I figured "it" out last summer, but I haven't met any gay people yet, and I know nothing about gay life.  Except one thing: no straights must ever know.  At best they will never speak to you again.  More likely they will attack. You will be kicked out of the house, expelled from the college, arrested.

So watching tv in a group presents a problem.  You have to feign disinterest in the hot male actors and pretend to find the "hot chicks" attractive.  If you make a mistake, and accidentally express an interest in an "uggo," it will all be over.

And what about the occasional gay characters? If you seem too interested, act as if you want to hear about "fags," the straights will suspect.  But they wil also suspect if you bellow with outrage ("Why do you care so much? Are you that way?)

You have to express just the right level of disgust: "I don't care what they do in the bedroom, as long as they don't try anything with me."

Happy Days: "Happy days" in the 1950s.  Fonzie, motorcycle hoodlum turned role model, bonds with his ex-girlfriend's son, whose father abandoned him.  No references to gay people, no hot guys, a few murmurs about the hotness of the ex-girlfriend, no big deal.

Laverne and Shirley: More "happy days," with two working girls in 1950s Milwaukee.  Neither is presented as particularly attractive.  They go on a quiz show.   No big deal.

Three's Company:  Jack Tripper (John Ritter) pretends to be gay so the uptight landlord will let him share an apartment with two girls.  Usually not a problem: no actual gay people appear, and when Jack has to "be gay," he swishes and limp-wrists to elicit laughter rather than outrage.   He doesn't even swish in this episode: the gang mistakenly believes that Helen is cheating on her husband.

Taxi:  About a disparate group of drivers for the Sunshine Cab Company in NewYork.  This is only the fifth episode, but it's already a major hit.

Not a problem, except for trying not to sigh over the rock-hard hunkiness of Tony Danza.  This episode centers on Elaine (Marilu Henner), an aspiring artist who doesn't want her snooty friends to know that she drives a cab.

Then....

Elaine's fare (William Bogert) believes that she is deliberately driving the "scenic route," and refuses to pay.  She threatens to claim that he tried to rape her.  He says: "You may have a little trouble getting that story to stick when the police find out I'm the National Secretary for the Gay Liberation Force."

I blink in surprise.  Is there such an organization (no, there wasn't)?  Do gay people have groups, clubs, national organizations?  I thought it was just clandestine bars. 

Suddenly I realize that everyone is laughing. 

Should I laugh, too? Should I make a comment about how New York is full of fairies?  What if he turns out to be a major character in the episode, the owner of the art gallery or something? What if he turns out to be a recurring character in the series?

Should I stay or should I go?

I go.

See also: Taxi

Philip McKeon after Alice

Philip McKeon was one of the biggest teen stars of the 1970s, mostly for his role as Tommy Hyatt, son of single mom Alice Hyatt (Linda Lavin) on Alice (1976-85), and also because he was the brother of Nancy McKeon, the tomboy Jo on The Facts of Life (1979-88).   But he had a respectable career in buddy-bonding and gay-vague roles, without Linda and Nancy around.

Born in 1964, the tall, grinning blond got his start as a child model at age 4, and soon moved on to television commercials and theater.  Linda Lavin saw him in Jason and Medea, a retelling of the Greek myth, and recommended him for Tommy.

While working on Alice, Phil did the usual Love Boat/ Fantasy Island guest shots, plus Leadfoot (1982), a cautionary tale about a teen who drives too fast, thus jeopardizing his life and that of his best friend Murph (played by fellow teen star Peter Barton).

In an episode of Amazing Stories (1986), Phil plays a World War II solder who is saved, along with other members of his platoon, by the outcast Arnold (Larry Spinack), who may have been a ghost. There's some glimmers of buddy bonding.

In Red Surf (1989), a drug dealer named True Blue (Phil) is busted by the police, talks too much, and draws the ire of crime boss Calavera (Rick Najera).  So his two buddies, Atilla (Doug Savant) and Remar (George Clooney) must rush to the rescue.

He also starred in a few horror movies before moving into direction (Edge of Nowhere, The Young Unknowns) and production, including Where the Day Takes You (with David Arquette as a bisexual prostitute), Teresa's Tattoo (with a full contingent of 1980s hunks, including Matt Adler, C. Thomas Howell, and Lou Diamond Philips),  Murder in the First, and The Jacket. 

Both Phil and Nancy McKeon were the subject of gay rumors, but they never made any public statements.

Phil McKeon died on December 10th, 2019, after a long illness

See also: Pedro hooks up with Philip McKeon

Mid-City Modern, Episode 1.6: "Golden Girls" with gay guys, Bomer's butt, a Hunk's cock, and McKeon's hookup

John Hamill: The First Nude Physique Model

Born in 1947, the boyish, good-natured John Hamill began his career as a physique model, one of the first to pose fully nude.  Sometimes he even had a partner, in explicitly homoerotic scenes aimed at the increasingly visible gay male audience.  He also appeared in both gay and heterosexual "blue movies."

But he aspired to become a serious actor, so he studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts and began appearing on stage, notably in the gay-themed Boys in the Band in 1969 (presumably as the hustler hired to become a "birthday present").

His film career began in 1970, with starring roles in the thrillers The Beast in the Cellar (not as the beast), Trog (not as the rampaging caveman), and No Blade of Grass.  He also had some guest spots on tv series such as Paul Temple, The Befrienders, and Crossroads.  

But, like many bodybuilders, especially those with a "gay reputation," John found himself stuck in minor roles as threatening bad guys or inarticulate hunks.  In Tower of Evil (1972), for example, his character is introduced, takes off his clothes, flexes his muscles and gets killed, all in about thirty seconds.

Anxious for work, he agreed to star in the sex comedy Girls Come First (1975), as an artist asked to paint nude models.  Released in both hardcore and softcore versions, it was popular enough to lead to two sequels, and parts in similar movies, like Hardcore (1977).

But nothing else.  After a two-parter on Space: 1999 in 1978, he retired from acting and became a furniture refinisher.

Being so open about sex, and so nonchalant about both male and female partners, limited John's career, but left him -- and his fans -- with many fond memories.

You can see the nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.

The Explosive Generation: Billy Gray in Love

In spite of the beefcake on the posters and lobby cards, The Explosive Generation (1961) doesn't offer many swimsuit, underwear, or locker room scenes, though there are lots of clean-cut 1950s teens in tight pants.

It does offer some significant gay subtexts, as rich kid Bobby (Billy Gray of Father Knows Best, right) moons over basketball star Dan (the muscular Lee Kinsolving, left), and invites him to a wild party at his parents' beach house.

They dance, drink beer, and Bobby tries to talk Dan into having sex with his girlfriend Janet (Patty McCormack, center, best known as the murderous little girl in The Bad Seed). 

 Wait -- why does Bobby care so much about whether Dan has sex with a girl?  What kind of vicarious pleasure can he get from. . .oh, right, the subtext.

That's why this poster shows the two of them dragging her toward a three-way triangulation.

Janet is reluctant -- how far should a girl go to prove her love to a boy?

So she brings up the subject in class.  Fortunately, she has one of those hip, caring, hunky teachers who are always trying to make a difference: Peter Gifford (William Shatner), who is as horny as Captain Kirk meeting an alien princess, making every statement a double-entendre and putting his hands all over the bodies of both male and female students (not to mention dragging a boy out of a girl's arms so he can have him for himself).

Gifford decides to conduct a survey about students' attitudes toward sex.  Parents find out, and become apoplectic with outrage.  The principal starts screaming.  The cops get involved.   Gifford is asked to apologize (that's all?)

Bobby leads a student protest  -- but not one of those loud protests of the hippie generation.  They give the teachers the silent treatment.  And the principal backs down. Problem solved.

The Explosive Generation is not very explosive, but it provides an interesting view of how histrionic parents got -- and still get -- over the idea of their teenagers having sex.

"Mortel": Gay-Tease Teenagers Fight Voodoo Gods in Paris

When I searched online for Nemo Schiffman, this photo came up, with the byline "Melanie Thierry et Raphael, fin de partie."

I don't know who those people are, but obviously neither one is Nemo Schiffman, the 19 year old singer/actor who is starring in Mortel (Deadly), a French drama about two teenage boys fighting supernatural evil.

Here's a guy who goes to Gay Pride Parades, records songs without "girl! girl! girl!" lyrics, and is the bff of queer singer Bilal Hassani, "an icon to queer youth."  There must be a gay subtext!  Or maybe even a canonical gay couple!

It's worth a shot.

Episode 1:

Sofiane (Carl Malapa), a student at a run-down high school in a working-class arondissement of Paris, has been a wreck since his older brother Reba (Sami Outalbali) disappeared four months ago.  He even tries to commit suicide.  He starts getting visions of a supernatural being with dreadlocks and fiery glasses (Corentin Fila), who explains that he is Obé, the Voodoo god in charge of transporting murdered souls to the other world.  Reba is trapped in limbo, but Sofiane can release him by murdering someone else.

Release him to the other world, or bring him back to life?  And why is he trapped?  Can't Obé just transport him over?

Sofiane chooses Victor (Nemo Schiffman), the outcast weird kid who's been in and out of mental hospitals.  He lures him onto a roof, and, with Obé egging him on, tries to strangle him.  But Sofiane can't do it.  Maybe Obé would accept his brother's murderer instead?

The god agrees.

Episode 2:

Sofiane receives the power of physically moving people (handy for getting bad guys to punch themselves), and Victor receives the power of reading minds, and they get to sleuthing.  They seek out the help of classmate Luisa (Manon Bresch), whose grandmother is a Voodoo priestess (I didn't know there was a large Afro-Caribbean community in France).  She suggests that it might not be a good idea to trust a being who claims to be a Voodoo god.

Uh-oh.  The Girl.  Will one of the two boys demolish the gay subtext by falling in love?

Victor invites Sofiane home for dinner: middle-class household, conniving little sister, stepfather who makes Pad Thai.

"When we met, it was friendship at first sight," Sofiane explains.

The family is delighted, and implicitly assumes that they are a gay couple.

But I'm concerned about The Girl, so before I commit to watching the whole series, I'd better skip to the last episode to see if the two walk off into the sunset together.


Episode 6:

Bad things went down last night, and Victor is incoherent, drawing monsters in his underwear and screaming at his family.  Sofiane sends them all away and grabs and hugs Victor as he cries.

So far so gay.

They decide to storm the building where Luisa is interviewing the Bad Guy.  Sofiane has to use his powers to fight off several armed guards.  It's difficult and very painful.  Victor hugs him.

Great, but what about the very last scene:

Victor and Sofiane sitting on a bench.  It's all over, so now they can get on with their lives, walking side by side into the future, right?  Victor says that he still has issues to work on, so he's going back to the mental hospital.  Sofiane starts to cry.

Wait -- they're breaking up?  But it's not permanent -- he'll be out in a few months.  And besides, mental hospitals allow visitors. Why....

And now Victor has to say goodbye to Luisa.

Uh-oh, they're hugging.  Luisa tells him how much she cares for him.

In a Platonic, brotherly way, right? 

Right?

Wrong.  Their foreheads press together.  Victor says "I want to show you the life we can have together."

Boo!

That's two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

I should stick to tv series where the description specifically states "This character is gay. He likes men.  He doesn't fall in love with a woman."

Like Being 17, starring Corentin Fila (Obe) as a teenager who is gay and falls in love with his mother's houseguest, who is also gay.

Peter Barton's Powers

When I met Peter Barton, he was guest starring in some tv shows, doing live theater, and calling his agent every day, trying to transition to a macho 1980s leading man.  But just a few years before, he had been a soft, androgynous teen idol.

Born in 1956, the former medical student started his acting career in 1979, as the teenage son on the short-lived sitcom Shirley!  Only 13 episodes were filmed, but that was enough for the teen magazines to adulate Peter as the Next Big Thing.  He was handsome, muscular but not a bodybuilder, and just androgynous enough to meet the gender-bending expectations of the era of Culture Club and ABBA.

Dozens of shirtless, speedo, and semi-nude shots followed, plus a starring role in Hell Night (1981) with Vincent Van Patten, in Leadfoot with Philip Mckeon, and in a movie-of-the-week, The First Time (1982).  Peter also appeared in a tight swimsuit in an episode of Battle of the Network Stars.  Many gay boys found in him a kindred spirit, gazing at his movies or swimsuit spreads and thinking "He's one of us."

Then his big break came: The Powers of Matthew Star, one of the many kid-friendly sci-fi series in the 1982-83 season (others included  Voyagers!, The Greatest American Hero, and Knight Rider).  Strangely, it aired just before the drag queen-friendly Madame's Place.

The plot was similar to Shazam!, which aired on Saturday mornings a few years before: teenager with superpowers lives with an older man.  In this case, Matthew, or E'Hawke (Peter Barton) was a prince from a planet orbiting Tau Ceti, hiding out on Earth from enemies who wanted him dead.  He went to Crestridge High School and lived with his guardian, Walter, or D'hai (Louis Gossett Jr.), who was working undercover as a science teacher.

I watched occasionally, but it was a little too "Saturday morning tv" to draw a big audience.  Besides, Matthew had a girlfriend, there was no homoerotic buddy-bonding, and there was not enough beefcake.  Most gay kids quickly changed the channel to The Dukes of Hazzard on CBS.  Powers was cancelled after only 22 episodes.

Peter's teen idol fame ended shortly thereafter, as more muscular actors like Willie Aames and Scott Baio rose to the limelight.

In 1988, he got his big break, a starring role on The Young and the Restless.  Other soaps followed, plus the detective series Burke's Law.

Today Peter lives in upstate New York with his daughter.  He has never married.

See also: My Celebrity Dates, Hookups, and Sausage Sightings

The 3 1/2 Gay Couples of "Jaws 2"

The summer of 1978: I was 17 years old, a new high school graduate working at the Carousel Snack Bar at the mall and getting ready for college.  I had just figured "it" out, but I hadn't yet met any gay people.  I went to a lot of movies: Big Wednesday, Corvette Summer, The Cheap Detective, Foul Play, The Revenge of the Pink Panther, Hooper, Animal House.  But I didn't see Jaws 2, in spite of its iconic tagline: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."

I figured it was just another 1970s disaster movie like The Towering Inferno, and probably infused with the heterosexual male gaze. Who wants to watch a bunch of bikini babes getting chomped?

Turns out that the original is a masterpiece of gay subtext, While tracking a rogue shark, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and impish grad student Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) sizzle with "will they or won't they?" erotic intensity. They don't actually kiss in the final scene, but close enough.

I recently watched the sequel to see if the homoeroticism continues.  Steven Spielberg chose not to direct, so Jeannot Szwarc stepped in.  He did mostly tv dramas and horror, like A Summer Without Boys (well, that sounds like horror to me).

 Hooper is absent, off doing research in Antartica (aw, does he send love letters back to Brody?), and Chief Brody is more heterosexual, actively involved with his wife.  But he has little to do besides yell "You kids get off the beach!"  The star is his teenage son, Mike (Mike Gruner), who goes sailing  in spite of the admonitions, and has to rescue his friends from getting chomped.

As several reviewers note, it's like the prototype of a 1980s teenkill, with ineffectual adults, horny teenagers off by themselves, and a psycho-slasher shark.

But let's take a closer look at those kids. 10 boys and 3 girls in four boats.  One boat contains a boy-girl pair, and another Mike's so-called "love interest" and his little brother.  The others are mixed among the boys without any male-female pairings.

Hardly a heterosexual outing.

And the boys (excluding Little Brother) are divided into bff dyads, guys who put their hands on each other a lot, grab each other a lot, and don't necessarily express any hetero-horniness.  They can easily be read as gay couples.

Couple #1: Juvenile delinquent in training Mike and wisecracking sidekick Andy (Gary Springer)

Couple #2: Nerds Timmy (G. Thomas Dunlap) and Doug (Keith Gordon)

Couple #3: Teen operator Eddie (Gary Dugan) and spoiled rich kid Polo (John Dukakis).

Only Eddie , who leaves his bff to go off with a girl , gets chomped .  I guess having a girlfriend is a major transgression in a homoerotic world

Couple 3.5: Although the Chief is more heterosexual this time around, he does take the time to put his hand on the shoulder of Larry (David Elliott).  Feeling lonely for Hooper, Chief?

There is surprisingly little beefcake ; this beach has no shirtless studs walking around . But no bikini babes either , which only adds to the homoerotic vibe.


See also: Jaws and Gay Romance