"The Politician": Gay-Light Sociopaths in a Hunk-Infested High School

In The Politician on Netflix, Payton Hobart (how's that for a 1% name?) lives with his absent dad, clinging "I love you so much" mother, and psycho older brothers in a ridiculously elegant mansion in Santa Barbara, California.  He attends a ridiculously elegant prep school that looks like an Italian villa, where all of the boys are 30-year old fitness models and all of the girls tall, statuesque blondes.

And he wants to be President.  Oh, sorry, he will be President, he says repeatedly; it's not a dream or even a goal, it's a simple fact.  He tells the Harvard admissions board, "After my second term in office (which I will win by a landslide), I can build my presidential library here in Cambridge or in Palo Alto.  It's up to you."  Strangely, the board admits him.

Payton is a textbook sociopath, experiencing no empathy but good at pretending to, with grandiose visions of his own importance, willing to do anything to reach his goals.

This season's goal is to be elected school president, a necessary step en route to the White House.  His campaign staff (he already has some) suggest someone who is disabled.  He latches onto Infinity, who has cancer.

Problem: she really doesn't.  Her grandmother has been making her sick in order to get attention and free stuff.

Another problem:  Payton's best friend/occasional sex partner River throws his hat in the ring.  But then River commits suicide.  Problem solved.

That's right, there's a suicide in the midst of the first episode of a "comedy" series.

One of the tall, statuesque blonde girls throws her hat in the ring.  She may also be his girlfriend: they're both tall, statuesque blondes.  So are his campaign manager and River's girlfriend.  And they all have the same manipulative, self-serving, sociopathic personalities.  I can't tell any of them apart.  For all I know, they could be the same person.

I understood from the early reviews that Payton is gay, but he actually straight.  His only same-sex relationship is with River, and that quickly becomes a menage-a-trois with the girlfriend.

The show's attitude toward gay people is paradoxical.  Payton also threatens to out River unless he drops out of the election, implying that being gay is something scandalous (um...wouldn't he also be outing himself?).  But characters throw terms like "heteronormative" and "nonbinary" around, Payton actively courts the gay vote, and a gay slur in one of Infinity's old tapes is enough to derail his campagn.

Oh, well --- there are lots of plot twists, the sets are amazing, and the plot calls for lots of shirtless, underwear, and swimsuit scenes:

1. Payton (top photo), played by Ben Platt.

2. David Corenswet as River.  Dont worry, he may commit suicide in the first episode, but there are a lot of flashbacks.

3. The androgynous but heterosexual James, a member of Payton's campaign staff, who also sleeps with his girlfriend/future first lady, is played by trans actor Theo Germaine.

4. Benjamin Barrett with blond hair as Ricardo, Infinity's dimwitted but well hung boyfriend.



















5.-6. Trey and Trevor Easton as Martin and Luther Hobart, Ben's older brothers, who hate him because their mom likes him best.





















7. Luis Avila as Amir, the gay kid who Hobart tries to woo by claiming an interest in the musical Hamilton.  Because all gay men are into musical theater, right?

8. Russell Posner as Elliot, who gets a whole centric episode: both sides actively woo him, but he couldn't care less.  He's all about gazing at girls' breasts and looking for a private place to masturbate.

9. Koby Kumi Diaka as the school's only Haitian student, wooed by the other side to become vice president after the nonbinary African-American lesbian fell through.

10.  For #10, no one in particular comes to mind -- the woods are full of hunkoids.  So I just picked a name from the cast list at random: Brian Nuesi as a miscellaneous student.

And I haven't even gotten to the adults yet.

Corey Haim

What gay boy in the 1980s didn't thinking of Corey Haim as a kindred spirit?  His cute lopsided smile, his metrosexual fondness for hair care products, his slight-but-firm physique, his well-publicized bromance with fellow teen star Corey Feldman.

Whether he was playing cute kids -- in Secret Admirer (1985), Silver Bullet (1985), Lucas (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987) -- or horny teenagers -- in License to Drive (1988), Dream a Little Dream (1989), and Fast Getaway (1991) -- Hollywood censorship decreed that his characters could not be gay.  Yet he often played them as gay anyway -- subtly, cautiously, with a leer at a passing hunk or an intensely emotional buddy-bonding moment that stood out like a beacon in the midst of the "fade-out kiss" plotlines, telling gay kids "You're not alone.  You're ok."

According to Corey Feldman, he was sexually abused by a "Hollywood mogul" as a child, and he doubtless did his share of same-sex one-nighters, but he was undeniably a ladies' man.  He had relationships with nearly every female actor, model, and singer in Hollywood: Alyssa Milano (of Who's the Boss), Nicole Eggert (of Charles in Charge), Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, Holly Fields,  Cindy Guyer, Tiffany Shepis.

During the 1990s, fame -- and his draconian workload -- hit him hard.  Like Tommy Kirk 30 years before, Corey abused drugs and alcohol; his teen idol dreaminess vanished, and he became haggard, craggy, and tattooed.  His movie roles grew sleazy and sinister.  He died of pneumonia in 2010.

To the end, Corey was welcoming and gracious to his fans, both gay and straight.

"Cloud 9": Gay Couples in 1879 and 1979

Caryl Churchill is an avant-garde playwright in the mold of Ionesco and Samuel Beckett; her plays challenge your notions of plot, characters, and narrative structure itself.  Actually, most of her plays don't really have a plot, but they have a political point. 

Cloud 9, first produced in 1979, was originally advertised as about "sexual confusion," but now it's about gender fluidity.  There are two acts, set in British Africa in 1879 and London in 1979.

British Africa:
Colonial administrator Clive has a perfect relationship with his wife and children, until forbidden desires disrupt things.

He has an affair with Mrs. Saunders, a visiting widow.

His wife Betty (played by a man), is having an affair with his friend Harry Bagley, and is also approached by the governess for a lesbian fling.

Harry has also seduced Clive's10 year old son Edward (played by a woman), the manservant Joshua (black, but played by a white man), and Mrs. Saunders.  When he makes a play for Clive himself, things fall apart.

Fast forward 100 years, but only 25 years have passed for the characters.

Betty (now played by a woman) is recently divorced.

Her son Edward (played by the actor who played Betty in 1875) is gay, and involved in a relationship with Gerry (who played Joshua in 1875).

But he also has an affair with his younger sister Victoria (a doll in 1875).

Victoria is separated from her husband Martin (who played Harry in 1875), and involved with Lin (who played Mrs. Saunders in 1875).  She has a 10-year old daughter (played by a man)

This time everything resolves happily, with both of the gay couples on "Cloud 9."

I didn't actually like the play -- weirdness for the sake of weirdness has never been my thing, and I'm not as shocked by same-sex relationships as the author intended. 

But I liked it more than anything by Ionesco, and it's nice to see two gay couples in the forefront, "sexual confusion" or not.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Boldly Going Where No Heterosexual Has Gone Before

Science fiction has been notorious for promoting an exclusively heterosexual future, insisting over and over again that gay people do not exist.  The Star Trek tv series have been the worse offenders, and Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) the worst of the lot, trying over and over again to be as heteronormative as possible, ignoring countless blatant opportunities for inclusivity.

The premise: On a far-off space station (but only about a day's flight from Earth), United Federation of Planets is assisting the planet of Bajor, which has just won its independence from the brutal Cardassians.  Meanwhile a wormhole opens up to the other side of the galaxy, bringing new possibilities for exploration, plus the threat of the Dominion.

The politics get complicated, and rather boring.  And all of the characters, bar none, are heterosexual:

Odo (Rene Auberjonois) is a changeling, a liquid in his natural state, capable of adopting any form he wishes.  He usually adopts the form of a humanoid male -- who is attracted to women.

Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) is a trill: a symbiont named Dax "joined" to a humanoid host.  Dax has lived in seven hosts before; its last was Curzon, an elderly man very, very interested in ladies.  Now that it's living in a female host, however, it's very, very interested in men.

The possibility of same-sex desire intrudes in a few episodes, briefly:

1. The Ferengi, space capitalists/Jewish stereotypes, do not allow women to go to work, so Pel (Helene Udy) disguised herself as a man to become a waiter at the bar/restaurant run by Quark (Armin Shimmerman). "He" falls in love with him, and seeks the advice of Dax, who is not surprised by what she thinks is same-sex desire.

Later "he" grabs and kisses Quark.  They are interrupted in media res by aliens, who assume that they are a same-sex couple.

Quark responds to the same-sex advance by ignoring it.

Pel: "I kissed you."

Quark: "No, you didn't."

2. Dax and her boyfriend Worf (the Klingon from The Next Generation)  go to the pleasure planet Risa, which seems to be a gigantic tropical brothel, with scantily clad women walking around saying "Everything we have is yours."  Dax reunites with a woman "he" dated as Curzon.  They get altogether chummy, even though Dax is now female, and Worf suspects that they are involved.

3. In a parallel mirror universe, the counterpart of Bajoran Major Kira Nerys is slinky, seductive, and  predatory, hinting that she's bisexual.

And some gay-subtext bromances.

1. Garak (Andrew G. Robinson), the only Cardassian left on the space station, is a fey, androgynous tailor who seems to be hitting on Dr. Julian Bashir.  Then they settle in for a romantic friendship, as each pursues hetero-romances.

Robinson later stated that he played the character as bisexual and in love with Bashir, but it was "a family show," so he couldn't be open about it -- can't let those kids know that gay or bi people exist!

2. Jake, son of the station commander (Cirroq Lofton), and Nog, Quark's nephew (Aron Eisenberg), are teenage best buds who have a quasi-romantic relationship.

By the way, after Nog joins Star Fleet, take a look at him in his uniform.  You'll soon find out why they generally film him from the waist up.

Beefcake is practically non-existent.  None of the main cast are ever shown shirtless.  Occasionally one of the women hooks up with a muscle man.

Lieutenant Manuele Atoa (Sidney Liufau) performs a Hawaiian fire-dance at Dax's pre-marital party.


Of all the Star Trek series, I like Deep Space 9 the least.  Instead of exploring strange new worlds, it's internecene politics.  Instead of boldly going where no man has gone before, it retreads the same old tired "no gays in space" mantra.