Kid Cosmic: Is Stuck Chuck Gay?

 I reviewed the first season of  the Nickelodeon cartoon  Kid Cosmic early in 2021.  The premise: the retro comic-book- obsessed Kid (Jack Fisher) finds Stones of Power, which give him and his friends superpowers, but also make them the targets of various alien bounty hunters.  I hated the awful, low-budget animation -- unchanging background, all in washed-out yellow -- and found the setting claustrophobic: a junkyard, a diner, and the endless washed-out yellow desert.  

 I liked Stuck Chuck, the alien who got stuck in Kid Cosmic's trailer (and lost his legs), and spent several episodes making sarcastic comments before becoming an ally.  He had that "oh, snap!" fabulosity that often signfies gay identity, but there was no one around for him to become interested in: the Local Heroes consisted of Kid Cosmic (too young), Papa G (too old), Jo (a waitress at the diner), Rosa (a toddler), and Tuna Sandwich (a cat).  

The second season has just dropped.  I'll review another episode to see if "the gay problem" has been solved.  Episode 3: "Kid Cosmic and the Heist of Fire and Ice"

Scene 1:  The diner has been zapped into space, and the Local Heroes are now intergalactic heroes, retrieving lost and stolen Stones of Power under the direction of the jellyfish-being Queen Xhan, with the ultimate goal of saving the galaxy from Erodus the Planet-Killer.  Jo is now the leader.  There are two new superheroes: Jo's Mom, who runs a catering business, and the hunky multi-armed Hamburg.

For this mission, they dress in fancy clothes and prepare canapes and cupcakes.  Stuck Chuck appears briefly, working in the kitchen.

Turns out that the campy voice was just his universal translator.  When he loses it, he sounds like a duck.

Scene 2: Their boss, Queen Xhan, explains the mission.  The evil crime lord Madame Fiona, who has two heads, wears two Stones of Power around her necks.  They will infiltrate her birthday party, held on a space station orbiting an uninhabited planet,  as invited guests or caterers.  Then they will perform a meticulously-choreographed caper, steal the stones, and replace them with fakes before Madame Fiona notices.  Mom hugs Queen Xhan, whom she calls Xhanny.  Is there a lesbian romance going on?

Scene 3:  The mission goes perfectly.  Afterwards Jo asks if they want to return to the party to celebrate, but the team is tired and wants to go home.  Queen Xhan takes Jo aside -- Mom looks jealous -- and explains that leaders don't ask, they command. So she commands them to celebrate.  Wait -- if Queen Xhan goes along on every mission, why isn't she their leader?

Scene 4:  Back at the party, Jo meets Madame Fiona, who is very interested and drags her onto the dance floor.  Maybe Jo is a lesbian?

Kid Cosmic argues that they shouldn't be mingling with the guests at a crime boss's party, since they are all criminals, but the team members are having fun.  Papa G is at the blackjack table; Rosa is arm wrestling; the hunky blond Hamburg is listening to the band; and the cat Tuna Sandwich has hooked up with an alien cat-being (probably female). 

Scene 5: Fantos, the "super-powerful, super-nerdy man-boy" who stole one of their Stones of Power in a previous episode, arrives.  Kid Cosmic suggests repeating the caper to retrieve it, but Jo refuses: missions take weeks of recon and practice.  Besides, if Fantos recognizes them, he'll alert  Madame Fiona   They need to leave! Kid Cosmic ignores her order and attacks.

Fantos easily defeats Kid Cosmic, and blows their cover:  "A team of superheroes has infiltrated your party and stolen the two Stones!" 

Scene 6: The Local Heroes have failed the mission and been captured, due to Kid Cosmic's reckless behavior.  But Queen Xhan tells Jo that it's her fault for being a bad leader.  Um...Kid Cosmic disobeyed a direct order.  What was she supposed to do?

Suddenly Erodius the Planet-Killer arrives to destroy the planet.  Joe is shocked to discover that Erodus is an actual planet-sized being!  How are the Local Heroes supposed to defeat that?

The space station is disintegrating.  What should they do?  The team waits for Jo to issue an order, but she freezes, so they use their superpowers to get everyone into escape pods.

Scene 7: Back at headquarters, Queen Xhan yells at Jo.  "What kind of leader freezes during a crisis?"   Jo retreats to her room to watch alien tv in the dark.  

Later, Queen Xhan and Mom discuss Jo's depression, and her chances of becoming a competent leader.  Acting like Jo's parents?  Romantic couple!  

How can Jo be sure that she won't freeze again?  Suddenly she sees a commercial on alien tv for an upcoming MMA tournament: all comers against a lady warrior named Krosh.  Hey, maybe Jo can prove herself by defeating Krosh?  The end.

Animation:  Better this season.  The background is no longer a washed-out yellow. 

Beefcake: None.

Heterosexism: No one expresses any heterosexual interest except for Tuna Sandwich the Cat.

Gay Characters:  Mom and Queen Xhan seem to have a romance going on, but it's very understated.  Jo may be a lesbian, or not.  Nothing is specified, but the fan wiki tells us that "The Local Heroes are allies to the LGBTQ community."  

My Grade: C.

See also: Kid Cosmic Season 3: Fry and Hamburg are Gay. 

Michael Forest: Playing a God of Masculine Beauty

The September 22nd, 1967 episode of Star Trek had the cryptic title "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

Even when I grew up and studied English literature, the title was still cryptic.  It comes from "Adonais," an elegy written by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley for his dead friend, John Keats.

He took the name from Adonis, the ancient Greek god of masculine beauty.

So audiences were supposed to expect a god of masculine beauty?

They got one: 37 year old Michael Forest as Apollo, an alien who was mistaken for a god by the ancient Greeks, and who still expects worship.  It takes a femme fatale scientist to subdue him.

The heterosexist plotline didn't detract from the image of Michael Forest as Apollo, clad in a toga, with a laurel leaf, his bare chest, shoulders, and arms visible, one of the iconic beefcake shots of the Boomer generation.

Although never a beefcake star of the Henry Willson stable, Michael managed to display his bare chest several times during the 1950s, in guest-spots in Westerns (as an Indian) and swinging-bachelor dramas, and in horror-sci fi movies like Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), 

He fell somewhat short of the superlative physique necessary to cash in on the 1960s bodybuilder craze; his only peplum was Atlas (1961), directed by Roger Corman.

But he worked steadily through the 1960s, with guest spots across the tv dial, and starring roles in movies.

One of his most important was Deathwatch (1966), based on the Jean Genet play about two prison inmates, Maurice (Paul Mazursky) and Lefranc (Leonard Nimoy) competing for the affections the hot, muscular Green-Eyes (Forest).

That's right, Leonard Nimoy playing a gay character, a year before he became Spock.

(This actually wasn't his first; he played a hustler in Jean Genet's The Balcony in 1963)..

After Star Trek, Michael continued to take off his shirt a lot, playing Achilles (1972), a motorcycle thug (1972), a spaghetti Western Man with No Name (1972), and Agamemnon (1973).  Plus theater and lots of voice-over work (look for him in the 2008 documentary Adventures in Voice Acting).

In 2013, he reprised the character of Apollo on the web series Star Trek Continues (2013).

Apparently heterosexual in real life, he has retired to Walla Walla, Washington.

"Cruella": Everybody is Queer in the Iconic Character's Origin Story

In One Hundred and One Dalmatians (novel 1956, Disney animated movie 1961), Cruella DeVille is an evil fashion designer who kidnaps the 15 Dalmatian puppies belonging to the sentient dogs Pongo and Perdita, with the intention of using their fur for a coat.  In the 2021 recast Cruella, she has no such intention.  She rather likes dogs; in fact, she has two of them in her gang.

After her mother is murdered, Estella (Emma Stone) grows up on the streets of London in the Swinging Sixties and Glam Seventies, stealing and grifting with her gang, Jasper (Joel Fry, below), Horace (Paul Walter Hauser), and two non-sentient but very accomplished dogs.  But she dreams of becoming a fashion designer, so she cons her way into working at a posh department store, and then is hired by fashion superstar the Baroness (pictured: Kayvan Novak as her lawyer, Roger)

The movie then turns into The Devil Wears Prada, with the Baroness channeling Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly, except far more evil.  She terrorizes employees -- well, actually everyone -- while stealing their ideas.  She has committed murder to get what she wants.  

To get revenge on the Baroness, Estella becomes Cruella, a vigilante fashion designer who bursts into the Baroness's shows and benefits with radical, headline-getting outfits: "The Baroness is the past.  I am the future."   

Other than upstaging the Baroness, Cruella's chief goal is to steal back a necklace that the Baroness stole from her mother, which happens to contain the key to a big reveal.

She teams up with the gender-bending designer Artie (John McCrea), who is "openly gay" (the first character written as gay in a live-action Disney movie, but he doesn't do anything gay except be fabulous).  Plus Jasper and Horace, who disapprove of Cruella ordering them around; they liked it when everyone was equal.

Eventually Estella/Cruella finds a happy medium, becoming an effervescent, unhinged Harley Quinn.

 She does kidnap the three Dalmatians that the Baroness uses as guard dogs, but only because one of them has swallowed the necklace, and she is waiting for it to reappear.  But she treats them well; in the end they prefer her over the Baroness.

Anita and Roger, who in the novel and various movies own the dogs, have been transformed into a newspaper gossip columnist and lawyer, respectively, who don't know each other.   During the closing credits, Cruella gives them each a Dalmatian puppy.  Presumably they will marry, and the events of 101 Dalmatians will begin.  

Beefcake:  None, but there are several hunks in the cast.

Other Sights: Lots of mansions.  The Baroness's estate, Hellman Hall (which Cruella christens Hell Hall) is actually Englefield House in Reading, England.

Soundtrack: Interesting, albeit a bit obtrusive at times.  Does every movie set in the Sixties have to play "Time of the Season"? 

Continuity:  While there are hints that 101 Dalmatians is coming up, this Cruella does not seem capable of killing puppies. 

Heterosexism: None.  No one expresses any heterosexual interest anywhere in the film.  Estella doesn't even flirt with men to distract them during a grift.

Gay Characters:  No one expresses any same-sex interest, either.   Although they've been together for over 10 years and have no intention of ever separating, Horace and Jasper do not appear to be romantic partners.  There's no closeness, no physicality, no intimacy.

I expected Artie and Horace to hook up: first Horace says "I like him," and then, the two work together to subdue a security guard. But they have no other interaction.

Everybody is queer, but no one wants a boyfriend or girlfriend.

My Grade: B+