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Jun 26, 2024

"Cheaper by the Dozen": Twelve Kids, Some Beefcake


This is one of the iconic beefcake scenes of the 1960s, at least for those of us who were kids in an an era where bare chests were as rare as gay characters in the movies: the hunky 18-year old Tim Matheson takes his shirt off, for no apparent reason except to give teenagers something to look at.  The movie is Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), about a  widow with 10 kids who marries a widower with 8 kids, resulting in a very large blended family,  The Brady Bunch times three.

It's all very heteronormative, promoting the value of excessive reproduction, in spite of world overpopulation and the economic problems of feeding that many people.  But who cares?  There was a hunk.


The 2005 remake stars Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo as the highly prolific parents.  Sean Faris, playing the oldest son, gets an extensive beefcake scene.  He's in the midst of shaving when he's called away for an emergency, so there's lather all over his face, but still, beefcake is beefcake.

The 1950 movie Cheaper by the Dozen, based on the memoirs of Frank Gilbreath, has a similar theme: Myra Loy and Clifton Webb star as the parents of twelve kids.  No blended family here; they actually reproduced twelve times.  Clifton Webb was gay in real life, and extremely swishy, so it seems difficult to imagine him having sex with a woman at all.  But that was probably the point: to "redeem" him by demonstrating that even swishy guys are heterosexual.

No beefcake here; the teenage children are both girls.  


In the 2003 remake and its 2005 sequel, Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt became the parents of the brood.  I haven't seen them -- I avoid movies starring Steve Martin -- but apparently Tom Welling as the oldest son gives us a requisite beefcake shot.  Some of the actors playing the younger kids have also grown up into hunks, such as twins Brent and Shane Kinsman.

Disney+ released heir version of Cheaper by the Dozen in 2022, with Zach Branff and Gabrielle Union as the parents.  It's modernized -- the family is interracial, the parents are divorced rather than widowed, and some of the kids are adopted.  But not too modernized: signs tell us that Black Lives Matter and that we should Resist Hate, but everyone is still heterosexual.  


I had high hopes for Luke Prael as the troubled teenager Seth.  But he displays no interest in boys or girls.

At least Zach Branff takes off his shirt a lot.

And his last name is actually Braff, not Branff.  It's just pronounced with an n, like that town in Canada.





6 comments:

  1. A real modern remake would have had two gay dads joining their family- also it's weird that with so many kids at least one of them would be gay- but Disney does not put major gay characters in their family oriented productions

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  2. The 2003 remake of Cheaper by the Dozen has some gay subtext with one the younger sons not fitting in, and feeling like an outcast from the rest of the family. It also had a rather forgettable sequel in 2005.

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    1. I didn't see the 2003 version. Maybe I'll take a look

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  3. Replies
    1. He plays the father in the 2022 Disney version. The only thing I've seen him in before is "Scrubs," a sitcom about new doctors. I dislike it, so I've only seen a few episodes.

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  4. Zach Braff was in the romantic gay comedy " The Broken Hearts Club " (2000) which also features Dean Cain, Justin Theroux and Timothy Olyphant as gay friends and lover.

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