Bobbseys, Boxcars, and Beefcake

I was never much of a fan of the mystery genre, but many gay kids liked the gentle, pre

-Hardy Boys exploits of The Famous Five or their American counterparts, the Bobbsey Twins and the Boxcar Children.

Laura Lee Hope’s Bobbsey Twins series lasted through 72 installments from 1904 to 1979.  Originally the two sets of twin siblings aged normally, but when the series was revised and extensively rewritten during the 1960s, Bert and Nan remained twelve, and Freddie and Flossie remained six.  They all seemed to behave somewhat older than their "real" ages, or maybe that is just a reflection of the extra freedom kids had in earlier generations. 

 In the 1960s they also began to have more dramatic adventures in realistic locales, though the titles were still aimed at a youngish market: The Secret of Candy Castle, The Doodlebug Mystery, The Flying Clown.

Gay boys found most resonance in Bert, who was in his last days of childhood, still happy to play with his sister and younger siblings but obviously longing for emotional connections outside the group.  In fact, an ongoing theme of the books is the conflict between the comfort and safety of family and the need to “leave the nest” and find one’s own way in the world.  But girls play no part in any of the stories; instead, in nearly every book, in the midst of piecing out clues and solving mysteries, Bert goes off on his own with a boy.

The Boxcar Children were another group of siblings, Henry (14), Jessie (13), Violet (10), and Benny (6), orphans who moved into an abandoned boxcar in the 1924 novel by Gertrude Chandle Warner.  Then, in the late 1940s, Warner realized that the four would make ideal child-sleuths.  She had them adopted by their wealthy grandfather, Mr. Alden, who traveled around the country to keep track of his various business investments, thus providing lots of exotic locales for sleuthing.  Eighteen new installments appeared between 1949 and 1976, sending the kids to haunted houses, bedeveled ranches, mountain cabins, and seaside resorts.   The children age through the adventures, and by #19, Benny Uncovers a Mystery, Henry is in college.

Like Bert, Henry is trying to establish his independence while still remaining part of the family, but, unlike adolescent boys in children's media today, he is never portrayed as girl-crazy.  Instead, when his life outside the family appears in the novels, he is usually seen in the company of a boy (the girl on this cover is his sister).

Why We Watched "Amen" in West Hollywood

When I was living in West Hollywood, Saturday night was cruising night; at 9:30 pm, just after The Golden Girls, you headed out to Mugi (for Asian men), Catch One (Black men), Basgo's (Hispanic men), the Faultline (Bears), or the Gold Coast (Sleazoids).

In by 10:00 pm, out by midnight with a phone number or a hookup.

But the bars didn't get busy until 11:00, so you might stall after The Golden Girls, and watch Amen (1986-91) before heading out.

It starred Sherman Hemsley (left), formerly of The Jeffersons, as the deacon of a black church in Philadelphia, who uses sneaky, underhanded tricks to get ahead (woo a new singer for the choir and so on).

He butts heads with the straightlaced Reverend Gregory (Clifton Davis, right),who finds himself loosening up and even making up some schemes of his own. Clifton Davis was a real minister, affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church (and later a Baptist), so he made sure the shenanigans never got too immoral.

Although they did involve alcoholism, gambling addiction, divorce, and suicide (no gay people or AIDS, of course).

Meanwhile the Deacon's man-hungry spinster daughter Thelma (Anna Marie Horsford) sets out to grab Reverend Gregory.  After a few seasons of "will they or won't they?" and a few false starts, like the Reverend passing out before he can say "I do," they finally get hitched in the spring of 1990.

There wasn't a lot of buddy-bonding between the Reverend and the Deacon. The main draw was Clifton Davis, his hunkiness intensified for those with a preacher fetish.  Unfortunately, he never appeared shirtless (the top photo is another Clifton Davis).

The rest of the cast was of limited beefcake interest. The gossippy Hetebrink sisters.  Ultra-elderly Rollie, who, true to tv tradition, has a very active love life.

Farther down the guest star list, we find Bumper Robinson as Clarence, a street kid who the Deacon takes under his wing (left); and guest spots by many recognizable black actors, including James Avery (Fresh Prince of Bel Air), Ron Glass (Barney Miller), LaWanda Page (Sanford and Son), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), Nell Carter (Give Me a Break), Darius McCrary (Family Matters, below), and Shavar Ross (Diff'rent Strokes).

In retrospect, the main impact of Amen was to revv our engines.

"Ok, Amen is over. Where do you want to go cruising?"

"No doubt: Catch One."

See also: The Jeffersons

"The Privilege": Teen Skulduggery at an Elite Private School, for the 385th Time

 

The Privilege: "a wealthy teen and his friends attending an elite private school uncover a dark conspiracy while looking into a series of strange supernatural events."  Somebody never took Creative Writing 101: use adjectives sparingly.  And isn't this the plot of , like, every teen soap ever?  But it's in German, and maybe there are some cute guys or interesting exteriors.

Scene 1: A wealthy house in Bavaria.  A young boy plays a video game and a teenage girl complains while their parents head out for another girl's dance recital.  They are careful to set the security system.  Why doesn't the whole family go?  I'd want my siblings at my dance recital.  A contrived reason to get the kids alone for a home invasion?

Scene 2: Sure enough, an ominous figure lurks outside.  The power goes out, all the doors in the house open, and the boy -- Finn -- hears sounds of a struggle from his sister's room. She emerges with a bloody knife, and insists on looking in Finn's mouth.  Satisfied that he's not -- he's not what?  -- she exclaims  "They're coming for us," and rushes Finn outside and into a car.  

This is actually interesting.  Were they aware of the beings before, or is this their first encounter?  Why did she want to look in his mouth?  

They drive to a bridge over a dam.  Sister encourages Finn to jump off with her, so they'll be safe. But he refuses, and she falls to her death.  

Scene 3: Emergency vehicles. Finn, catatonic, in a blanket in the back of an ambulance. Mom and Dad arrive.  Dad (Roman Knizka, left) kisses Finn right on the mouth, which I find disgusting, but I guess it's normative in Germany.  The bloody knife is still in Finn's hand -- rescue workers didn't retrieve it?  -- so Dad asks if Finn is bleeding.  Rescue workers wouldn't check for that?

They retrieve Sister's body, and lay it on the ground.  Not on a guerney, with a blanket over it?   Finn screams.

Switch to the teenage Finn screaming with wires attached to his head.  A lady attendant explains that the trauma resulted in significant brain damage.  Seeing your sister die can cause physical injury?   

She then claims that he invented the "mysterious pursuer" to avoid dealing with his guilt over Sister's death. So they think Finn killed her? Pushed her over the bridge?  This is getting a little ridiculous.

Finn gets a cardio test, too (nice chest, a bit skinny), and is asked about school.  Attendant: "You belong to a privileged generation."  Really?  I thought Generation Z was struggling to make ends meet.

 Mom arrives to pick Finn up.   We learn that he has a twin sister, no doubt the one off to the dance recital the night it happened. 

Scene 4: Finn and Twin head to school -- an ugly square box colored gray and pea-green.    Twin kisses her boyfriend -- extensively.  When Finn complains, Boyfriend jokingly offers to kiss him, too. 

Finn moves on to meet.  Ulp...the Girl of His Dreams turns in slow motion, her long hair blowing in the wind.  The most hackneyed, trite, over-done, nonsensical cliche on film, yet heterosexual directors are constantly shoving it down our throat.  

I'm out. 

I did a little research anyway.  The results are dreary.

1. Finn has no male friends.  He solves the mystery with the help of his bff, who is a lesbian, and the Girl of His Dreams.  IMDB didn't list any male characters other than his father and "police officer."  I had to go to the end credits to get the name of Sister's Boyfriend (Rojan Juan Barani) and the Girl of His Dreams' Obnoxious Boyfriend (Maurice  Lattke, left).

2. The lesbian bff is wholely concerned with helping Finn Win the Girl.  

3. This isn't a tv show.  It's a movie.  Go figure.

"Kid Cosmic Season 3": Fry and Hamburg are Gay. So is Dumbledore.

Season 3 of Kid Cosmic, about the staff and random customers at an isolated diner in the desert who suddenly become superheroes, dropped on Netflix on February 3, 2022.  In a Twitter post on February 2nd, Craig McCracken, the creator of Kid Cosmic, confirmed that "Fry and Hamburg" are a romantic couple.  On February 5th, McCracken further specified on his Instagram "how they met and fell in love": Hamburg graduated from a top culinary school in Europe, but wanted to cook "real food," so he got a job at the dingy diner in New Mexico, and fell in love with his coworker, Fry. 

 Fry (voiced by Eric Bauza, left) is a skinny, tattooed Italian guy  with super-stretching ability, and Hamburg (voiced by Fred Tatsciore) is a blond German hunk with the ability to exude multiple arms. 

They are very minor characters.  They didn't even get superpowers until Season 2, and even then, they are  #10 and #11 in the superhero list, with no lines in most episodes.  I saw no gay hints about them in Seasons 1 and 2, but then, I wasn't looking closely: they were mostly background.  

So, on to Season 3.  I'll check every appearance of Fry and Hamburg, looking for holding hands, hugging, dancing together, a shared apartment, any hint, however minuscule, that they are being presented as a canonical romantic couple.

Episode 1:  In Season 2, the Galactic Heroes worked at an interplanetary diner as a cover while they tried to track down missing Rings of Power, which could cause mayhem if they fell into the wrong hands (as they usually did).  When the Rings were all accounted for, they used them to defeat the Planet Destroyer, a planet-sized Big Bad.  In the fracas, the rings were scattered all over Earth.  So, in Season 3, the renamed Global Heroes must track them all down again.  .  First up: an invisibility stone and a growth stone.

Fry and Hamburg stand next to each other, but do not interact.  Only they and the married male-female couple are introduced to the world as a pair, so that might be a clue.  

Episode 2:  An Egyptian supervillain, a potato kid, and an underwater kingdom.  And the Global Heroes discover that this world is not the Earth they know.  And Papa G, central character Kid Cosmic's grandpa, has a dark secret.

Fry and Hamburg appear only in a meeting of the superheroes, and do not interact.

Episode 3:  They work to escape the fantasy-Earth.  Papa G agonizes over whether to tell Kid Cosmic his dark secret.

The superheroes sleep in single beds in a dormitory (except the married male-female couple, who share a bed). 

  Fry gets up in the middle of the night and tries to take the spatula out of the sleeping Hamburg's hand.  I don't know if he's being affectionate or sneaky, or planning to climb into bed with Hamburg.  Then they're both zapped away to a superheroes meeting.

Episode 4:  Everything the Galactic Heroes thought they had accomplished in Season 2 was a projection.  They actually failed to save the galaxy, and are living on a dismal refugee planet.  But sthere is a spark of hope that they could still defeat the Planet Destroyer.  

Fry and Hamburg are shown in the kitchen, checking out the supplies.  Just canned goods.  Fry says something stupid, and Hamburg tosses a can at him.  

Episode 5:  After several battles, they defeat the Planet Destroyer for real and return to the real Earth.

When they are surprised, Fry clutches at Hamburg's arm.  

Episode 6:  They mourn those people and civilizatiions destroyed by the Planet Destroyer.  Then, their superpowers gone, they return to their ordinary lives.  But at least they manage to communicate with the outside universe and invite all the beings they've helped during their adventures to come to the diner.  So it's back to the interplanetary diner, which is where they were happiest after all.

At the memorial service, Fry and Hamburg step up to say their eulogy together, but so do several characters not involved in a relationship.  They interact briefly while preparing the diner for the alien customers. 

When the two-headed crime mistress from Season 2 approaches, Hamburg hugs Fry, as if to protect him, or to deflect a flirtation: "We're together.  Back off."  

They are talking to each other at the party later.  And that's it.

That's it?

Come on, if you want to establish them as a couple, they have got to kiss.  Or at least hold hands!  Craig and Eric did that on Drake and Josh back in 2007!  This is more like "Dumbledore is gay, but it isn't mentioned in the Harry Potter books or movies.  He just is." 

See also: Kid Cosmic Season 2: Is Stuck Chuck Gay?

"The Bravest Knight": A Gay Knight-in-Training Has Adventures and Learns Valuable Lessons

 

The Bravest Knight (2019) is advertised as the first children's animation to have an "openly gay main character."  Actually, that would be Paranorman (2012).   I wanted to see how "open" the gay main character was, so I watched the first two episodes.    

Episode 1, Scene 1: In a fairy tale world, Sir Cedric (T.R. Knight, left) is giving his daughter, Nia, lessons in how to become a knight. Today's lesson: how to save someone trapped in a tower.  His husband, Prince Andrew (Wilson Cruz, below), has volunteered to be rescued.  First, build a ladder -- or the prisoner could just lower a rope.  Prince Andrew has to be somewhere, so could we speed things up?  No,Siir Cedric has to tell a story.  The consort of a royal is always a rank down, so Prince Andrew and Sir Cedric. 

Scene 2: Flashback.  The preteen Cedric (Chance Hurstfield) is in his second year as a knight in training. He sees a flyer: all of the villains have broken out of Fairy Jail!  So he sets out to,,,um...arrest them?  But first he encounters a troll named Grunt (Bobby Moynihan), who tells his story.

Scene 3: Grunt used to have a bridge, like most trolls.  But Sturk, one of the villains who broke out of Fairy Jail, took it away from him.  Wait -- the notice just went up, but Grunt says that he's been bridge-less for weeks.  This timeline is convoluted.

Scene 4: Cedric abandons his original quest to help Grunt get his bridge back.  Problem: Grunt doesn't remember where it is.  While searching, they hear a woman screaming from a tower, and set off to rescue her.   She obligingly lowers her long hair for them to climb.

But it's a trap!  A witch who recently escaped from Fairy Jail  grabs them and throws them into a pit, where they meet several other would-be rescuers.  What is her end game?  Is she going to eat them, or what?  

Scene 5:  Their escape plan: they cover themselves in mud, so the witch will think they have escaped.  When she comes down to investigate, they incapacitate her with mud and climb out on the hair-rope.  Then they call the adults for assistance, and the witch is returned to Fairy Jail.

Scene 6:  Moral: Don't grab a rope unless you are sure what's on the other end.  Presumably this generalizes to: don't begin a course of action unless you are fairly certain how it will turn out.  

Episode 2, Scene 1:  Today's lesson is about jousting.  Nia is upset that her opponent will be the troll Grunt, who can't even control his horse.   "Never underestimate your opponent," Sir Cedric cautions.  And so the story..

Scene 2:  Preteen Cedric and Grunt, searching for the lost bridge, eome across a children's jousting tournament.  Another troll, Susie, is scrounging for coins under the bleachers.  

Scene 3: Cedric signs up to compete, but he doesn't have any armor, so he and his troll friends fashion a helmet from a pumpkin.  His opponent is a very small boy in a green helmet.  "Look how tiny he is!" Grunt exclaims.  "You'll win easily."  But his opponent trounces him.

Surprise -- it's a girl!  At this point one would expect Cedric to dissolve into a pool of hormones, except that we already know that he's gay.  They just shake hands.

Why is "It's a girl!" a big reveal?  We've already established that girls commonly train as knights, so why wouldn't they joust?

Scene 4:  Eliminated from the competition, Cedric and the trolls watch from the stands as the girl -- Eyame -- bests three more opponents and wins the tournament.  She is modest -- "I was fortunate today," but Cedric is effusive in his praise: "I learned more from watching you than in all my years of practicing back on the pumpkin farm!"  

Scene 5:  Susie the Troll suggests that they go to the abandoned, scary Dark Castle, which has maps of the kingdom.  Maybe it will show the bridge.  

Scene 6: Back in the present, Sir Cedric repeats the moral: Never underestimate your opponent. 

Story Arc: The flashbacks for the first season are about Cedric and grunt looking for the lost bridge, and meeting people who will apparently be important in their lives later.  But we don't get any later.    I want to know about life in the kingdom today.  Or how Cedric and Prince Andrew met.  I don't want to know about some dumb bridge.

Didacticism:   This show is obviously for young children, not adults, but still, is it really necessary to hit us over the head with a moral, twice per episode?  It seems old-fashioned and contrived.  

How Open is Cedric:  His husband appears only briefly in the first scene of the first episode, and then is never mentioned again.  The child Cedric doesn't display any romantic interest in anyone, boy, girl, or troll.  I'd say "not very open": you could easily miss it. 

To be fair, Prince Andrew appears in the first scene of several later episodes, often trying to get Cedric to settle down to official business, which is interrupted by a story.

My Grade: A>   I was bored stiff, but young children might not be, and having a gay character in a starring role in a program aimed at the kindergarten-set is amazing, even if his husband doesn't appear often.  

"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings": Martial Arts Hero with Heterosexual Subtext

 

I've been avoiding Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, on Disney Plus, because I heard that it had that old, tired, uber-heterosexist cliche of a dead wife.  And it does; but worshipping the dead wife turns out to be misguided and evil, not praiseworthy.  

There are enough plotlines crammed in to the 2 1/2 hour running time to fill several movies.

1.  A thousand year old crime boss named Xu Wenwu (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, who stared in one of the first LGBT movies to come out of Hong Kong, Happy Together ) has Ten Rings (worn on his arms) that give him infinite power.  But he wants even more infinite power, so he sets out to find the fabled village of Ta Lo, hidden behind a living forest and scary waterfall, where everyone practices a "martial arts sent by the gods."

2. He can't get into the village, but he does convince the guardian, Ying Li, to marry him.  They return to the crime compound and have two kids.  Then she dies.

3. Neither kid likes their crime lord father: his lack of affection, his "I'm going to train you to be an assassin" parenting style.  Shang-Chi (Simu Liu, top photo, the hunk from Kim's Convenience), runs away to America at age 14.  He takes the name Shaun, and becomes one of those effervescent scalawags who populate Disney movies (although it's not quite so charming when you're pushing 30).  His best friend and wisecracking partner-in-30-year old juvenile delinquency is bff Katy (Aquafina), whose main defense is to sing "Hotel California" and confuse her assailant.   At this point I'm thinking,  "Of course they're just friends now, but they'll fall in love during the movie.  Probably in a Betty-and-Veronica 'girl next door' vs. svelte sophisticate triangle."

4. Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, runs away to Macao, where she runs an illegal fighting club on the umpteenth floor of a half-constructed building.  She's also the chief performer.

5. When Dad sends some of his soldiers to kill Shang-Chi, he easily tromps them.  Then he returns to China to protect his sister, who is no doubt getting the same treament.  He arrives just in time to fight her, then to fight more soldiers on the scaffolding outside the upteenth floor of her club.  Pay attention to the extremely sexy Razor Fist, who is missing a hand, but makes up for it with a magic sword.  His name is Florian Munteanu, and his instagram contains 6,000 pictures of him hugging guys, but no women except his mother.

 Then Dad captures them both. 

6. He explains that he has been receiving messages from his Dead Wife, who is being held captive in the fabled village of Ta Lo. They're all going to break through the living forest and rescue her, and "be a family again."  "But Mom's dead!" "No, she's not."  After they retrieve her, his soldiers will burn down the village and kill everyone, just to be evil.

7. To save the village from decimation, Shang-Chi, Sister, Bff, and a comic relief drunk Shakespearean actor (is there any other kind?) steal a car and rush over themselves.  It's in a pocket universe full of strange entrancing animals, and people who speak perfect English.  They meet their aunt, and train in various martial arts, and Shang-Chi learns that he is the Chosen One (naturally).

Left: Andy Le, another of Dad's soldiers, who wears a Chinese demon mask.  In real life he gives off a gay vibe..

8. Auntie explains that the village, and its resident sleeping dragon, are guardians of the gate to another Dark Universe, where soul-eating Cthulhu monsters have been banished.  If they ever break through the gate, it's curtains for all of us!

9. But Dad thinks that his Dead Wife is being held captive behind the gate!  You can see where this is going. 

Beefcake:  Shang-Chi takes his shirt off a couple of times.  Otherwise the main characters are all elderly or women.

Gay Characters:  Shang-Chi displays no heterosexual interest.  I kept waiting for a fade-out kiss with Katy, but all they do is: she puts her head on his shoulder; they touch hands; they have dinner with a heterosexual couple; they walk into the portal to their next adventure arm-in-arm.  At most they have a heterosexual subtext.

Why didn't they kiss, like the boy-girl team in 13,000 other action adventure movies?  Is the director trying to hint that Shang-Chi, or Katy, or both, are gay?  Then why not come out with it?  Because then the movie would be censored in China?

In an interview, director Destin Danile Cretin explains that a romance "didn't seem right," true to the characters and their personalities.  I agree: after being friends for 15 years, like Will and Grace, falling in love would be like perving on a brother or sister.  But heterosexual viewers are pining for the two to hook up in future installments, while gay viewers are grateful for momentary relief from the "boy meets girl" brainwashing.

Homophobia:  The internet has been buzzing with a 2015 comment from Simu Liu that he recently played a pedophile, and it changed his opinion:  "pedophilia is no different from being gay." Both are "disorders" based on genetic mutations. He responded to the accusations of homophobia by saying that he has "evolved" during the last seven years.  But there were gay characters in only one episode of Kim's Convenience.