The "Better Nate Than Ever" Series: Gay Theater Kid from Pennsylvania

 

I have reconciled myself to the fact that the Better Nate Than Ever series by Tim Federle has nothing to do with the Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce.  The characters just have the same name and age, the authors have both introduced coming-out story arcs, and googling on "Big Nate," "Lincoln Peirce," and "gay" brings you directly to a review of Better Nate than Ever.  

After you stop looking for connections, you find a very funny series of young adult novels about a gay theater kid.  Every book is written in the first person and present tense, which adds immediacy.  However, nothing can be included that Nate doesn't know at that moment, leading to some awkward attempts to position him in exactly the right spot to overhear vital information. 

In the first book of the trilogy, Better Nate Than Ever, 13-year old Nate sneaks from his small town of Janksville, Pennsylvania to audition for the part of Elliot, the boy who befriends a stranded alien visitor, in E.T.: The Musical.  Most of the story involves interesting real-life details of the extenuated audition process. 

Although Nate says that his sexual identity is "undecided," there are a few clues.  He sees two guys kiss through the open door of a bar, and no one beats them up; later he says that this was his favorite part of New York.  Plus he befriends Aunt Heidi's hot roommate, and watches him from the back as he walks down the street: "the pants fit very well," Nate comments. (The roommate will not appear in the 2022 movie version.)

In the second book, Five, Six, Seven, Nate, Nate is cast, but not as Elliot: as the back-up understudy for E.T,, which means he has to learn all the lines and dances, but will only go on if both the actor cast as E.T. and his understudy fail.  Most of the book involves the interesting details of prepping and rehearsal for a stage play.  Plus Nate starts dating Jordan, the practically perfect experienced child actor cast as Elliot (he doesn't appear in the 2022 movie version, either.)

In the third book, Nate Expectations, the musical has closed, and Nate, now 14, is back home, in high school.  He and his friends produce a musical version of Great Expectations for English class, but can't perform it because they can't get the rights to the songs.  

There are also asides about Nate's parents trying to signal that they're ok with his gay identity without actually saying anything.   Plus Jordan, now cast in a tv show, begins ghosting Nate, and a new boy, Ben, starts expressing interest, culminating with a gigantic song-and-dance number to ask him to the Homecoming Dance.  We don't actually see the dance: the book ends when the English teacher assigns Nate a thousand-word essay on how he became his "best self," and he decides to title it Better Nate than Ever.

Now, if only someone could figure out how this all is connected to Big Nate.

See also: Better Nate Than Ever.

Spin and Marty: Summer Camp Boys in Love

In the spring of 1955, William Beaudine began casting an adaptation of the novel Marty Markham, about a wealthy mollycoddle who learns to be a regular fella at summer camp.   When buzz-cut jock Tim Considine auditioned, he was deemed too macho to play Marty, but far too charismatic to pass on, so a minor character in the novel, Spin Evans, was expanded for him.

 Marty was cast with David Stollery, a fey redhead who starred with Tim in Her Twelve Men (1954).

The Adventures of Spin and Marty premiered in November 1955 as a serial segment of Disney’s late-afternoon kiddie show The Mickey Mouse Club.

Though the original novel contains no homoromance, the tough-sissy contrast seems tailor-made for a revival of Tom Brown’s School Days or Cadets on Parade, and the series wastes no time in meeting the beefcake quota, displaying both stars' muscles and the respectable physique of an older boy (Sammy Ogg).  (Kevin Corcoran starred as tagalong annoyance Moochie.)

However, there is no instant camaraderie, no moment of falling in love.  In the first twenty episodes, Spin and Marty despise each other.  They often stare at each other, but they come face-to-face only for pranks, insults, and fights.  Late in the season, as counselors break up their latest fight by holding them upside down, Spin and Marty seem to really see each other for the first time.  Their shield of rage vanishes; they grin, and then laugh, and suddenly, inevitably, they are “together.”

In the remaining episodes, their fellow campers and the adults behave as if they have always been inseparable companions.  Intimacy appears, and passion when each tries to sacrifice himself for the other.  They even achieve homoromantic permanence: in the last scene, as the other campers prepare to go home, they are invited to stay on as ranch hands.

Viewers – grade schoolers and no doubt not a few high schoolers – were mesmerized by this hostility melting into love, and they responded with an urgency unknown in the days of Tom Brown’s School Days.  Books, comics, sheet music, and 45-rpm records flew off the shelves, continuing to evoke the homoromantic Arcadia for two years after the series ended.  Today, when the other live-action segments of The Mickey Mouse Club have faded into obscurity, many Boomers recall Spin and Marty fondly, as icons of their childhood.  Many recall them, clearly and unequivocally, as a gay couple.

In November 1956, Tim Considine and David Stollery returned for The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty.  Now Spin has an impressively tight, hard-lined chest and stomach, while Marty is lean and lanky (and decidedly feminine).  They are on display often and earnestly, as are all of the boys, presented in swimsuit and underwear shots as often as in Toy Soldiers decades later. But their homoromantic idyll is threatened: a girl’s camp has just opened up across the lake, and after some initial hesitation, they spend the series posturing, competing, and arguing over who gets to date Annette Funicello.  Then, when Marty is drowning, Spin rushes to the rescue.  The crisis makes them realize how much they care for each other and they renew their commitment, swearing off trivial distractions like girls.  Homoromance has triumphed.

But not for long.  In The New Adventures of Spin and Marty (November 1958), seventeen-year old Spin is dating Annette, and Marty is dating her fellow Mousketeer Darlene Gillespie.  Whatever passion they once felt for each other has been forgotten; they are not now, nor ever have been, more than buddies.

A fourth season of Spin and Marty was scripted, but never filmed.  Instead Tim Considine went on to star as in a Hardy Boys adaption with Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcorran. and as the eldest of My Three Sons on television before retiring, and David Stollery left Disneyland to become an automobile designer, and marry once. They still run into each other from time to time, at fan conventions, but they have not stayed in touch.