Ever since Tony Dow started flexing as the hunky big brother on Leave It to Beaver (1957-63), nuclear family sitcoms have been juxtaposing shy, weird, un-athletic, intellectual, or otherwise outsider boys and their popular, athletic, muscular, and often dimwitted older brothers. Sometimes Big Brother is deliberately cast with a bicep boy, but more often it happens organically, as little brother hits the books and big brother hits the gym. A few recent examples come to mind. Oddly, they are all in gay-free or gay-skittish shows. I wonder if there is a connection.
1. Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006). Malcolm is a beset-upon genius with two older and a younger brother. Bully Reese (Justin Berfield) turned into a veritable bodybuilder with a strong gay subtext before the showrunners got scared and turned him straight.
2. Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009). Drew (Tequan Richmond) was so beautiful that everyone, not just teenagers, dissolved into a slurry of hormones when he smiled at them. Women only, I think: this show was extremely skittish about the g-word.
3. The Middle (2009-2018): Axl Heck (Charlie McDermott) hung around the house in his underwear all the time. This was supposed to be a weird quirk, not a turn-on. They didn't know the audience very well, did they? I don't remember if he liked girls or not; I was too busy looking at his "happy trail" to pay attention to the plots. (Except for the one where the sister's friend wants to come out, but doesn't get to say the g-word.)
4. The Goldbergs (2013-2023): Barry (Troy Gentile), wrestler and all-around hunk paired with the shy intellectual boy in a gay-free 1980s.
5. Young Sheldon (2017-). Georgie Cooper (Montana Jordan) is all brawn to Sheldon's brains in a gay-free 1990s. Unfortunately, they abandoned the muscle-building plotline to concentrate on Georgie as a teen dad.
I admit that to this day, I still have crushes on Reese and Axl. I’m positive that out of the two of them, at least one would have been down for some ‘exploring’ out back in the tool shed.
ReplyDeleteAxl was goofy sexy
ReplyDeleteThe sexy older brother trope was aimed at teen girls of course it also caught the attention of some male teen fans too
ReplyDeleteFYI That is not Troy Gentile from The Goldbergs, that's Josh Peck from Drake & Josh. Troy is overweight, not buff, and there are no photos of him shirtless online. Which is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteGoogle said it was a Troy Gentile , so it’s Troy Gentile
DeleteCharles McDermot is 33 now and married
ReplyDeleteSo does that prove that he didn’t take his shirt off on the show , or what ?
DeleteAxl Heck was interested in girls, he even married one, though that marriage was annulled almost recently. Axl was shirtless a lot in the first season, unfortunately later in the show those appearances became relatively scarce.
ReplyDeleteSorry , I’ve looked over this post very carefully, and I can’t find the statement where I said that Axl was gay . Could you copy the statement and post it ?
DeleteThe Real O’Neals was such a show, gay lean younger and buff older straight brother
ReplyDelete