Shane Gray: Stunt performer, pole vaulter, boy scout, man's man, with a potential p*enis and some locker room hijinks

Link to the potential p*enis and locker room hijinks

I was running low on Righteous Gemstones cast members to profile, so I checked the stunt performers for Episode 4.1, and found Shane Gray.

He was fun to research because there are a lot of Shane Grays in the world -- an African musician, an Arkansas "husband and father," a baseball player, someone who is recently deceased and extensively mourned on Facebook,  plus the fictional Shane Gray of Camp Rock, played by Joe Jonas.

Our Shane Gray is a "Stunt Man, Stunt Rigger, Action Actor, Eagle Scout."  

He has a very brief Facebook page, some newspaper articles about his boy scouting and pole vaulting, and a Youtube Channel with some audition videos.  Here he auditions for the role of Monkey D. Luffy at the Universal Fan Fest 2025.

He attended Thousand Oaks High School, where he was a pole vaulter (on the right) and had an entry in the Westlake Village Student Art Show.  He graduated in 2022.

He works with his father,  Jason Gray, another "husband and father" who runs his own rigging company and has 200 stunt jobs listed on the IMDB. 

In-your-face heteronormativity?  That explains why I didn't profile Jason.  Plus he has no beefcake photos.  Shane does.

.

The IMDB lists five stunt jobs for Shane.

He was a stunt rigger for the music video Die for You, by The Weekend (2021).

Fire safety in an episode of American Horror Story (2022): he gets set on fire.

Utility stunts in Fade to Black (upcoming), a horror movie starring John Carroll Lynch, Thomas Barbusca, Gavin Leatherwood, and Scott Evans.

Utility stunts in The Wolf and the Lamb (upcoming), a Western starring Zach McGowan (left), Eric Nelsen, Mike Manning, and Elias Kacavas

Stunt performer in The Righteous Gemstones Episode 4.1 (2025)

N*de photos after the break

Charlie M.: What can you do with a philosophy major? Actor, comedian, photographer, multimedia current affairs producer, model?

  

Link to the n*de photos

The HandJones Underwear Thread has two ads with Charlie M. modeling "Handful," posted in November 2024.  

There's an actor with his name, but his first acting roles were in the 1960s, and he spent 40 years as a casting agent, so it couldn't be the same guy. 

But I found the Linkedin, Instagram, and Facebook pages of someone who looks like our model.

Charlie M. is a Midlands boy.  He attended the University of Sheffield (2014-2017), receiving a B.A. in Philosophy with a 2:1 (which is good, I think).  He was in the swim club and the Footnotes Comedy Society.

He started a Backstage Profile as an actor/comedian, non-union, age range 17-25, but apparently the acting didn't work out: he has no listings on the IMDB or on the London stage.

We find some n*de photos during this period, also, but just selfies, so he hasn't thought of modeling yet, or maybe he tried but it didn't work out. 

In 2017, just after graduating, Charlie adds his name to the "Open Comedy" website.  He says that he's been performing comedy for two years, mostly on the student circuit, including the Edinburg Film Festival twice, but he wants to break into the London comedy scene.

But apparently comedy didn't work out, either. Instead, Charlie became a "multimedia current affairs producer, turnng complex issues into clear narratives for impact."  He produced "multimedia packages on economic development" in Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe.

He did a photo series about formerly-nomadic cattle herders in Kazakhstan.  They are fine working outside when the temperature is -30C (-22F).

More after the break.  

Why was Bomba the Jungle Boy always tied up?

Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) spent the first 24 years of his life being filmed in a loincloth cut to the thigh, first as "Boy," son of Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller in 8 movies (1939-1947), and then as the teenage Bomba the Jungle Boy in 12 movies (1949-1955).  After all that, it proved impossible to find a fully-clothed role, so Johnny went to UCLA, got his degree in business, and had a successful second career in real estate.

The Bomba movies were on tv constantly during my childhood, usually on Saturday afternoons when there was no game,  and now they're all available on DVD. 

I noticed something interesting: in all of the Tarzan movies featuring the adolescent Boy, and in all but one of the Bomba movies, Johnny gets tied up. 

Was director Ford Beebe interested in tie-up games?

Or is it a matter of maximizing beefcake?

Of course, Bomba was tied up a lot in the original book series.

And the original Boy was no stranger to tied-up peril.

But the constant close-ups of the young adult Sheffield straining at his bonds were quite impressive to gay kids growing up in a world where same-sex desire could never be named or even thought of.

Was that the point?

More after the break

Kobi Frumer fights the Punisher, searches for Sawyer's gold, has a toxic boyfriend, answers Question #3 (n*de photos?) but evades #2 (gay?)

 

Link to the n*de photos

Apparently I downloaded these two photos awhile back, and forgot about them:

1. Because he has a nice physique, or because he is standing on his head in a snowbank?

2.  Ok, no question: "The best way to start the day" is by lying face down in snow.   Cah-razy!  

His name is Kobi Frumer -- quite distinctive.  I've only heard of one other Kobi, some kind of sports guy.

Not many biographical details.  He was born in New York City in 2004.  He graduated (with a 3.9 GPA) from the  Professional Children's School, a high school for actors and other performers in New York (famous alumni include Macaulay Culkin, Anthony Michael Hall, Jerry O'Connell -- and Milton Berle).

His on-screen acting began in 2015, with  some shorts and documentaries. 

Then came 9 episodes of The Punisher (2017), starring Jon Berenthal as the Marvel Comics vigilante, "a tortured, angry husband and father who's living in this unbelievable world of darkness and loss and torment."  Sounds awful.

Kobi plays Zach Lieberman, son of the Punisher's partner-in-crime David Lieberman.  His dad dies (first rule of fiction); he becomes surly, rebellious, and violent; he is threatened by the Punisher, and kidnapped by Billy Russo; Dad turns out to be alive, dies again, and turns out to be alive again (is this a soap opera?).  Zach doesn't display any heterosexual interest, but really, when does he have time? 

Next we find Kobi voicing Ollie in 50 episodes of The Ollie and Moon Show (2017), a preschool toon about cats having adventures around the world: "Canadian Pancake Party," "Thinking Pink in Senegal," "A Wild Goose Chase in Berlin." 

More shorts and voice work follow. 

Kobi is most famous for The Quest for Tom Sawyer's Gold (2023).  Retired adventurer Agatha and her girlfriend are drawn back into the game when her son Ant finds a letter indicating that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were real people, not fiction, and hid real gold somewhere in the American Southwest.   There's no Ant in the cast list, but he could be Antony (Dodge Prince).  Kobi plays one of his friends. 

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.2: Kelvin clenches, Keefe dances, and everybody flirts with Eli. With a n*de Texas dude bonus.

 

Previous: Episode 2.1 Review, Continued: Keefe's kiss, Kelvin's b*ner, and a thug with broken thumbs

In Episode 2.1, while we establish the Kelvin/Keefe, Judy/BJ, and Jesse/Amber conflicts of the season, Eli's old friend Junior stops by, and acts very much like an ex-lover.  They go out to dinner and beat up a tough.  Now we see the aftermath.

Link to NSFW version

Eli Gemstone indicted! Thaniel Block sits on the porch of his rental house in the South Carolina woods, reading some news stories from 1993: Gemstone Family Studios to close due to "a financial and rumors of  sexual scandals," with $4 million missing.  Another article: "Eli Gemstone indicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy." But Episode 2.5 takes place at Christmas 1993.  When did all this happen? Geezer Tim drops by to criticize him for living in New York and having a "nasty attitude." 

A Hot Piece of Tail: Judy and BJ visit Eli to ask him to officiate in BJ's baptism.  They find him asleep on the couch in the parlor. Junior enters and asks "Who's this hot piece of tail?"  He's actually looking at BJ, but Eli assumes that he means Judy and says that she is his daughter.  He apologizes and asks if BJ is her lesbian partner. BJ starts to answer, but Judy cuts him off.

There are several takeaways here.  First, Eli and Junior did not sleep together; Eli fell asleep on the couch. Weren't there any guest rooms in his mansion? 

Second, check out Junior's magenta bathrobe, jaunty hand on him, and pinky ring: he is deliberately presenting as queer.   

Third, Eli may have mentioned that one of his children is gay, and Junior forgot which.

Execretions and Hep C Loads:  After Junior heads to the kitchen to make coffee, Judy wants to know what's going on.  Eli tells her that "things got a little carried away last night," which she interprets to mean that they are having rough s*x.  He grimaces in disgust, but plays along to mess with her.  

Her main criticism is that Junior is unattractive: "I always hoped that if you were gonna yank a pole, it would be someone hot."  So Judy has considered the possibility that Eli is bisexual for a long time. 

She states that the "hookup" signifies that Eli doesn't care about his family.  Remember that Jesse likewise complains that Kelvin "popping boners" with the muscle men is "selfish, not helping the family."  But it's not just gay s*x; on this show, having a partner of any sort is framed as a betrayal.  The family is aghast when Judy wants to move off the Compound with BJ; Baby Billy is still hurt over his sister Aimee-Leigh "leaving him" to marry Eli.  

As they storm out, Judy cautions BJ to not touch anything, as there are probably execretions and Hep C loads everywhere.  This is a call back to Abraham leaving his semen everywhere in Jesse's house, plus an awareness that Hepatitus C can easily spread through s*x, so it is particularly common in gay communities.

Good Sniffer Seats: After they leave, Eli joins Junior on the back patio, overlooking the reflecting pool that leads to Aimee-Leigh's shrine.  Eli invites him to church, but he worries about the cost.  Junior avers that he's been to enough strip joints to know that you have to pay for the "good sniffer seats."  I can't find the term "sniffer seat" defined anywhere, but I guess that it's a seat close enough to the stage to smell the performers.  There are male clubs, but he's probably referencing a lady's club, being a hetero horn dog, backing off from the implication of gay activity. 

But not entirely: Eli offers to reserve a good seat for him, and the guys hold hands!

On closer examination, it turns out to be a man and a woman holding hands. We have cut to a scene involving Jesse and Amber's marital advice group. But it is so abrupt that the misdirection must be intentional.  The man is even wearing a shirt the same color as Junior's robe.

After the group meeting, Matthew and Chad ask why Jesse's old crew isn't hanging out together anymore.  This is all marital stuff, heterosexual nuclear family stuff; what happened to the band of brothers, savage and free?  Gregory explains; "I love you guys, but happy wife, happy life."

This is becoming an ongoing question in this season: how do you balance phileo and eros, the fraternal love of family and friends and  desire that creates husbands, wives, and lovers?  The Bible says that we must abandon phileo for eros, "leave their father and mother and cleave to their husband or wife."  Kelvin is trying to combine the fraternal and the erotic by forbidding romance. BJ is trying to negotiate both.

You Got a Hound Dog Here: Cut to Thaniel visiting the Salvation Center, where he admits that he has s*xual-scandal dirt on Aimee-Leigh, gathered from household staff.  Well, at least Kelvin is off the hook.

The World's Most Famous Christian: Next, Jesse and Amber visit the Lissons in Texas for a party to celebrate the proposed Zion's Landing resort. Joe Jonas, the World's Most Famous Christian, leads everyone in a line dance.  He proclaims his heterosexuality, singing about the "beautiful girls" he's been with while wearing a formless leopard robe and pink bandana, the antithesis of Kelvin's tiger jacket and club bulge. Desire for women un-mans a man, renderng him soft and sickly; only in the manly love of comrades can a man be strong and free.

More after the break

Revisiting "Eerie, Indiana"

 

I have fond memories of Eerie, Indiana (1991-1992), although I'm not sure how many episodes I actually saw.  Maybe just one: it aired on NBC on Sunday nights, against a block of must-see sitcoms on Fox: Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Herman's Head, and Married...with Children.  

What I remember is: teenagers Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) and Simon Holmes (Justin Shenkerow) are gay-subtext buddies who investigate humorous paranormal mysteries:  a mother uses magical tupperware to keep her sons from aging for 30 years; a boy they are babysitting gets trapped in a old horror movie on tv; an ATM machine becomes sentient and showers Simon with money.  The mysterious Dash X (Jason Marsden) seems to be the key to the ongoing mystery, but the series ends before it is resolved.

Omri Katz (top photo) went on to star in the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus (1993) and the gay-themed Journey into Night (2002) before retiring from acting.  I assume he's gay in real life.  

Justin Shenkarow went on to star in Picket Fences (1992-1996), and  do lot of voice work.  This is the only beefcake photo I could find on his Instagram.  There are also about 1,000 photos of him and his mother and none of anyone else, so I assume that he's gay in real life, too.

Bob and I have recently been watching/re-watching Eerie, Indiana, and it's completely different from what I remember.

1.  Marshall is hetero-horny.  It seems like he gets all dopey over a girl every other episode.

2.  Marshall gets all dopey over a boy in every other episode, too.  Simon just sits and smiles while Marshall dumps him for the teen hunk du jour:  Gabrial Damon, Cory Danzinger, Tobey Maguire, Scott Weinger, and finally Jason Marsden.  At the end of the episode, when the boy dies, gets zapped into an alternate reality, or just vanishes from the narrative, Simon quietly takes him back.

But when Simon dumps Marshall for a pair of older boys, Marshall gets jealous and tells himself  "This isn't like Simon!  He must be brainwashed!"

3. The tone shifts from humorous to somber at the drop of an episode.  People die, quite often.  A boy is being abused by his father..  A girl is homeless.  A man is mentally ill.  When you tune in, you never know if you're going to get a sitcom or an After School Special.

4. Marshall's 17-year old sister Syndi (Julie Condry) seems to be in another series.  We keep getting snippets of telephone conversations or off-hand comments about things going on in her life, but nothing is ever developed.  In her only B-plot, she thinks that she might want to become a police officer, but her surprisingly old-fashioned parents nix the idea: too dangerous for a girl.  So she changes to firefighter.

5. Marshall's parents (Mary-Margaret Humes, Francis Guinan) are absurdly wacky, authoritarian, or caring and hugging, depending on the needs of the episode, but at least Francis Guinan is cute.  He has 88 film/tv credits on IMDB, and has done a lot of live theater in Chicago, including some plays with gay themes.

He's one of the older guys in a bathrobe in this shot from the stage play Penelope.

Eerie, Indiana is not the show I remember from 1991.  It has even more gay texts and subtexts.

See also: Eerie, Indiana: Omri Katz, Paranormal Investigator

"Die Drei ???": Boy detectives in 44 books and 4 movies, most with gay subtexts. With a lot of co-star d*cks, but no Alfred Hitchcock

Link to the n*de dudes

The Three Investigators (1967-83) is an American boys' mystery series originally published as Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, although the famous director rarely appears and plays no role in the stories:

The Mystery of the Green Ghost

The Mystery of the Screaming Clock

The Mystery of the Dancing Devil

The Mystery of the Sinister Scarecrow.

The Secret of Shark Reef

In all, 41 Mystery of and 4 Secret of.

The stories have been translated into over 20 languages.  In Germany, the investigators are Die Drei ???, pronounced Fragenzeichen, "Question Marks," after their business card.. 

The three boys:

The leader, future detective Jupiter: stocky/muscular, highly intelligent, able to piece together clues quickly.  His Uncle Titus' salvage yard provides many mysteries.

Athletic Peter takes on the dangerous assignments, like trailing suspects and rescuing his friends.  His father works in special effects in Hollywood, giving them access to movie-making mysteries.

Shy, sensitive, gay-vague Bob, who wears a leg brace, works at the library; he conducts the research in public and forbidden collections. His father is a journalist, giving them access to news-story mysteries.

I read three of the books back in the 2000s, when I was researching an article on queer codes in children's literature.  None of the investigators express any girl craziness, and the constant kidnapping, tight-squeezes, and nick-of-time rescues create many opportunities for buddy-bonding. Peter and Bob are so intimate that one almost expects them to be a canonical gay couple. So when I discovered that the trio has appeared in two German movies, I had to check them for gay subtexts (or maybe texts).

In the books, the boys are 13-14 years old, but  Julius Weckauf (Jupiter), Nevio Wendt (Peter), and Levi Brandl (Bob)  are 16-18, able to drive and get into more life-threatening situations. 

Die Drei ???: Erbe des Drachen, "The Dragon's Legacy" (2023): the boys have a summer internship on the set of the movie Dracula Rises, filming in Transylvania.  They investigate the disappearance of a boy 50 years ago, encountering a secret society and an "an undead creature." 

The trailer doesn't show anyone meeting the Girl of His Dreams, and Bob looks quite gay-stereotype feminine.  I'll take it as a queer code.

Mark Wachke, who starred in The Dark on Netflix, plays Peter's father, the special effects guy.

Die Drei ??? und der Karpathanhund, "The Carpathan Hound" (2025): gay gallery owner Mr. Prentice asks the boys to track down his stolen Carpathian Hound sculpture.  Darn, I thought it would be a "Hound of the Baskervilles" thing. 

Johannes Nussbaum (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) plays Sonny Elmquist. 

The trailer reveals lots of threatening villians, including a carnival devil. We see Peter rescuing Bob, and again, no Girl of His Dreams. Have they become a canonincal couple?

Plus a homophobic fan complains about "turning some characters gay."  Sounds like it is worth a review.

A third German movie, Die Drei ??? Toteninsel ("Death Island"), will premiere in 2026.

Wait -- "where to watch" showed that the movie is available on Amazon Prime, but apparently not in the U.S.  We'll have to make do with the trailers, and check to see if any of the actors are gay in real life. 

More after the break

Sacha Carlson: Girl, boy, or nonbinary? Gay, ally, or homophobe? The answer will shock you. WIth Gillespie backside and Sacha d*ck

Link to the n*de photos 

When this cute guy appeared on the teen idol website, I clicked on the photo to find out if he's an actor who could rate a profile.  But it turned out to be a collection of photos of his girlfriend (right), Sacha Carlson.

I went through it anyway, hoping to see the cute guy again.   

Wait -- Sacha has some 5-o'clock shadow here.  Maybe they're transitioning?

A shirtless shot, with muscles and chest hair.  This person has a male-coded physique and a woman's face.  Maybe they're nonbinary?

Nope.  They don't give their pronouns on ther Instagram page, but Wikipedia and the IMDB say he/him. Sacha is a femme boy. 

A femme boy who is into girls, as the many, many girl-hugging and kissing photos on his Instagram suggest.

And his song lyrics (he's mostly a singer):

I get lost in the thought of her lovin'

Weak in the knees all of the sudden

I want more

But there's one thing you gotta know

I'm gonna drive you like Cadillac.

Hey, that's not family-friendly!

No reason why straight guys can't be femme, but doubtless everyone Sacha meets, including casting agents, will assume that he's gay, so he will be offered a lot of gay parts.

Other than music videos, Sacha has five acting credits listed on the IMDB:

Two episodes of American Housewife (2018):  his character not listed in the plot synopsis, but he's probably a student at the ballet academy that gay-vague Oliver (Daniel DiMaggio) is hoping to be admitted to.

Julie and the Phantoms (2020), about a teenage girl who forms a band with the ghosts of three teenage musicians who died from eating bad hot dogs in the 1990s: Luke (Charlie Gillespie, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), Reggie (Jeremy Shada), and Alex (Owen Joyner).

Alex is gay, and fully accepted by his bandmates.  He starts a relationship with Willie  (Booboo Stewart), the ghost of a boy who died in a skateboarding accident. 

Sacha plays Nick, a (living) femme boy who Julie is crushing on. 

A 2022 episode of 9-1-1 Lone Star.  Sacha's character doesn't appear in the plot synopsis, but there's a wrestling match and a road-rage incident, so he must be involved in one of those.

Everything I Ever Wanted (2025): It's the Girl of His Dreams.

More after the break.  What comes next will shock you, as the clickbaiters say.

Lenny Rush: Doctor Who's buddy, the Artful Dodger's boyfriend. a gay-vague vampire. With a lot of acting awards and co-star d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

In the 2023-24 season of Doctor Who, Episodes 1.7 and 1.8, the time-and-space zapping Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his latest companion, Ruby Sunday visit UNIT, the time-and-space anomaly-investigation agency to solve two mysteries:

1. Why does an elderly woman pop up in various guises in all of their recent adventures?

2. Ruby's mother left her on a church doorstep on Christmas Day.  They want to go back in time to discover who she is, but the Doctor can't use his regular time-traveling power, for reasons, so they use one of UNIT's experimental devices.

Things go terribly wrong, of course, and they release Sutekh, the Great Beast, the Abomination, the Destroyer, the Bringer of Death, the One Who Waits...who actually looks rather like a giant dog.  He intends to destroy all life in the universe.  Well, it's better than yet another visit from the Dahh-leks.

UNIT is staffed primarily by the Doctor's retired companions, all ladies, but there are a few hunks wandering around: 

Tachia Newall (top photo) as Col. Chidozie, who gets sanded to death by the Giant Dog

Alexander Devrient (left) as Col. Ibrahaim, whose muscles are praised by the Doctor (bisexual this season): "You've been working out!"

And Aneurin Barnard as Roger ap Gwillam, who will become the most evil Prime Minister in the history of Britain.  N*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

And a cute kid: Lenny Rush as12-year old super-genius Morris Gibbons, who runs the time-travel device, fights the Giant Dog, gets dusted and resurrected, and after the Dog's demise, invites everyone out to a pizza party.

Lenny was originally cast in Episode 1.1, as one of the sentient babies running an orbiting space nursery, but he was so great that they decided to cut his scene and cast him in this much bigger role.

As of this writing, Lenny is 16 years old and looks a bit younger, so I won't be searching for beefcake or n*de photos.  I'll post some of his co-stars instead.

But at  3'2" he's a perfect addition to the Short Guy Brigade, so I'm going to research the other usual questions of a profile:

1. Has he played any gay characters?

Lenny has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with 4 episodes of the animated Apple Tree House (2018-19) and 7 episodes of The Dumping Ground (2021-22), about children "dumped" in a foster home.

There were two lesbians in The Dumping Ground, but no gay boys.

Dodger (2022-23) featured the Victorian-era pickpocket Artful Dodger (Billy Jenkins) and his mentor Fagin (Christopher Eccleston) before their adventures in Dickens' Oliver Twist.  Lenny played Morgan the Crossing Sweeper and Dodger's gay-subtext boyfriend, here receiving a bit of bad news.

More after the break

Harry Potter's private file: The top 12 n*de, beefcake, and gay-subtext performances of Daniel Radcliffe

Link to the n*de photos

You know that the last of the Harry Potter movies was released nearly 15 years ago.

You haven't returned to them because the world is so complex and self-referential, and because there are a lot of problems that you didn't notice as a kid.  Antisemitic-stereotype Goblins?  Slaves who enjoy their slavery?  A headmaster who is gay, but we can never mention it on screen?  

But you still think of Daniel Radcliffe as David Copperfield...um, I mean the Boy Who Lived, and emerged from Under the Staircase to enrolle at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

As of this writing, Daniel Radcliffe is 36 years old, with 49 acting credits.  Most move him far away from Hogwarts, to worlds where gay people -- and male body parts -- exist.  Here are his top 10 n*de, beefcake, and gay-subtext performances:

1. Merrily We Roll Along (2025), which is not about the theme song to the Looney Tunes.  It's about two heterosexual chums in love with the same girl.  I haven't seen it.

2. Now You See Me, Now You Don't (2025) brings the Horsemen out of retirement for a diamond heist (are we expected to know who the Horsemen are?). Daniel plays the villain.  I haven't seen it, but I think he's straighr-by-default. 

3. The Lost City (2022) sounds like a remake of Romancing the Stone, with romance novelist Loretta kidnapped in the jungle.  It's up to her cover model/Love Interest (Channing Tatum) to rescue her.  We see his backside, but only so Loretta can pick leeches off it.  Daniel plays the (presumably straight) villain.

4. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) is a biopic of the parody song performer.  Entirely heteronormative -- dude even dates Madonna, which didn't happen in real life.  I liked this scene:

Al: "Welcome to my house.  Would you like a tour?"

Madonna: "There's only one room in this house that I'm interested in."

Al: "Oh, there's a bathroom down the hall."

5. The Jungle (2017): in 1981, the Israeli backpacker Yossi Ghinsberg and his buddies set out to search for a lost city in the Bolivian jungle.  But the jungle has other ideas.

I haven't seen it, but keyword searches don't reveal any gay subtexts.

6. Guns Akimbo (2019) was too heteronormative: a mild-mannered video game geek unwittingly signs up for a game where you fight to the death in real time. His opponent/Love Interest is a lady.  Come on, dude, you've only played one "openly gay" character.  Get with the allyship.

But we see Daniel's prosthetic d*ck missing the toilet.

More after the break

"Playdate": Paul Blart plays with Reacher, his gay son with a mysterious super-strong boy. With plot holes...um, I mean plot twists, sci-fi, and teenage romance

I was born at the tail end of the Baby Boom, when 77 million people were growing up in the U.S., so I could just walk outside and find nine or ten boys my own age to play with.  But today there are fewer kids, they live farther away, and parents are worried that if you go outside by yourself, you'll be grabbed by human traffickers or serial killers, so they arrange for you and a kid you barely know to go on a scheduled and heavily supervised "play date."     

When a movie called Playdate (2025) dropped on Amazon Prime, I checked the promo -- two dads, one of them Reacher (Alan Ritchson), and two boys.  There had to be some gay-subtext buddy-bonds in there!   

Scene 1: Ugh, the other Dad is Kevin James, star of Paul Blart Mall Cop, The King of Queens, and other mishegas that I've never seen but understand to be heterosexist, homophobic, and dumber than Adam Sandler.  He plays lacrosse coach Brian, who puts his kid Lucas (Benjamin Pajak) into the game even though he's terrible and the other members hate him.  That's called nepotism, buddy.

Blart convinces Lucas that he'll make a good play, walk across the field in slow motion as his teammates cheer, and impress girls.  Meeting/ impressing/ winning girls as the only reason boys do anything, established at minute 2.3.

"I love you, Dad!" Lucas exclaims, but the homophobic Blart shushes him.  You must never admit that same-sex love exists, not even the familial love of a parent and child.  The proper expression is "I like you."

Lucas makes the play, but tries to walk across the field in slow motion, and the opposing team clobbers him.  His teammates all hate him.  Also, he's severely injured.

Scene 2: Mom suggests that maybe Lucas isn't cut out for sports.  "No!" Blart exclaims.  "He is a boy!  All boys are cut out for sports!  By the way, what's taking him so long in the bathroom?"

He's being assaulted by a gang of bullies.  Blart breaks it up, threatens to "kick the ass" of the head bully, then worries that his son thinks he's a coward for not going through with it.  If you beat up a 14-year old kid, you'd have more than that to worry about.

Lucas notes that he's used to the assault; it happens every day.  Mom is horrified, and suggests calling the Principal, but Blart says the parents can't intervene.  What is this, 1982?  He has to get to work, but when he returns, they will figure something out.

Scene 3: At work, Frat Executive (Kurt Long), Insanely Handsome Frat Executive (Luke Greenfield), and Sorority Executive are cheering at a nature show, as a leopard kills an antelope. Boss Trent (Miles Fisher) calls Blart in and tells him to fix the numbers in that account.  "But that would be fraud!"  "Ok, you're fired."  Wait -- we were introduced to all these characters for one scene?  They won't appear again?

At home that night, Lucas is dancing for his parents. Mom says "Shake it, girl!"  Blart is not happy; if the kid doesn't drop the sissy act, people might think he's gay or something.  This guy is a total homophobe, and the year appears to be 1982.

Scene 4: Blart  takes Lucas to the park to force his inner manliness with a game of football.  He spies the super-buffed, effervescent Reacher,  with biceps the size of cannonballs, playing "lob football at the speed of sound" with his son, who looks like he can bench press his school.  

Reacher talks Blart into a one-on-one and tackles him, resulting in gay panic.  Meanwhile, CJ loves Lucas's hoodie and dance moves, and invites him home to see a tree that looks like Mark Ruffalo. Blart is scared of these people, but Reacher talks him into it. 

Something is wrong here.  Reacher is over-eager to be Blart's friend. His son CJ keeps glaring at him, and when he moves in for a hug, goes ballistic, punching, kicking, and biting. Is he being kidnapped?

Scene 5: They arrive at the house. Reacher hugs Blart tightly.  Lucas: "Isn't Reacher super-strong and cool, and look how big he is?"  Don't you hate it when your boyfriend is more interested in your Dad?

While Lucas and CJ are in the back yard smooching...I mean, dancing...Reacher gets even more creepy.  He mentions a dead wife nonchalantly, but doesn't remember her name.  Or what CJ stands for. 

They go to lunch at Buckee Cheese's, where bad guys attack. Reacher manages to subdue them, but when they rush to the car and drive away, six or seven carloads of assassins give chase. 

More after the break

Shayne Topp: Nickelodeon teen, Barry's buddy, bodybuilder, sketch comedian who pretends to be gay and huge down there. We'll see.

  

Link to the n*de photos

The Goldbergs (2017-23) was a nostalgic look at showrunner Adam F. Goldberg's childhood experiences in the 1980s, with Sean Giambrone as a stand-in for Adam.  I wasn't a fan: most of the experiences involved attempts to meet, impress, or win The Girl of His Dreams.  But it aired in the same block with Speechless and Modern Family, in the days before we went to all-streaming services, so we had no choice but to watch.  

I liked Adam's older brother Barry (Troy Gentile), a muscular wrestler, and in Season 2, the gay-vague hippie-chill Matt (Shayne Topp), who struggles become his friend and join the Jenkintown Posse.  As far as I remember, he never displayed any heterosexual interest, and he had a queer-coded attraction to Barry.

Plus he was exceptionally cute,  and at 5'7", he was a member of the Short Guy Brigade.  Who could ask for anything more of actor Shayne Topp?

How about a muscular physique?

And other parts of interest.

Into tie-up games.

And a reader.

Born in 1991 in Florida, Shayne  played the unrequited crush of a Yu'pik girl in Dear Lemon Lima (2009).  He was a regular in the teen variety show So Random (2011-12), and appeared in episodes of ICarly, Henry Danger, Sam & Cat, and Fred: The Show.  He also did some fashion and n*de modeling, but he is best known as a sketch comedian.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.