Kurt Ostlund: The Disney Channel's Slab, comic book fan, bank robber, gay best friend, n*de bodybuilder

 Link to Kurt's d*ck

Mr. Young (2011-13), on Disney XD, featured Brendan Meyer as a genius who graduates from college at age 15 and, instead of taking a professorship at MIT and working on the string theory of the universe, becomes a high school science teacher.  In standard teencom style, he has a best friend, a crush, and a bully -- all students at the school --  and hilarity ensues.  And a lot of tongue-lolling, jaw-dropping "Girl of My Dreams" heteronormative ideology

But it wasn't totally execrable. There was a gay-subtext bromance between the buddies, and the bully Slab (Kurt Ostlund) only expressed heterosexual interest once.  Plus he had some gender-atypical traits that key in to gay stereotypes.

I've checked the adult careers of the three main male actors, and it looks like Slab is the only one with gay potential.  So let's take a look:

Our guy went on to play more slabs in heteronormative projects:

Hothead in Mark & Russell's Wild Ride (2015): two high schoolers try to win the Girl of Their Dreams or something.

Oggy in Unseen (2016): A family man who's invisible searches for his missing daughter.  It's not a comedy.

But then he went full-on bear to play gay-vague or "no expression of heterosexual interest" characters, such as a comic book fan who is targeted by a ghost for stealing important issues in an episode of Supernatural (2018).

Soldiers in Project Blue Book (2019) and The Terror (2019).

Strong Boy in 15 episodes of Snowpiercer (2020-2022), about a train that carries the last survivors of humanity after the world becomes a frozen wasteland.  He is brain-addled from his trauma, but eventually recovers, joins the resistance (there's always a resistance), and sacrifices himself to save his friends.

More after the break

Gregory Harrison: Not For Ladies Only

While Magnum and Buck Rogers were grunting and posing, Gregory Harrison was quietly making a name for himself on Trapper John, MD (1979-86) as Gonzo Gates, the irreverent surgeon who lived in a trailer  (don't surgeons make a steady income?) and sunned himself semi-nude in the hospital parking lot.  Lot of beefcake, some minimal buddy-bonding, and two "gay episodes":

In 1981, a swishy gay guy named Judy is hospitalized after a hate crime (they called it "gay bashing" back then). All gay men are drag queens, I get it.   But at least all drag queens aren't homicidal maniacs; Judy turns out to be nice.

And in 1985, one of Nurse Libby's old boyfriends turns out to be gay and have AIDS -- the third AIDS-centered episode on network television.

Gregory Harrison is no stranger to beefcake.  In 1973, he played one of a group of students who romp around nude in The Harrad Experiment, along with Don Johnson, and during the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s), he was often asked to appear shirtless in his tv and movie appearances, not to mention Battle of the Network Stars. 


But in 1981 he went all the way (or as far as the censors would allow), playing an aspiring actor who becomes a stripper in For Ladies Only.  In spite of the heterosexist title, he got many gay fans and write-ups in gay magazines like Christopher Street.

Nor is he a stranger to bonding.  In North Shore (1987), he plays Chandler, an experienced surfer who lives on the North Shore of Hawaii and begins a buddy-bonding romance with Arizona transplant Rich (Matt Adler, right).  In Red River (1988), he plays Cherry Valance, who buddy-bonds with Matthew Garth (Bruce Boxleiter) during a cattle drive.

Greg has always been quick to acknowledge his gay male fans.  In an interview, he estimated that about a third of his fan emails are about his role in the gay-angst movie It's My Party (1996), in which a gay man with AIDS invites his friends to a party, after which he will commit suicide.


He has also toured as Billy Flynn in the gay favorite Chicago.

See also: Eric Roberts: A career of sleazebag killers and noble gay guys

Jason Bradley Jacobs: From a cowboy cruising in the shower to a Kentucky cartoon Adonis to...well, isn't that enough?

Link to the n*de photos

Insurance companies go to great lengths to produce clever commercials, but they rarely venture into the realm of beefcake.  That's why the Eastwood Insurance cowboy was so memorable.

In California in the 1990s, a series of at least 30 tv commercials showed the Cowboy riding up to a befuddled car owner, almost always a man, who was paying too much for car insurance, and "saving the day" with Eastwood's low, low prices.

The best commercials had him in the shower, n*de except for his white cowboy hat, cruising...um, I mean talking about insurance to another guy, who seems more interested in his physique than his insurance policies.

Nudity in unexpected places is always stunning.

Besides, he had quite a smile.


The Cowboy was played by Jason Bradley Jacobs, who has only two acting credits on the IMDB:

A record company executive in Selena, 1997, about the Tejana singer who topped the Latin music charts and sang at the Astrodome.

Maurice Charpentier in The Feast of All Saints, 2001, based on the Anne Rice novel about "the Free People of Colour" in 19th century New Orleans, "a dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression."  Anne Rice -- shouldn't there be vampires?

It stars many recognizable African-American celebrities, including Robert Ri'chard, Ozzie Davis, Ruby Dee, James Earl Jones, Eartha Kitt, Ben Vereen, and Forest Whitaker. 

Jason provided the voice and artists' model for a character in a comic book and animated series, Plowboy in the Cornmeal Universe, created by D.W. Newman.  It is set in the Appalachia of 1978, the era of Jimmy Carter, Hee-Haw, and The Dukes of Hazzard, and emphasizes the "raw physicality and blatant s*xuality."

More after the break

Gemstone Season 1 Memes: Kelvin bottoms, Gideon falls in love, and Keefe checks for s*men loads

 

This is a series of memes -- jokes -- featuring Kelvin and Keefe of The Righteous Gemstones, their friends, and a few random n*de hunks.  Most don't require you to have any background knowledge of the show

Link to the random n*de hunks

1. Big Vic.  

His biceps aren't so big, but...

2. Kelvin and Keefe meet on Grinder. 

PreacherKid28: Hot d*ck pic!

BabyQueef: Thnks. You got a d*ck pic?

PreacherKid28: No, but I'll take one now.  Like it?

BabyQueef: Nice.  You a bottom or a top?

PreacherKid28: Top.

3. N*de dude

4. It's just random, not trying to tell you anything.

Kelton: Why do I have to be homophobic in my first scene?  Viewers will hate me.

Danny: We need an excuse to reveal that Jesse has gay friends.

Kelton:  But why now?  Gideon won't show up for a long time. This is right ater the first scene between Kelvin and Keefe.

Danny: Oh, is it?  I hadn't noticed.

5. I like your outfit too, girlfriend

More memes  after the break.

Tyler Hynes: Atreyu and the Amazon teen graduates to Christmas romcoms with gay characters. Bonus Alexander Lincoln's d*ck

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Tyler Hynes starred in six romcoms in 2024.  That's got to be a record.

Shifting Gears. Tyler and a female mechanic are competing in the big car restoration show.  Guess what happens.

Holiday Touchdown: A woman tries to win the Kansas City Chiefs' Fan of the Year contest, while falling in love with Tyler,.  At Christmas.

The Groomsmen: First Look.  "Groomsmen" are the attendants of the groom who stand with him at the wedding.  Here they are Tyler Hynes, Jonathan Bennett, and BJ Britt.  

At the wedding, BJ Bulge...I mean Britt...meets the Woman of His Dreams, but they are separated for reasons.

The Groomsmen: Second Chances.  This time the second groomsman, Jonathan Bennett, is in love with Alexander Lincoln (left), and proposes at another wedding.  

Yep, a gay couple.

Alexander's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  I originally called it a Lincoln log, but no one got the joke,

The Groomsmen: Last Dance.  The third groomsman, Tyler, falls in love with a struggling cafe owner, a woman this time, in Italy.  I assume there's a wedding.

Three Wiser Men and a B*y.   It looks like Tyler, with the moustache, and Paul Campbell, the one with the limp wrist cuddling with him, are a gay couple, but they're all brothers.

I don't know if Paul Campbell's character is gay or not.  Maybe the limp wrist is just a misdirection.

It's a sequel to Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022), with TYler and Paul helping Andrew Walker (left), when he finds a baby on his doorstep.  Now his adopted son is in kindergarten, and they have to help him with the big Christmas pageant.  At age 5?.

As far as I can tell, none of them fall in love, but their mother does.

Wait -- who am I profiling, again?

Oh, right -- Tyler Hynes. 

Born in 1986, the Canadian actor began performing on stage in A Christmas Carol at age 8 and Tommy at age 10, before hitting the teencom circuit with roles in The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Lassie.

It's impossible to research a book entitled Amazon nowadays, for obvious reasons, but I think the 1999-2000 tv series was based on a novel.  An airplane crashes in the Amazonian jungle with a soap opera-load of survivors, who are taken in by a Lost Tribe of good, kind, benevolent white people and run afoul of a load of violent, demonic, cannibalistic Native Americans (but their leader is white). Tyler plays a survivor who goes native. 

Yes, I watched.  It was awful, but I'm a sucker for lost civilization stories.

More after the break

"American Primeval": Mormons, settlers, Paiutes, and soldiers fight in a very damp Old West.

 

 I thought American Primeval, on Netflix, would be about bikers, but it's a Western: 

"Utah territory, 1857. Wild and Untamed.  The United States army, Mormon militia, Native Americans, and pioneers, all locked in a brutal war for survival."

Back story: The U.S. took control of what is now Utah during the Mexican-American War in 1846. The Mormons under Brigham Young  settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and proposed the new state of Deseret.  They got Utah Territory instead. Conflicts with the U.S. government over Mormon practices like polygamy led to skirmishes and eventually the Mormon War, aka the Utah War, 1857-8.

Yes, you do need to know this to understand the episode.

Scene 1: Mrs. Rowell and her son Devin, reading Oliver Twist, have been waiting forever at the end of the train tracks, in St. Joseph -- wait, St. Joseph, Missouri?  That's 1,000 miles from Salt Lake City.  

Left: as far as the railroads went in 1857.

Finally John Frye (Clint Obenchain) arrives to take them by covered wagon the rest of the way to Fort Bridger, now in Wyoming.  Then they will meet Jim Beckworth for the rest of the passage.  Devin wonders why they don't just go to California.  I agree.

Scene 2: Cut to Fort Bridger, with teepees outside. People gambling, fighting, smithying. A Shoshone girl steals a knife.  Mrs. Rowell and Devin arrive.  Shoshone kids try to sell them trinkets.  

Problem: they were delayed, so Jim Beckworth is gone.   A Frenchman keeps insisting that he can guide them, becomes violent, and kills their guide, so Jim Bridger (Shea Whigham), the head of the fort, kills him with a shovel.  Mrs. Rowell is aghast: she was told that this was a peaceful trading post. 

He suggests that she return to Boston, or at least wait until spring. Right now there are too many outlaws, Mormons, Indians, bears, and wolves rampaging, and then the Wasatch Mountains, which are impassable in winter. No, she can't wait: she has to meet her husband at Crooks Springs (not a real town).  

Scene 3: Bridger leads them to a mountain man, Isaac (Taylor Kitsch), who might want to guide them. Problem: he's shooting at them.  Bridger proves that it's really him, and leads them to his camp, where he's washing -- butt shot.  Isaac doesn't want to hang out with "a woman and a cripple" (boy wears a leg brace).  

Scene 4: Mrs. Rowell and Devin finally manage to hitch a ride in a wagon train of families from Arkansas, led by James Fancher (uh-oh, she's in trouble). She bonds with the Mormon Jake (Dane DeHaan) and his wife Abisha.

He's not really a creep -- this photo just makes him look that way.

Remember the Shoshone girl who stole the knife?  She uses it to kill her father or another older man who keeps assaulting her.  Then she stows away on Mrs. Rowell's wagon.  Looks like Devin will be getting a girlfriend.

Oh, and a little too late, a bounty hunter arrives, looking for Mrs. Rowell -- turns out that is not her name. She is wanted for murdering a man in Philadelphia.  Maybe her husband?  So who is the fake Mrs. Rowell hoping to meet?

More after the break

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

 

This is a continuation of 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

Everybody Hates Chris

Everybody Hates Chris (2005-09),  loosely based on the childhood of comedian Chris Rock in the 1980s, was about a boy named Chris (Tyler James Williams) beset-upon by weird neighbors and a crazy family.  School is even worse; as the only black student at Corleone Junior High, he suffers both overt and well-meaning liberal racism.

True to the tradition of erasing black beefcake, no one disrobed on camera.  But there were nearly as many bulges as on The Jeffersons, and you could easily find shirtless and nude shots elsewhere.

Tequan Richmond, who played Chris's opposite, his supremely lucky and supernaturally attractive brother, posted many muscle pix on his website.  He now plays a teen hunk on General Hospital.

Terry Crews, the Dad, is a former football star with a bodybuilder's physique who often flexes in his movies (most recently he has done voice work on The Ultimate Spider_Man).

The word "gay" was never spoken, though once they used "androgynous" as a euphemism.  And, at least in the first season, Chris featured one of the strongest teenage homoromantic subtexts in contemporary tv.

When Chris arrives at Corleone Junior High, the only kid who will befriend him is the nerd Greg (Vincent Martella, who also voiced the Disney Channel's Phineas and Ferb).  Soon they become inseparable  -- and exclusive; when one courts another boy, the other seethes with jealousy. They break up, realize how much they care for each other, and reconcile again.

They have a Romeo-and-Juliet moment in “Everybody Hates Greg” (November 24, 2005): Greg’s father forbids him from seeing Chris, and the two go through absurd machinations to be together, behaving according to media conventions for heterosexual participants in a “forbidden romance.”  Finally Greg’s father relents, saying “You’re big buddies, huh?”, apparently recognizing that the emotional importance of their bond transcends that of ordinary “buddies.”

The adult Chris Rock, who narrates each episode, seems somewhat discomfited by the intensity of the pairing.  Some of his asides, such as “Hey, this ain’t Brokeback!” (referring to the gay-themed movie Brokeback Mountain) deny that the pairing is romantic while explicitly linking it with gay romance.

Other asides, such as “How could I have so much drama without a girl?” appear to proclaim that the relationship is invalid because it does not involve girls, but actually indicates that girls are not necessary, that “drama” (emotional turmoil) is equally possible in same-sex relationships. The attention paid to the homoromance, and its thematic association with heterosexual romance, suggests that it is significant, even intentional.

However, it is temporary; after the first season, the two become ordinary best friends, both are wild about girls.

See also:  "The Neighborhood"

Everybody loves Greg: Vincent Martella grows up, plays Phineas, dates some guys.

Frederick Koehler: Chip from "Kate and Ally" grows up, shows his d*ck, plays some psychos, and vanishes. With bonus Beau Mirchoff

Link to the n*de Chip and Mirchoff

Viewers who saw this guy's d*ck in a 2004 episode of the prison drama Oz were shocked.  Not by the d*ck -- there were lots of them on Oz.

Not because he was Andrew Schillinger, 20-year old son of the white supremacist prisoner Vern Schillinger.

 

Not even because he was a heroin addict who would be given a batch by an unscrupulous guard and die of an overdose.

Because we were looking at a grown-up Chip.

Although he had appeared in Judging Amy, Ally McBeal, Profiler, Gideon's Crossing, Charmed, and A Kiss Before Dying,  Fred Koehler was famous for Kate and Allie (1984-89), a sitcom starring two recognizable 1970s tv stars, Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James, a free spirit-stick in the mud couple living together. Fred Koehler played their 10-15 year old son, Chip

No, they weren't lesbians, although they pretended to be in an early example of a "let's pretend to be gay to get some of their incredible privileges" episode. 

After Kate and Ally -- I have to keep checking, but I'm pretty sure it's "ally," not "allie" -- Fred attended Carnegie-Mellon University, got a degree in theater, changed his stage name to Frederick, and returned to Hollywood.

To quote Sally in Peanuts, isn't the grown-up Frederick "the cutest thing"?   Short, rather husky, with a round, handsome face and a befuddled expression that makes him perfect for roles as oddball outsiders with no heterosexual interests.  Instead, they are gay-vague, yearning for love, acceptance, and family.

Like Ben Sharpless, teenage son of the obsessive sheriff Nolan in Birdseye (2002).

Or the mentally handicapped Pemon in Little Chenier (2006).

More after the break

Chris Messina: "Birds of Prey," "The Mindy Project," and lots of movies featuring angst and dicks

  

I didn't get a lot of page views for my review of The Sinner -- maybe everyone found the title too judgmental -- so I decided to repurpose the numerous nude photos of Chris Messina into a separate article.  Who is this guy whom I never heard of before, who lacks a standard gym rat physique yet manages to tear his clothes off in practically every screen appearance?

Link to the nude photos

He doesn't have much of a social media presence.  This Chris Messina looks like him, but must be somebody else, since he has a boyfriend, and our guy has a wife.  Plus an article in Forbes proclaiming "Chris Messina loves women."  Wow, a heterosexual, how bizarre! I've heard of men like that, but I've never met one in real life. How do they decide who's the top and who's the bottom?

Our Chris, who loves women, was born in 1974  He grew up in New York City, dropped out of college after one semester, and moved onto Broadway, then tv. He has 75 acting credits on the IMDB, including substantial roles in Damages, The Newsroom, The Mindy Project, and Based on a True Story.   I've only seen him in Argo and Birds of Prey.

Not a lot of gay roles.  In an interview, he says that his villain Victor Szaz in Birds of Prey is "probably gay." and in Based on a True Story, his character is married to a woman, but makes out with a guy during a fantasy orgy.

Our first glimpse of Chris's private parts comes in the tv series Six Feet Under (about a mortuary).  His Ted Farwell, an attorney who dates some of the ladies, walks through his house nude.

28 Hotel Rooms (2012) features a Woman and a Man (Chris) hooking up in hotel rooms every time they are in the same city on business.  It sounds artsy, pretentious, and heterosexist, but apparently Chris walks around nude a lot.

The Mindy Project (2012-2017) stars Mindy Kaling as a OB/GYN doctor looking for love in New York City.  Chris plays Danny Castellano, her Love Interest, in 90 episodes. His gay brother Richie appears in 8 episodes.

90 episodes, and all we get is a bulge shot?

Oh, well, Digging for Fire (2015) gives us another dick shot. It stars Jake Johnson as a nuclear family dad with marital problems -- and a skeleton buried in the back yard.  Chris plays one of his friends, who comes to a party involving call girls and skinny dipping.

The Sweet Life (2016) is an "edgy and unconventional dramedy" about a Man an a Woman on a road trip to San Francisco, where they will jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.  All that angst, and all we get is a butt shot?

More dick in Sharp Objects (2016): a women with psychiatric problems investigates the murders of two young girls. Chris plays a detective working on the case, and obviously her Love Interest.  Sounds terribly depressing.  Go back to comedy, Dude!

The Secrets We Keep (2020).  I don't know, Romanian refugees, tortured past, dark secrets. 

 F*k the sadness.  Dick and butt shots aren't worth it. Let's go back to the gay Chris Messina and his boyfriend.

Dicks, butts, and angst on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Bewitched, Bewildered, and Gay

You can always distinguish between gay and heterosexual Boomer boys by asking: Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?

Jeannie (1965-70) offered the sexist fantasy of a man whose semi-nude, subservient genie called him "Master," while Bewitched (1964-72) offered. . .well, witches.  Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) has married the mortal Darren (Dick York, left, followed by Dick Sargent), who forbids her to use witchcraft -- but she apparently finds suburban housework infinitely more satisfying.

Or at least that's what she claims to the endless array of relatives who pop in to announce that they've just been to a fabulous party in the South of France or to the ostrich races with the Maharaja of Eyesore.

"I've got a secret" plotlines in the 1960s could always be read as metaphors for the gay experience -- especially when the secret involved so much fabulousness -- and the message, in spite of Darren's sputtering about not using witchcraft, was "be true to yourself. . .accept who you are" -- but there was more for gay kids in Bewitched. A lot more.

1. Samantha was nicknamed "Sam," so sometimes -- often -- strangers overheard Darren talking about being "in love with Sam" or "married to Sam," and their eyes bulged and their jaws dropped as they concluded that he was. . .you know.

2. The disdain with which the witch community approached Sam's "unnatural" love for a mortal can be seen as a metaphor for 1960s race relations -- miscegenation laws were still being enforced in some states until 1967 -- but also for a same-sex relationship.

3. There was a never-ending parade of teen idols, including Bill Mumy, Craig Hundley, and Boyce and Hart.

4. Several characters were gay-coded -- flamboyant, theatrical, and utterly uninterested in the opposite sex, including Samantha's sarcastic mother,  Endora (Agnes Moorhead); her Shakespeare-quoting father Maurice (Maurice Evans), and her wise-cracking Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde).

5. Several actors were themselves gay, including Maurice Evans, Paul Lynde, and Diana Murphy (half of the twins who played daughter Tabitha).  And others were gay allies.

Dick Sargent, the second Darren, came out in 1991, and became the grand marshall of the 1992 Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, along with his tv wife Elizabeth Montgomery.  My friend Randall in West Hollywood dated him.


Bewitched was the inspiration for many "I've got a secret" series infused with gay symbolism, such as Out of this World and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

"Shining Vale": A Stepford Wives/The Shining mishmash, with Monica from "Friends," the gay kid from Pen15, and a lot of Higginbothams

  

I was attracted to Shining Vale, a horror series that aired on Starz before being transferred to Hulu, because the icon looks like The Stepford Wives, with a lot of women forced to wear paper smiles, and one of the episode titles reflects "The Yellow Wallpaper," a feminist classic about a woman trapped in the attic and not allowed to write. 

Episode 1.1, "Welcome to Casa del Phelps," starts with statistics: Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression, and twice as likely to be possessed by a demon. The symptoms are identical.

Prelude: A heterosexual nuclear family drives through the barren northwoods of New York:

1. Focus character Pat (Courtney Cox). Monica on Friends? I just reviewed a show starring her brother Ross.

2. Hubbie Terry (Greg Kinnear).  Remember "Talk Soup"?

3. Their surly teenage daughter, Gaynor (Gaynor?) The actor is named Gus, so maybe they're nonbinary, but Gaynor (Gaynor?) herself gets a boyfriend later on.

4. Their portly teenage son, Jake, who is attached to a video game at all times.  Jake has sort of a femme look, but will get a girlfriend later on. Actor Dylan Gage is gay in real life, and played a gay middle schooler on Pen15

The son and daughter are angry because they have to uproot their lives and leave their friends just because Mom had s*x with some random Muscle Guy.  Flash to the encounter; all we see is Muscle Guy flexing his biceps in the mirror while doing it.  Weird. 

Muscle Guy is played by Jonathan Higginbotham, but the top photo is Max Carpeter as Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire," for reasons that will become evident.

Suddenly a little girl in a 1950s costume is standing in the road!  In the wilderness a hundred miles from the nearest town? Mom screams that they hit her.  Mom screams that they hit her.  Nope, no one there. Dad suggests that it was a deer.  That was no deer, buddy.

They arrive at the huge mansion.  So if your partner cheats, your first reaction is to buy a huge mansion in upstate New York?  Excuse me -- I have some cruising to do.

Mom notes that Daughter Gaylord gets a room on the other side of the house for privacy, and Son Jake gets his own bathroom with a door that locks, for...well, you know.

A sinister lady dressed as a 1950s socialite, who will eventually be identified as Rosemary (Mira Sorvino), is staring at them.  Mom screams; she vanishes.  Dad says that it was probably a deers.

Flashback to the realtor showing . Upstairs, there's a huge stained glass window depicting St. George and the Dragon, but George is a lady, Rosemary.

Back story: 17 years ago, Mom wrote a bestselling novel referred to variously as "lady stuff" and "female empowerment."  She hasn't written a word since, but she hopes that moving to a mansion upstate, far away from Manhattan and its distractions -- museums, art galleries, bookstores, restaurants, gay bars -- will in spire her.  

Sunday night: It's very cold in the house, so they light a fire. and the dining room table was lost, so they eat on the floor for "family time." Or you could eat off tv trays in the living room.

They have to say what they're looking forward to.  Everyone chimes in: "Family!  Spending more time with family!  Family is everything! Family!"  Ugh!  

Son Jake and Daughter Gaybor were just paying lip-service to the family ideology.  They rush off.  With nothing else to do (no WIFI?), Dad suggests that they have s*x. "We haven't done it since you cheated on me."  Way to put her in the mood.

Left: Not Jonathan Higginbotham the Muscle Guy,  for reasons that will become evident. Matthew Higginbotham, a jungler who plays for the TSM Academy.  After googling it, I still don't know what that is.

3 months earlier:  Mom telling her therapist, "I didn't plan on cheating"  She was in her tiny, tiny, tiny apartment, bored (half a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art?) and sad. Muscle Guy came by to fix the faucet, and she tripped and accidentally fell onto his d*ck. . The therapist asks if she's on anti-anxiety medication.  She's suffering from depression, not anxiety, but he gives her a prescription anway.

Back to the mansion: As Dad goes upstairs to get ready for s*x, Mom stalls by saying she wants to clean up the dinner dishes.  Whoa, someone is playing the piano!  And there's a tap on the window -- Rosemary, the lady from before, hovering ten feet off the grond!  Monica runs upstairs, where Greg is ready for s*x in -- boxers and a t-shirt?  He rushes down to check.  No one there.  "It must have been a deer."  That was no deer, but Mom has been established as crazy.  Maybe she's hallucinating.

Monday: Inm the morning, Mom pops a bunch of pills, criticizes Daughter Gaymer's short skirt, and listens to Son Jake's complaint that she forgot to cut the crusts off his PB*J. They criticize her for having s*x with a rando and forcing them to come to this haunte mansion.

When the school bus comes, Daughter Gazebo gazes at a hot guy (Derek Lah, left) and takes off some of her clothes to entice them. Why is Mom waiting with them?  Helicopter parent.  She asks Gayborhood to make good choices and Jake to try to make an age-appropriate friend, instead of hanging out with hunky older guys.  Say what?

Mom's agent calls: We gave you an advance for your new book six years ago, so get it in, or give the money back.  She goes up to the dark, scary attic, full of leering dolls and clowns, to start working. You've got 300 rooms. Find yourself a proper home office. 

The dog wants to play, but his ball rolls under a dresser, where Mom finds a picture of the two ghosts she's seen so far, the little girl and the socialite Rosemary.  One whispers at her!

Hubby takes a $250 cab from the city to investigate, but finds nothing.  Or you could call 911 and report a home intruder.   He thinks that it was just the wind. 

More after the break