Marcus Adair: finance major, football player, bodybuilder, stuntman, Jabari warrior, model (probably)

  

Marcus Adair has had a busy life: U.S. Air Force Academy, then the University of Arkansas, where he started in electrical engineering but changed to finance.  Well, calculus is hard.  

Two years playing football for the Dallas Cowboys, then an actor/producer of commercials for local gyms.

Link to NSFW version

And of course a pro bodybuilder.  Here he wins the NPC Seaboard Competition,

Are there any openings for posing strap fitter?

Now he considers himself primarily a stunt performer, with work in Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Queen of the South, and Star.

Left: some Jabari warriors.

I swear, I am just looking at his abs.

More Marcus after the break

Glenn Scarpelli: The star of "One Day at a Time" and "Jennifer Slept Here" grown up, out, and married

Link to the n*de dudes

One Day at a Time, one of the iconic television shows of the 1970s, sent newly-divorced Ann Romano into the wilds of a never-described Indianapolis, to fight sexist oppression and raise her two daughters.  But by 1980, the daughters had grown, and they needed a new kid.  Instead of having a long-lost cousin show up, they acquired one by having Ann date single father Nick Handris (Ron Rifkin) for 19 episodes before killing him off.  The boy's mother wanted nothing to do with him, so Ann offerd to take in Alex (13-year old Glenn Scarpelli).

One Day was really a dramedy, so they spent some Time exploring the impact of having a dead father and uncaring mother before moving Alex into hetero-horny plotlines: his girl-crazy first date,  his foray into a female tournament, his attempt to "lose his virginity," and having to choose between a hot date and an important event with father figure Schneider.  

As he started to mature -- and bulk up -- Glenn got the full teen idol treatment, with beefcake posters, gushing articles in teen magazines, a record (ntitled Glenn Scarpelli), and girl-magnet stories in Archie Comics (it helped that his father was Archie artist Henry Scarpelli).

He had his own float in the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where he sang his own song, "Doodle Bug."

Glenn stayed on One Day at a Time for only two seasons. In  Season 9, the household would be splitting, and Alex's role minimized, so Glenn bowed out for a role in Jennifer Slept Here (1983-84).

A family moves into a house occupied by the ghost of a Marilyn Monroe-like s*x symbol who died a few years ago -- but only the family's teenage son (John P. Navin, Jr., left) can see her.  She becomes his mentor in girl-crazy adolescence while trying to preserve her memory and s*x-symbol appeal.  Glen played the son's his best friend and competitor for girls.

Superstar Debbie Reynolds, Poltergeist medium Zelda Rubenstein, and game show host Monty Hall had guest spots. A sure-fire hit, right?   But the network kept moving it to slots next to the last half-hour of blockbusters, The Dukes of Hazzard on Friday,  T.J. Hooker on Saturday, and finally The Fall Guy on Wednesday,  and it was canned after 13 episodes.

Meanwhile Glenn was appearing in 52 episodes of the children's 3-2-1 Contact (1980-83) as Cuff, a detective who solves cases using the scientific method.

Three episodes of Love Boat (1983-85), playing hetero-horny three characters.

A McGyver (1990), as a troubled high school student who drops out to work in construction, even though he's a McGyver-style scientific genius

An episode of Amazing Stories.

Glenn wanted to be true to himself, but Hollywood wouldn't allow it during the homophobic 1980s ("100 times more homophobic than today").  He started his career on Broadway, playing against Anne Bancroft in Golda and Al Pacino in Richard II, so he returned to New York and enrolled in the NYU Film School. 

He dropped out when his first partner, talent agent Gary Scalzo, was diagnosed with AIDS.  

When Gary died in 1992, Glenn needed a complete break from show business, so he moved to Sedona, Arizona, known for its mysticism and spirituality.

More after the break. 

"Jellystone!": Closeting, Transphobia, and Yogi Bear

 

The early Hanna Barbara cartoon stars -- Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound,  the Flintstones, Jonny Quest (and Race Bannon --sigh)  -- were ubiquitous in my childhood in the 1960s.  I don't remember much about their cartoons, but they appeared on an endless supply of toys and games.  There have been many, many parodies, revisions, and rehashes over the years.  Most recently, Jellystone!  (2021-22) puts all of them -- including the obscure ones you've never heard of -- into the same small town, for "slice of life"-style adventures.  There were virtually no female characters in the Hanna-Barbara universe, so some of them have had a gender change.  I heard that there is some gay inclusivity, including Jonny Quest and Hadji as a canonical gay couple.  So I watched the episode in which the two own a bowling alley.

Intro: Establishing shot of the town of Jellystone, built in Swiss chalet style, with the inhabitants in a parade:  Huckleberry Hound, Yogi and Boo Boo, and so on, oddly animated but recognizable from the 1960s.  The characters who have turned female all have eyelashes, a standard signifier in animation since the 1930s. Suddenly a character I don't recognize causes the buildings to all fall over in domino style.  

Scene 1: Doggie Daddy, who still talks like Jimmy Durante, pushing his now-female  child Augie Doggie in a baby carriage, even though he knows that she is 11 years old.  She doesn't mind.  They stop for a kiss break. As she walks over to a snack cart for a sandwich, he's overcome by worry. A  tad over-protective.  

Scene 2: Yogi, Boo Boo, and Captain Caveman approach Doggie Daddy and ask him to a "grownups only" bowling night.  What, exactly, do they have planned?  He wants to go, but he's afraid of leaving Augie with a babysitter.  

Scene 3: Doggie Daddy's house, which is a lighthouse.  He has hired Jabberjaws, now female with a Southern accent, to babysit: "Don't worry -- it will be fun.  We'll talk about boys."  How does she know that the 11-year old is interested in boys?

Doggie Daddy can't manage to leave Augie, so he brings her to the bowling alley disguised as an "adult friend," Dave. Adding a moustache makes her unrecognizable, in spite of the eyelashes.

Scene 4: Bowling.  Augie/Dave is bad at it, but  fits in by discussing stock options with Baba Louie (now female), and braiding Captain Caveman's hair.  He seems to be complaining that a guy he dated was inadequate in bed: "he said he would kabunga, but he barely even kawunga-ed."

When Augie/Dave finally knocks over a pin, Doggie Daddy kissses him.  The guys look on, shocked, angry -- are they homophobic, or do they suspect the deception?    Doggie Daddy explains that he kisses all of his adult friends, so they line up to be kissed.  I guess they're not homophobic  He is disgusted by the idea of kissing guys, so he tries to rush off.  They convince him to stay.

Scene 5: Johnny and Hadji, now adults, drop a disco ball so the bowlers can dance.  They aren't named, and don't speak, so you'll only know who they are by reading the plot synopsis.  There's no indication that they are romantic partners.

Scene 6: Morning.  Making breakfast, Doggie Daddy muses that last night was horrible, but he won't have to do it again.  "Goodbye, Dave."  But Augie comes downstairs in her Dave moustache.  She announces that she is going to brunch -- as Dave.  Daddy is shocked and horrified.  He can't deal with having a nonbinary or trans kid!   

Always use the names and pronouns that people prefer.  "Augie" is a deadname.  He goes by Dave now.

A montage of Dave saying goodbye to go to an estate sale, out for tapas, and to watch the football game.  Doggie Daddy screams that he's lost his daughter!  But you've gained a son.  And maybe he was never a daughter at all.

Scene 7:  The bowling alley.  Ok, it's Quest Bowling, with the same font used for the old show, so fans will know that they are Johnny and Hadji -- if they ever show up again.  Dave is playing "Duck, duck, goose" with the gang.  

Doggie Daddy appears and announces: "Until today, I thought that my life was a bowl of cereal, with those little marshmallows in them.  But I realized that one of those marshmallows is actually..."  Something phallic?  Are you going to be accepting of Dave's gender identity?  Nope:  "A booger named Dave! I am not going to take this and pretend that everything is ok!  It's not!"  Way transphobic, Daddy. 

He challenges David to Hock-Ma, a mega-bowling game.  (Johnny and Hadji appear again to set it up).  "If I win, you promise to go back to being a girl. If I lose, I'll go live in that grave over there."  You're going to commit suicide rather than face having a trans kid?

The guys tell him that he's acting like a jackass, so Doggie Daddy loses deliberately.  But instead of finally accepting his son, he goes to live in the grave: "That's it!  I've lost my daughter forever!," he says in tears.   So Augie drops the moustache and goes back to being a girl.  The end.

What...no!  Boo!  What kind of message does that send about gender diversity?  Doggie Daddy should have accepted his child, boy or girl.  

And what about Johnny and Hadji.  The writers tweeted that they couldn't be explicit about the couple, but "in our minds they are happily married." So you can have gay characters as long as no one watching the show has any idea that they are gay. 

My Grade: F-.

See also: Yogi Bear and Boo Boo.

David Naughton: The cutest guy of the Disco Era tells us to "Be a Pepper" and shows his d*ck

  

Is this not the cutest guy you've ever seen?  Other than Wes Stern (sigh) and Adam Devine, of course.

Link to David's d*ck

Between 1977 and 1981, the recent University of Pennsylvania graduate David Naughton could be seen in dozens of tv commercials, prancing about in a white shirt, black vest, and bulging jeans, selling Dr. Pepper.

"I'm a Pepper -- wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?"

I don't like the soft drink, but the spokesman was one of my first crushes.

David's fame from the commercials led to an invitation to star in Makin' It (1979), a rip-off of Saturday Night Fever with David and Greg Antonacci as disco-dancing brothers.  He also recorded the theme song:

Makin' it, oo makin' it, I'm solid gold.

I've got the goods

They stand when I walk through the neighborhoods

I'm makin' it

"Hit tv series" was a little premature: Makin' It was canned after nine episodes.

Next came Midnight Madness (1980), with teams of college students on an all-night scavenger hunt.  David's team, the good guys, includes his younger brother (Michael J. Fox before Family Ties).  There are also teams of jocks, spoiled rich kids, and girls.  I didn't notice any gay subtexts.

But American Werewolf in London (1981) has one.

College students David and Griffin Dunne are hiking through the Scottish highlands, when they are attacked by a werewolf.  Griffin is killed, and David turns, in scenes that emphasize his physique -- and p*nis.

He falls in love with a girl and uses a homophobic slur, and  his dead buddy Griffin keeps encouraging him to commit suicide. And -- spoiler alert -- there is no happy ending.

But the buddy-bonding subtext, the disco physique, and the d*ck (almost unheard of in mainstream movies at the time) were enough to make American Werewolf a must-see for gay men.

More after the break

"Go Ahead Brother": Organized crime, shirtless hunks, a lot about fiduciary investments, and bonus n*de Polish dudes

I was interested in Michal Filipiak, the Fat Thug in The Hooligan, so I checked his projects available in the U.S., and found Go Ahead, Brother (2024), a "thriller" tv series which as an added bonus has some very muscular guys.

Link to the n*de Polish dudes

Scene 1: Night. Soldiers with guns drawn approach a middle-class home. They enter and find the drug lab.  

Cut to Oskar (Piotr Witkowski, left) trying to explain to his superior what happened that night.  He was supposed to be guarding Sokol, but he let his guard down, and his partner died.  

"There was a high-pitched hum...the room was spinning...I blacked out."

The superior officer doesn't believe him: "You ran away, you cowardly little p*ssy!"

This angers Oskar. who attacks his superior officer and almost kills him, before other soldiers rush in to pull him away.  His military career is over.

Scene 2: Oskar at home, smoking a cigarette and being morose, when his Dad comes in.  He asks how much Dad lost (at gambling) tonight, but actually he won some.  It doesn't matter: he lost his job, so he can't support Dad's habit anymore, or pay off the creditors: "You're a cancer.  You've ruined my life."  I'd say attacking your superior officer did that.

"What should I do, then?  Kill myself?"

Scene 3: Cut to Oskar's room, with close-ups of a drawing of Oskar and Daddy, his military friends, and a lot of weapon parts.  Oskar gets up, starts to exercise, but remembers his dead friend and stops. 

He goes downstairs, but Dad isn't around, and his cell phone is broken!  He rushes down to the garage, where 

Dad is sitting in the running car, trying to die of carbon  monoxide poisoning.  Oskar rips off his shirt, rushes him outside, and performs CPR while screaming. 

The police arrive, along with Marta, a middle-aged blond woman with a man's haircut.  "This time he was serious," she says as she hugs another guy Sister?  Mother? Ex-Wife? 

Scene 4: The three, Oskar, Marta, and the Other Guy, Sylwek (Konrad Eleryk), go through Dad's finances.  His debt to banks and shadow banks amounts to 200,000 zl, and his life insurance won't pay since it was a suicide. They'll have to sell the house. "But it's our home, yada yada yada."

At the bank, Oskar and Marta discover that Dad had taken out many more loans.  The money from selling the house won't nearly cover it. They ask the bank guy why he was so stupid: "Who in his right mind would lend money to that man? You're not a banker, you're a loan shark!"  

Marta storms out, and the Loan Shark tut-tuts: "God bestowed women with hysteria as a token of his love."  Sexist jerk. 

Oskar is not impressed: "Say one more word about my sister, and I'll break your neck!"

Loan Shark suggests selling the house, paying off some, and "we'll work something out" for the rest. Is he cruising Oskar?

Uh-oh, he hears that high-pitched ringing again. Dude is having a panic attack.  I get them in long lines where you're trapped, unable to move...no escape...everything closes in...so I won't stand in a line with more than two people ahead of me or behind me. 

Out in the parking lot Oskar vows that he'll find the money, and they won't need to sell the house. The Loan Shark waves from his upper-story window.

More after the break, including Michal's d*ck

Gemstones Episode 2.4: BJ gets baptized, Baby Billy gets Funyons, Kelvin gets dissed, and Harmon gets a cat. With n*de Israeli dudes.

  

In case you're interested in the insightful analysis but not the n*de Israeli guys, I'm posting a G-rated version of Episode 2.4 here.

Nope -- take me to the n*de dudes.

This is my favorite of the season. Although we continue with Eli and Kelvin's intertwining darkness, we add two more or less lighthearted plotlines, starring Judy/BJ and new characters Baby Billy/Tiffany.  They are all tied together by the question of eros/phileo: how can we reconcile the erotic desire that leads to permanent romantic partnerships with the love of family and friends?

A Boy and His Cat: Flashback: Charlotte, North Carolina 1993.  Going in fresh, pretending to have never seen Season 1, we are introduced to new characters, the grinning, fast-talking Baby Billy, his wife Gloria, and their special-needs son Harmon, in the mall at Christmastime,  Later we will discover that Baby Billy is a ne-er-do-well, constantly coming up with sleazy scams and get-rich quick schemes.  He and his sister Aimee-Leigh were child stars before she went on to a career as a serious gospel singer and married Eli Gemstone.  Baby Billy never forgave her for "abandoning" him.

  

After Harmon gets a photo on Santa's lap, Gloria goes off to shop, leaving father and son alone. Baby Billy offers to let Harmon choose any Christmas present he wants.  He chooses a cat. Then Baby Billy says that he's going off to buy Funyons, onion-flavored snack rings (this will become important later).  Instead he runs away, abandoning his family! 

BJ's Family:  Judy's husband BJ, previously a nonbeliever, converted and was welcomed into the church in Episode 2.2.  Now it's time for his baptism, and he has invited his family to the event -- Mom, Stepdad, and grown sister KJ.   Judy disapproves of the "filthy atheists." and they are abrasive as well, angry at being put up in a hotel instead of some of the twenty or so guest rooms in Judy's mansion, and  thinking of the Gemstone ministry as a money-grubbing cult.

 Yuck -- BJ kisses them all on the lips!  Has he solved the eros/phileo problem by conflating the two, treating his family as lovers?    

KJ's butch mannerisms have led many fans to conclude that she, or the actress playing her,  is a lesbian.  Maybe KJ, but not Lilly Sullivan, who married Tim Baltz on February 5, 2022, two weeks after this episode aired. This makes the later allegations of incest especially problematic.

Remember the Lissons?: We cut to Jesse and Amber hanging out with the Lissons -- the megachurch pastors  planning a Christian resort  -- and discussing how close their friendship has become.  Jesse breaks the news that they can't get their Daddy to fork over the money to invest.  He's asked multiple times, but Eli refuses to budge.

Lyle is aghast. The Gemstones are worth over $600 million; surely Jesse can afford $10 million on his own?   Nope, it's all Daddy's money.  Jesse will control it someday, of course, but not until Eli dies.  

The Lissons are irate, lambast Jesse and Amber for being poor, and break off the friendship.  I think they just liked you for your money, guys.

The Judean Desert:  Kelvin and Keefe figure that they can restore the confidence of the God Squad with a 40-day field trip in the Judean desert.   They walk across the Gemstone airfield, Kelvin in a military coat with a leopard-spotted beret, and Keefe in an oddly feminine black robe, with his backpack in front.  

Notice the Ace of Spades on Kelvin's coat. Some fans think that he is subtly coming out as asexual,  Actually, it was used by British regiments in World War 1and II, and by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, symbolizing luck, victory, or death.  

But the Ace of Spades is the most powerful card in the deck, so Kelvin probably chose it to signify that he is the most powerful man in the group, the Alpha.

Uh-oh, Martin, Eli's chief accountant and right-hand man,  intercepts  them. Eli has refused to pay for the trip.  Do you see a parallel between Kelvin/Keefe and Jesse/Amber's problems?  

Kelvin bats his eyes, touches Martin's chest, and begs: "You got here too late.  We already took off. Please?"    Wait -- are you flirting with Martin?  Homoerotic hotness doesn't work on everyone, dude.

And it doesn't work: Martin lays down the law  Kelvin is forced to break the news that his father said no, thus losing even more of his authority with the God Squad musclemen.

I Know What a Tomater Is:  In the Gemstone Parking Garage, Eli finds a tomato smooshed on his windshield.  The Tan  Man (James Preston Rogers) appears and says, threateningly, "Get the message?"  

Eli pretends that he isn't sure -- maybe something to do with a broken heart?  The Tan Man growls, howls, flexes and clarifies: "you hurt my boss's feelings real bad, and he's not the kind of guy who likes to have hurt feelings."  So, what kind of guys enjoy having hurt feelings?  "He wants an apology."  

Having confronted far more formidable foes, Eli is not impressed by the Tan Man's theatrics.  He sends a message for Junior:"tell him to go f*ck hisself."  

More after the break

"The Hooligan": N*de musclemen, a Fat Thug, and gay vibes in the life of a hooligan drug runner in Poland

  

Link to the n*de dudes

The Hooligan popped up on my Netflix feed this morning, with a cute, stern-looking guy staring at the camera.

Football hooligans are fans who support their team in excessive, violent ways. Whether they win or lose, they storm through the town, celebrating by overturning cars, breaking shop windows, setting fires, and assaulting bystanders.     

Sounds violent, but at least there will be some musclemen, and...maybe....possibly...one of the hooligans will be gay.

Left: When I googled "muscular football hooligan," this popped up. 

Scene 1: The Hooligan walking in slow motion down a dark street, with lights flashing as if he's being photographed by papparazi.  His left hand is gone, and his arm is in a leather cast.

Cut to the Hooligan, Kuba, and his mum, dad, and little brother drinking beer in a family restaurant.  Kuba is 17, and still has both hands.    

Wait -- this tv series is from Poland!  Not going to have any gay....

The IMDB doesn't say which actor is playing which character, but I think Kuba is played by Grzegorz Palkowski, who starred in a gay-themed Polish movie, Sucker's Death (2024).

"Gay-free zone" Poland has gay movies? 

Dad is played by Wojciech Zelinski.

 Fat Thug complains to the Other Thug complains he is too close, brushing against him (ugh!  contact with another dude -- disgusting!), and Other Thug counters that his mother is not very good in bed. After demonstrating that they're homophobic, they stand back while their Boss approaches Dad and asks when he got out of prison. 

Back story: Dad used to be a famous soccer player, but then he went to prison for six or seventeen years.

They discuss the game tonight.  Third Guy thinks that Kuba has potential, and invites him to the gym to work on his chest.  Dad disagrees: they should work on his arms.  Wait -- do they want him to train to be a player, or a fan? .

When Mom goes up to pay the check, Boss approaches.  Apparently they were lovers 17 years ago, while Dad was in prison, and Kuba is his biological son, but they can't tell anyone.

Scene 2:  RKS Gladius Stadium, a match between the Mazovia team and the good guys. A huge crowd of hooligans tryiing to get into the game, being rowdy as security checks them for guns.  Fat Thug says "Don't grope me too much, ok dude?  I'm not into you." Dude protests too much.  I think he's gay and closeted.

The game begins.  The fans of the two teams are kept strictly separate, under heavy guard, so they don't attack each other, but some musclemen jump over the barracades and push through the police cordon!  Dad tells Kubi that they have to leave to avoid being clobbered.  On the way out, they see some fans beating other fans to death.

More after the break

Brock Yurich: Romcom hunk, gay villain, hustler, bodybuilder, n*de model, and a big reveal.

First Brock O'Hurn, and now Brock Yurich.  I seem to be collecting Brocks.  After seeing Yurich as ChaseDream's Trainer in two episodes of The Other Two, I looked him up on the IMDB.  

Link to the n*de photos

Not much: Born May 1, 1989 in New Philadelphia, Ohio, about two hours west of Pittsburgh.  Nothing else until he moves into acting in 2011 with small roles like Fraternity Brother, Bar Patron, and Attractive Man, plus guest spots on The Two of Us, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Succession.

The IMDB says that he "known for" playing Winston in Rambler (2013), not to be confused with The Rambler (2013), starring Daniel Keith as a hit-man with a price on his head. I don't know who Winston is, but in the trailer there's close-up of a woman's foot followed by a guy, maybe Brock, dressed in a South-of-Market leather outfit offering drinks and screaming.  I'm guessing a standard gay/trans villain.

Brock is also "known for" two short films that he wrote, produced, and appeared in: T-Country (2016), about a down-on-his-luck prizefighter, and 49: A Tribute to the Pulse (2017) -- the gay Latinx nightclub that was the site of a mass shooting in 2016. 

Another possible gay role: in Law and Order: Special Victim's Unit Episode 17.18, 2016, the detectives uncover a "massive cover-up in the Catholic Church." Brock plays Lance Woodstone. I don't have a lot of details, but this photo suggests that he's a hustler who specializes in BDSM scenes for priests. I can't tell if it's a homophobic portrayal or not.

After that, we move on to purely heterosexist roles. The Hating Game (2021): A romcom about two business rivals (Lucy Hale, Austin Stowall) who fall in love.  It's a "boring trifle," "sweet and sugary," or "an abomination," depending on whose review you believe. Brock plays someone named Mack, far down the cast list -- not the gay best friend.

The Love Hunt (2023) is a romcom about an heiress who has to find some hidden treasure in order to inherit her dad's estate. Brock plays the small-town working-class bloke whom she chooses over her prissy button-down boyfriend.

The Boxer and the Butterfly (2023) is a romcom about an aspiring dancer who must teach a down-and-out boxer the moves.  Brock plays her love interest.  Ok, maybe the gay projects were just a fluke.

His instagram is not very exciting.  Sure, he flexes a lot, but 3,000 photos of a bodybuilder flexing at the gym or in a nondescript room?  There are no photos of travel, restaurants, or anything of non-hunk interest, no humor, not even a lot of interesting exterior shots.

And he hugs a lot of women.  Definitely straight.

This is the only humorous post, Brock in a Mandalorian mask, with the Yoda baby.

More after the break

Tom Jones: It's Not Unusual

Tom Jones was another performer that adults in the 1960s loved, an antidote to the "horrible hippie music" that the teens were listening to.  The Welsh coal miner's son had a string of hits beginning in 1964, the same year as the Beatles, his jazzy pop style hitting a chord with the Frank Sinatra-Dean Martin school: "It's Not Unusual," "What's New Pussycat?", "Thunderball."  Many of his songs were not gender-specific, so they drew middle-aged gay and straight fans.

When rock started getting socially conscious in the late 1960s, he countered with songs about working-class angst: "Detroit City," "Sixteen Tons," "I'm Coming Home."  With gay symbolism:

Here’s to the damned, to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottom
We are all misfits living in a world on fire


  But soon he was back to jazzy love songs: "She's a Lady," "Have You Ever Been Lonely," "Delilah."

Meanwhile he was everywhere on tv, performing on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, The Music Scene, The Engelbert Humperdink Show, Sonny and Cher (dig the hair on Cher), Donny and Marie, The Tonight Show, and two programs of his own, Tom Jones! (1966-67) and This is Tom Jones (1969-71).

The teen magazines mostly ignored him, but there were ample beefcake shots elsewhere.  Tom had no qualms about displaying his muscular, hairy chest and beneath-the-belt gifts, selling sex as well as charm to audiences composed primarily of middle-aged gay men and heterosexual women.

During the late 1970s, Tom's songs started dropping off the charts, but he continued to record and perform for his loyal fans.  In 1997 he reached a new audience by singing the sultry "You Can Leave Your Hat On" during the final strip-tease number in The Full Monty.  The male voice accompanying the male performers gives the scene a decidedly homoerotic feel.

Tom tried his hand at acting: in 1979 he starred in Pleasure Cove, the pilot for a prospective series about a Fantasy Island-style seaside resort.

In 1984 he appeared on the real Fantasy Island, as legendary outlaw Dick Turpin.

And in 1991 he starred in The Ghosts of Oxford Street, a British tv movie about the music industry.

Searching for the "Partners" p*enis: The "Ugly Betty" guy dates Superman, a redneck dates Harvey Fierstein, Ryan O'Neal is homophobic, and Lee Majors shows his stuff

 

 A screenshot led me down a rabbit hole of internet research. 

In 1982, you could see several gay-themed movies:

Querelle, with Brad Davis as a doomed gay sailor

Making Love, with Michael Ontkean coming out through a hookup with Harry Hamlin

Victor/Victoria, with Julie Andrews pretending to be a drag queen. 

Or Partners, about two cops, one straight, the other gay but closeted, assigned to go undercover as a gay couple to catch a serial killer. Sounds like Cruising, but it's a comedy.

The straight cop was Ryan O'Neal, the prettyboy star of Love Story (dying girlfriend), Paper Moon (con man adopts a little girl), and What's Up, Doc? (academic falls for free-spirit)

The Gay Cop was John Hurt, who played both Quentin Crisp and Caligula, but claimed to be straight in real life. 

Left: I always thought the Gay Cop was played by "John Heard," who played the gay soldier Billy in New York Shakespeare Festival production of Streamers in 1976, seen here in a humiliation-nudity scene in Between the Lines (1977). 

Later he played Tony Soprano's pal, corrupt detective Vin Makazian, on The Sopranos.

Back to Partners: it was written by Francis Veber, who also wrote La Cage aux Folles (1978), and would go on to its American remake, The Bird Cage (1996)

And directed by William Burroughs, who went on to direct Frasier and Will and Grace. 

What could go wrong?

Left: Ryan O'Neal

I repeat: What could go wrong?

"Fitting in to the gay community" means becoming the most flamboyantly femme stereotype Straight Cop can manage before being too overcome by disgust to continue.  Except Ryan O'Neal was homophobic in real life, and his own disgust leaks through in every. single. scene.

To make matters worse, every. single. gay man. he meets starts pawing and groping -- gay men are all desperate to bed straight men, and they have no self-control -- which disgusts him even more, making it almost impossible to keep his cover.

Gay Cop is one of those eternally depressed queens that we see frequently during the period: "never being happy doesn't mean being sad"; "if only we didn't hate ourselves quite so much."  

He has a gay appeal that makes me feel

There may be something sad about the boy -- Noel Coward

Gay Cop originally kills himself due to the existential angst of being gay, but the test audience didn't approve, so he gets to live. 

And every gay character is the most limp-wristed, sashaying stereotype this side of The Boys in the Band.

Darn thing got horrible reviews; even homophobic critics thought it was too homophobic. And Ryan got a Golden Raspberry Award.

This is all common knowledge; Partners is described, and savaged, in every history of the portrayal of LGBT people on film, from The Celluloid Closet to Hollywood Pride.  

I never actually watched -- the outrage would be too much -- so I was not aware of this scene.  A muscleman is ineffectively covering his privates, showing the world that gay men have p*enises, that they are in fact men.  

Who was this guy who so blatantly displayed his manhood in a movie designed to deny it?

The rabbit hole of internet research began.

More after the break

David Faustino: Bud from "Married..with Children" is star-ving, humiliated, nekkid, and a gay ally

  

Link to the nekkid Bud Bundy

Everybody in West Hollywood watched Married..with Children (1987-1997) for its savage skewering of the heterosexist trajectory of job, house, wife, kids.  Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill, later patriarch Jay of Modern Family) is working at a soul-destroying minimum-wage job and, although he likes women in general, hates having s*x with Peg (Katie Sagal, later Leela on Futurama), a housewife who never cooks or cleans (although the house is always spotless).  His daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate) is constantly lambasted for being a "slut," and his son Bud (David Faustino), for being a "virgin."

Gay people only appeared in one or two episodes, always with a "har-har, they're gay!  Isn't that ridiculous!" comedic edge.  

But at least they weren't sleazoid serial killers.

When David began to bulk up, the writers obliged by making him extremely attractive, but still unable to acquire girls due to his abrasive personality.

After Married, David played a gay character in Get Your Stuff (2000), about a gay couple wanting to adopt a baby as a fashion accessory, and instead getting preteen brothers.  According to the trailer, there are a lot of jokes about the dads accidentally getting n*ked and the boys trying to get with a hot older woman.

In Killer Bud (2001): two down-and-out buds (David, Corin Nemec) try to burglarize a convenience store.  My first Faustino profile said that he played a gay character, but I can't see it in the synopsis.

Inn Ten Attitudes (2001), he played "himself," not gay but on the gay dating circuit (for a sleazy reason).

In 2008 he was cast as the lead in The Gay Robot, a pilot for a tv series about...um, a gay robot.  The project was never filmed, but the script might have been tweaked into the movie Robodoc (2009)

David hasn't played any specifically-identified gay characters since, but he often introduces gay subtexts deliberately into his work.

A lot of his movies feature stoner buddies, often David and Corin Nemec: Pucked, High Hopes, Puff Puff Pass, The Hustle, Not another B Movie.

In his web series Star-Ving (2009), he plays"himself" as a has-been, starving actor whose only source of income is a sleazy video shop.  There are cameos from various actors with a sleazy reputation, including Seth Green, Coolio, Ron Jeremy, and Kato Kaelin. 

There is a again a deliberate gay subtext in his relationship with Nemec, and a lot of backside shots, mostly an attempt to humiliate David or demonstrate how "ugly" he is. 

Here he wakes up after a night of debauchery with Ron Jeremy and some ladies.

More after the break

Just Shoot Me: Buddy Bonding and Snark

Beginning with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, many, many sitcom have featured a gung-ho female journalist paired with a stick-in-the-mud male boss.  Usually a romance develops.  But not in Just Shoot Me (1997-2003). 

 Its premise: aging playboy Jack Gallo (George Segal) runs a women's magazine, Blush, which offers frothy fashion and sex tips.  His daughter Maya (Laura San Giocomo) arrives, all but waving a "Women's Lib" sign, ready to fight the objectification of women and write hard-hitting articles about human trafficking and date r*pe.

She is shocked to discover that everyone at Blush is extraordinarily horny.  S*xual desires, exploits, adventures, and come-ons occupy all of their free time, which is all of the workday.

Photographer Elliot DiMauro (Enrico Colantoni) sleeps with every female model, no exceptions.

Wise-cracking secretary Davis Finch (David Spade) makes crude come-ons to every women in sight, no exceptions.

Fashion editor and former supermodel Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick) sleeps with every man she sees, no exceptions.

There are episodes about the clash between hard-hitting journalism and froth, but mostly the series is about relationships.  Maya bickers with her Dad, clashes with his new wife, and gets boyfriends, eventually Elliot.

Nina competes with other supermodels, falls in love with the wrong man, pretends to be things that she's not, and gets her comeuppance.

Davis pursues a father-son relationship with Jack, pursues a relationship with his real father, and has the insecurities beneath the snark revealed.

They all become close friends.

There was some gay interest:

Nina Van Horn was an outrageous, boozy, profane type, the sort gay men like to emulate in their drag queen personae.

Everyone is shocked to discover that Davis is an extra-extra large (he didn't know himself, assuming that the guys in porn movies were about average, and he was just a little bigger than them).

Enrico Colantoni,  hairy and rather muscular, took off his shirt often (he even posed semi-n*de for Playgirl).

Gay people were referenced on occasion, the usual "mistaken for gay" and "pretending to be gay to enjoy the tremendous advantages gay people have" episodes.

Only two actual LGBT persons: the high school buddy who had a sex change; and a female model has a crush on Maya.

Typical for how the 1990s handled gay "issues," as a problem for the heterosexuals to solve.

You'd think they could do better, and have an actual gay character in a recurring role.  But it came on just before or just after Will and Grace, and network execs probably figured that viewers couldn't stand two programs with gay characters on the same night.

See also: Suddenly, Susan

Gladiator II: Not as homophobic as you think, and there are musclemen

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Tonight's movie night movie was Gladiator II, the sequel to Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) -- 25 years later.  I didn't want to see it because I heard it was extremely homophobic, but actually it wasn't bad.  Well, it was jingoistic and very violent, but the homophobia and heterosexism weren't too bad.

The wife of Numidian soldier Hanno (Paul Mescal) is killed during a Roman invasion around 200 AD, and he cries, screams, tries to prevent her from crossing the River Lethe for about five minutes, but then he rarely mentions her again, and he doesn't get a new girlfriend.  

He concentrates on getting revenge on the leader of the invading force, General Acacius (Pedro Pascal, left), which he will accomplish by becoming a gladiator under the scheming Macrinus (Denzel Washington).  

These aren't the hand-to-hand combat gladiators of sword-and-sandal movies.  The spectacles in the Coliseum include fights with baboons and a rhinocerous, and a sea-battle with full-size ships in a shark-infested tank

Guess what: Hanno discovers that he is actually the grandson of Marcus Aurelius, and therefore the true heir of the Roman Empire.  Plus his mother is now married to General Acacius -- he wants revenge on his stepfather!  Anybody up for an Oedipal conflict?

The only other heteronormative moment occurs when Hanno asks gladiator physician Ravi (Alexander Karim) why he traveled from India to Rome: "I met a woman."

Hanno grins: "There's always a woman."  Not always, heteronormative jerk. Gay men exist.

Homophobia: Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal have both played gay characters. Macrinus, who is plotting to take over the Empire, has a "twinkle of bisexuality," according to Ridley Scott.  

I've published a lot about gay subtexts, and I didn't notice anything.  A scene where he kisses a guy was cut, "but not due to homophobia."  Of course not, due to the belief that this is 1973, and audiences will rush from the theater.   All that is left is a statement that he "doesn't like women" some days. Dude is closeted to the point of invisibility.

The decadent (that is, acting like women) twin Emperors Geta and Caracalla (Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger) are oozing with homophobic villain stereotypes, except one is gay and the other is straight (we can tell because each is fondling a consort during a depraved-party scene).

The gay one, Caracalla, actually seems to be a little more stable (which is not saying much: he installs his pet monkey his chief advisor).  

They just need to be swishy stereotypes to counterbalance the hard straightness of their rival Hanno.

More after the break.