Blake McIver: The "musical" kid from "Full House" grows up, sings, snoots, shops, and shows us what's under Superman's cape

  

Link to the n*de photos

Full House (1987-95) was a TGIF sitcom set in an annoyingly gay-free San Francisco.  The premise: sportscaster Danny (Bob Saget) loses his wife (don't worry, it's a 1980s death, with no grief).  He can't take care of his three daughters on his own, so his friends Joey and Jesse (Dave Coulier, John Stamos) move in to help. 

I didn't watch -- in West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, who was home on a Friday night?  But I recognize the iconic Full House house, 1709 Broderick Street, about two miles from the Castro, and I know that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, who played Danny's infant daughter Michelle, became pop culture icons, starring in a string of movies before starting their own fashion company.  

If you watched, you may have noticed Blake McIver Ewing, who played Derek, Michelle's "musical" friend and fellow thespian, during Seasons 6-8.  From the clips I watched while researching this profile, I gather that he is quite femme.  A contemporary blogger references "the blinding supernova of Derek's undeniable gayness," but on the show itself no one ever suspects.  Michelle's friend Lisa even asks him to the Big Valentine's Day Dance. 

The grown-up Blake's primary interest is music -- his IMDB biography effuses over its "wonderful power to be cohesive, moving, influential, emotive, subdued, deferential, caustic, achingly beautiful, full of character, simplistic, complex and/or virtually any other adjective one can think of."  Like overwritten?   He has 44 music credits and 15 composing credits on the IMDB, and nine songs available on Apple Music, including the gay anthems "It Gets Better" and "This is Who We Are."

He was recently cast in The Boy from Oz, a musical about the life of bisexual singer/songwriter Peter Allen.

But Blake also has 31 acting credits, beginning with the six-year old Ned, played as a grownup by Gabriel Olds, in Calendar Girl (1993) -- which everybody in West Hollywood went to because of the opportunity to gawk at the backsides of Gabriel and Jason Priestley, but not Jerry O'Connell, darn it.

Other than Derek, Blake is best known for playing Waldo Aloysius Johnston II in the Little Rascals movie (1994).  He sabotages the Big Go-Kart Race and steals the girlfriend of preteen Lothario Alfalfa (future homophobe Bug Hall).  Don't worry, she dumps him and returns to Alfalfa after discovering that he is a jerk.

More after the break

Ted Prior: Man-mountain hero of the macho 1980s, Chippendale dancer, Playgirl model. Any gay content?

Link to the n*de photos

N*de photos of this guy have been sitting in my "to profile" file since March, and since I have some free time today (and my pageviews are down by about 70%)," I'll give him a try.

His name is Ted Prior.  He was active primarily during the 1980s Reagan-Bush era  man-mountain craze, when Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and a dozen lesser lights -- Chuck Norris, Reb Brown, Steven Seagal, Michael Pare -- stormed into POW camps and drug lord lairs, got tortured while shirtless, single-handedly defeated entire armies, and won The Girl, thus demonstrating the 

"supremacy" of white heterosexual  America.

Born in New Jersey in 1959 and raised in Baltimore, Ted originally planned to become a professional bodybuilder -- he states that he won Teenage Mr. Maryland and "ten other awards" before he turned 19.  He moved to Los Angeles, in fact, so he could train at Gold's Gym.

But he worked in theater, too, and once he hit L.A., a walk-on as a bodybuilder in an episode of The Incredible Hulk (1981) convinced him to try his hand at acting. His first starring roles were in  Sledgehammer (1983) and Killzone (1985), written and directed by his older brother David.

Most of Ted's work for the next twenty years would come from David's production company, Action International Pictures: Operation Warzone (1988), Jungle Assault (1989), The Final Sanction (1990), Raw Justice (1994).

Ted's most famous film, Deadly Prey (1987) is a sort of The Most Dangerous Game. People are being kidnapped and taken to a secret jungle enclave, where the evil Colonel Hogan (David Campbell) has his mercenaries hunt them down.  Vietnam Vet Mike (Ted) is grabbed while taking out the garbage, brought to the enclave, stripped, greased, gawked at, and forced to run naked through the jungle.  Uh-oh, they kidnapped the wrong guy.

He is shirtless throughout: a major draw of the film, as you can see from the VHS tape cover.

In November 2024, the Lyric Hyperion Theater in Silverlake, the second gay neighborhood in Los Angeles, held a "Deadly Prey" day, and promised Ted Prior "in the flesh," har har.

More after the break

John Stamos: From a gay-free San Francisco to a steamy shower scene (or two).

Gay boys all but ignored 20-year old John Stamos when he was playing streetwise Blackie on General Hospital (1983-84).  Not many watched soap operas, and his pleasantly slender physique seemed bit too androgynous as Nautilus-toned man-mountains came into style. Besides, he had a girlfriend.

Some started to notice when John starred as aspiring rock star Gino Minnelli on Dreams (1984-85), which aired after Charles in Charge on Wednesday nights.  It offered lots of shirtless shots -- by this time John had joined a gym -- plus buddy-bonding episodes like "Friends" and "Boys are the Best."  But it only lasted for 12 episodes.

After 25 episodes of You Again? (1986-87), playing Jack Klugman's estranged teenage son -- which was switched around so often that no one saw it -- John finally found television fame in Full House (1987-95) on the TGIF ("Thank God it's Friday") block of kid-friendly Friday-night shows. 

He played Uncle Jesse, who moved in with his brother-in-law Danny (Bob Saget) and another male friend, Dave (Joey Gladstone), to help raise Danny's three daughters after his wife died.  

Alternative families are a standby on tv, but aside from the basic non-heteronormative family structure -- and John's smile -- there was little to like.

He rarely took off a shirt -- when he did, the moments were mostly cute rather than hot. Only one episode showed him in a swimsuit.

 Nor did the friendships result in much buddy-bonding.  The guys all got girlfriends, and the daughters got boyfriends, and gay people were not mentioned, ever, even though the show was set in gay mecca San Francisco.  

More after the break

Luke Benward: Fried worms, Disney movies, Christian music, gay friends, an adult video, and a n*de Cameron Monaghan.

Link to the n*de Benward and Cameron

How to Eat Fried Worms (Thomas Rockwell, 1973) is one of the classic novels of my childhood: Billy brags that he can eat anything, so when his friend Alan offers him $50 to eat a worm a day for 15 days....  He can prepare them any way he wants, but Alan will provide the worms. The parents are in on the scheme, there is no bullying involved, each of the boys has a buddy-bonding best friend, and the only girl is Billy's sister.  No one wins the Girl of His Dreams.

 Remembering the buddy-bonds and the absence of the heterosexist trajectory, I eagerly tuned in to the Disney Channel version (2006).  But now Billy (Luke Benward) is confronted by a gang of  bullies led by Joe (Adam Hicks), he joins a group of friend instead of a special buddy, and there is a Girl of His Dreams.  

A rather disappointing start to Luke Benward's career.  Let's see if he has redeemed himself since with some gay roles.

According to the IMDB, Luke was born in 1995 in Franklin, Tennesse.  

He first appeared on screen playing Mel Gibson's son in We Were Soldiers (2002).  

The infamous homophobe Mel Gibson?  That's even worse. 

After roles in the revamped Family Affair (2002) and Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Luke hit Disney gold with Fried Worms (2006).  

His Disney stardom assured, he continued with Mostly Ghostly (2007): A shy boy (Sterling Beaumon) encounters a ghost boy (Luke) and his sister, who has a crush on him.  He must figure out how they died before it's too late, and win the Girl of His Dreams. 

Left: Luke and Sterling Beamon strangling Miles Heizer.  Neither has actually worked with Miles Heizer.  Maybe they're friends?

Minutemen (2008): A teen nerd (Luke), his buddy, and the Girl Next Door become time travelers, allowing him to best the obnoxious jock who is dating the Girl of His Dreams. Guess who he ends up with.

Dog Gone (2008): A boy (Luke) rescues a dog from bumbling thieves, bests the school bully (Cameron Monaghan, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends),  and wins the Girl of His Dreams.

Things are not looking good for you, Luke Baby.

Let's skip past Girl v Monster and Zombies and Cheerleaders to Luke's first major tv role in Good Luck Charlie (2013).  Charlie is a girl, not a boy, and she doesn't bring good luck; she is merely the subject of a video diary filmed by her father.  Luke plays Beau Landry, an employee at Bob's Bugs Be Gone who meets, falls in love with, and eventually becomes the boyfriend of Teddy (another girl.  What's with this show?).

Ok, what about Ravenswood (2013-14), a teen mystery series featuring dark secrets in a small town?  Luke plays Dillon Sanders, who is dating focus character Olivia but is secretly plotting to prevent her from discovering the dark secrets.  Oh, and he kills her father.  That sort of ends the relationship.

Cloud 9 (2014): A snowboarder and her obnoxious boyfriend are trained by snowboarding great Will Cloud (Luke).  The boyfriend gets dumped, and...well you know the rest.

Measure of a Man (2018): Dude gets a girlfriend.

Life of the Party (2018): Middle-aged Deanna, dumped by her husband, returns to college, and has s*x with a fratboy (Luke), who becomes obsessed with her.  Guess what?  He's the son of the woman Deanna was dumped for. 

I'm tired of this.  Let's see what else Luke has been up to.

He's done some music, such as the theme song for Cloud 9, and he has appeared in the music videos of several other artists, including Martina McBride and Jason Aldean.  

Wait -- he's the son of Christian country-western singer Aaron Benward, shown here with his boyfriend...um, I mean singing partner Scott Reeves -- and the grandson of Christian music producer Jeoffrey Benward.  They have won Dove Awards, and Jeoffrey was inducted into Christian Music Hall of Fame.  Why didn't anyone tell me this before?  Luke Baby is too fundamentalist to play a gay character, and if he's gay in real life, he's got to be extremely closeted.

According to the Who's Dated Who website, Luke has been in relationships with several women, and is currently dating Ariel Winter (Alex Dumphy on Modern Family).  You know there were gay characters on that show, right?

Luke's Instagram is confusing: Very few photos of Ariel or any girlfriend, a lot of guy-hugging, almost as if he's trying to fool you into thinking that he's gay.  Won't work, dude. 

Plus he's buddies with the gay Miles Heizer, and that adult video (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) looks a lot like it's aimed at a guy...

See also:Shane Harper: the "Good Luck Charlie" and "God's Not Dead" guy shows his stuff surprisingly often

Miles Heizer: Gay and nearly-gay roles, a real-life girlfriend and several boyfriends, plus Guy's Bar

"Blue Ridge" Episode 1.3: A wrestling promoter is murdered at a high school in the Hills. With lots of beefy suspects and Michael O'Hearn

My date with Michael J. Fox. With Marcus and the Scary Bulgarian Bodybuilder

Link to the n*de dudes.

Friday, July 5th:  Two days after I arrive in West Hollywood from my horrible year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, I am sitting in the human resources department at Paramount Studios, waiting to interview for a job as an administrative assistant, when Marcus comes in to drop something off.  He's my age, African-American, with very light skin, freckles, and a hairy chest.  I get his phone number.

You're probably wondering how I got a job interview two days after arriving, when one of those days was a federal holiday.  I had been applying for jobs for weeks, using my friend Tom's address and telephone number.

Saturday, July 6th: Our date, an inside tour of Paramount Studios (yes, we see more stuff), followed by cruising at the Gold Coast and dinner at the French Quarter in West Hollywood.  He came to Los Angeles to become an actor five years ago, and has had some guest spots in tv shows and movies.

"Do you know anyone famous?" I ask with tourist zeal.

"Nobody really famous.  I mean, some guys on tv.  Robin Williams.  Tom Hulce.  I know Michael J. Fox from acting class."

I'm not impressed.  I've barely heard of Michael J. Fox -- he plays Alex P. Keaton, Reagan-loving son of liberal hippie parents on the sitcom Family Ties (1982-1989),  But I've only seen the show a few times.

Back to the Future, which will propel Michael to fame, premiered on July 3rd, but I haven't heard of it.

Marcus and I don't have any romantic sparks, so no more dating.  But we stay friends (that's how you made friends in West Hollywood).

Wednesday, July 10th: I start working at Muscle and Fitness, two days a week as a "contributing editor," aka gopher.  

Wednesday, July 17th: I meet Ivo, a stringer for the magazine, about 30 years old, a Bulgarian bodybuilder, with short brown hair, a boyish open face, massive shoulders, and slates for abs.

Saturday, July 20th: My first date with Ivo.  I'm curious about Back to the Future, the new time travel comedy starring Michael J. Fox.

"No way, man!" Ivo exclaims.  "That Mike Fox thinks he's a big deal, but he's terrible under the covers.  They should call him Princess Teeny-Tiny!"

Weird coincidence!  I think.  I've been in town less than a month, and already I've met two people who know Michael J. Fox, and one of them is his ex-boyfriend!

Sunday, July 21st: I have brunch with Marcus at the French Quarter, and tell him about my date.

"Strange," he says.  "I'm completely out to Mike, and he's never said anything about being gay.  Sounds like Ivo is one of these celebrity name-droppers who claims to have been with everyone from Harrison Ford to Arnold Schwarzeneggar."

"But he wasn't bragging.  He got upset.  He said Michael was bad in bed and should be called Princess Teeny-Tiny."

Marcus laughs.  "Well, I don't have any information on Mike beneath the belt.  But tell you what -- he's in London right now.  When he gets back, we'll all get together, and you can ask him yourself."

Ask Michael J. Fox about his size?  I don't think so!  But it would be fun to meet him.

Left: This is Bulgarian bodybuilder Radoslav Angelov, not Ivo.

I date Ivo three or four more times, but his stories become more and more bizarre.

His father was the Bulgarian ambassador; he used to hang out at the White House.  

He has a degree in economics from Harvard, but turned down a professorship because he wanted to be a writer. When he returned to Bulgaria to help his cousin, he was arrested and imprisoned for six months. He has a book on his experiences coming out next year.  

Paramount is producing his screenplay about a college student who discovers that he is half-alien.  Scott Baio will be the star. They dated for awhile.

Saturday, August 3rd:  Marcus and I see Back to the Future.  I'm not impressed with the heteronormative plotline.  But -- Michael is back in town.  Could we schedule that lunch for next Saturday?

Monday, August 5th: Ivo has me over for dinner.  While he is chopping celery, I tell him about the lunch.  He freezes, and his face turns bright red.  "Can't you ever talk about anything but Michael J. Fox?  Day after day, hour after hour, nothing but Michael J. Fox!  And now you have a date with him!"

I try to remember when I last mentioned him. "No, no, it's just a lunch.  Marcus is coming, too."

"Bah!  If you love him so much, why don't you move in with him?"

"It's just..."

"F** Mike Fox, always stealing everybody's boyfriends!  Well, let me tell you what happened to the last guy Mike Fox stole from me!"  He stabs the air with his knife.

I am shocked -- and terrified.  Ivo is twice as strong as me, and carrying a weapon. "Fox sounds like a real jerk!" I tell him.  "I'm definitely cancelling that lunch!  Um...you know what?  I forgot to bring in the dessert -- there's a peach pie in the car.   I'll just go get it." 

 I clatter out the door and down the stairs.  

Thursday, August 8th: He comes into the editorial office at Muscle and Fitness to drop off a story, and pretends not to know me.

Saturday, August 10th: The promised lunch with Marcus and Michael.

The full story, with n*de photos and ex*plicit situations, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

See also: Hung Harvey: I hook up with the boyfriend of Sabrina the Teenage Witch

A date with Kris (who may not be Jeremy Renner's boyfriend) leads to Christopher Atkins' dick

Riley Polanski: From "Xanadu" to "Ashes," with bonus Michael J. Fox

Is the gay ghost couple on Disney's "Ghost and Molly McGee" enough? With Vincent Rodriguez III

I try to review all of the Disney Channel shows for LGBTQ representation, but I skipped over The Ghost and Molly McPhee (2021, 2023, 2024) because it was reminiscent of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1968-70),  about a middle-aged widow who falls in love with the ghost of a sea captain.  Who wants to watch a show about a ghost-human hetero-romance?

I didn't even realize that the actual title is The Ghost and Molly McGee. 

But it turns out that the ghost and Molly are just friends.  And there's a ghost gay couple.

The premise: when 13-year old Molly McGee moves into a haunted house, grumpy ghost Scratch (Dana Snyder) is assigned to haunt her, but he accidentally binds their souls together for all eternity.  After some initial fussing, they become best friends, and Scratch rebels against the ghost mandate to make human lives miserable, causing friction with the Ghost Council.

Researching this show is difficult, since the voice actors have extremely common names.  Google lists over 20 Dana Schneiders and Snyders: the senior vice president at a realty company, the senior talent acquisition partner at a university, a jeweler, a "producer and creative with a passion for visual storytelling," a rugby coach, a wife and mom, an opthamologist. I think this is the right one.

The plotlines involve both Other Realm and standard middle-school problems.  Molly has a best friend, a Mean Girl frenemy, a bratty little brother, and a boyfriend (Alan Lee), who happens to be an anti-ghost paranormal researcher. 

Another extremely common name. Facebook lists over 50 Alan Lees, including a hospital president, a Cajun Zen Monk, a magician, the director of a choral music society, and a lot of "husband and fathers."  

More after the break. 

Alfie Williams: A missing p* enis, a youthful scoundrel, a zombie fighter. Is he or his character gay? Or both? With Chi d*ck update

 Link to the n*de dudes

I was checking my Instagram yesterday, when it recommended that I follow someone named Alfie Williams.  Never heard of him.  This is the first time Instagram has recommended someone other than a fitness trainer or bodybuilder.  I figured it must be either because he plays a gay character or he is gay in real life.

In the small photo on my cell phone, Alfie looked like a guy in his 20s, but when I checked his Instagram on my laptop, he turned out to be a young teenager.  14 in 2025.

So, an out-and-proud 14 year old, or playing an out-and-proud 14 year old?

Turns out that research wasn't at all difficult; there are a lot of interviews and articles about Alfie.

He was born in 2011 in Gateshead, across the river from shipping and partying center Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northern England.  His father is Alfie Dobson, an actor and bodybuilder with nine credits listed on the IMDB.

Alfie Jr. broke into acting with the short film Phallacy (2021): a 12-year old boy wakes up to find his p* enis missing. Doctors say there is nothing they can do (transmen get a working p* enis from their vaginal tissue, but the boy doesn't have anything to work with). Don't worry, when you grow up, you'll find a lot of things to do in the bedroom that don’t require one.

  Sounds like a lot of LGBTQ symbolism and hegemonic masculinity going on.  An inclusive start to your career, Alf.

Next came Ghost Theo, a resident of the Land of the Dead in Episode 3.5 of the dark fantasy His Dark Materials (2022).  He only has one line.

An unspecified character in BBC Radio 4's adaption of the soap opera Our Friends in the North, about four Newcastle blokes whose lives intersect from 1964 to 2022.

Young John Henry Sayers in A New Breed of Criminal (2023).  The adult John Henry Sayers (played by Alfie's Dad) and his brother Stephen (Steve Wraith) were real-life gangsters who ran the city of Newcastle in the 1990s. 

But it is Alfie's starring role in 28 Years Later (2025) that prompted the flood of interviews and articles.

I saw the original 28 Days Later (2002), where bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) gets into an auto accident, and wakes up from a coma "28 days later" to discover that he's a survivor of a zombie apocalypse.  He meets two other survivors, Mark and Selena, but one is immediately killed.  The other announces that just because they're the last two people left on Earth, they're not going to f*ck; but they do.  They fall in love, adopt a survivor girl, and escape to an idyllic rural future together.  

Guess which is killed, and which falls in love.  

Right.  Offensively blatant erasure of gay potential in order to promote the myth of universal heterosexual desire and practice for the 10 millionth time. 

In 28 Years Later, 12-year old Spike (Alfie) is living with his parents in a survivor community on Lindisfarne, a tidal island that was home to a famous Medieval monastery and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes him to the mainland for a coming-of-age ritual, and they are separated for some reason.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

"And Just Like That": Carrie's return has elitism, bisexuals, d*cks, musems, marital spats, s'mores, and shoes. Lots of shoes.

Link to the n*de dudes

I never watched the original S*ex and the City series when it first aired on HBO (1998-2004), although I knew about Mr. Big (Chris Noth), for obvious reasons.  Who wants to watch four super-entitled New York-centric ladies having lunch? The only episode I watched featured Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) investigating bisexuals for her newspaper column.  

Her conclusion: they are all gay, and fooling themselves.  Bisexuals don't exist. 

So much for bi representation. 

Researching this review, I discovered that Carrie has a stereotypic gay best friend with the incredible name Stanford Blatch (why, was Bruce Van Swishington taken?).  

Having never watched the original, I've never been interested in the 2021-25 sequel, And Just Like That (presumably the title means that 20 years have passed "just like that"). But I've seen n*de guys parading around on occasion, and the plot synopses mention several LGBTQ characters.  We'll see if the portrayals are cringy.

I'll identify the five main ladies by their careers.  From left to right, Filmmaker Lisa, Art Dealer Charlotte, Columnist Carrie, Realtor Seema, Lawyer Miranda. 

Episode 3.5, "Under the Table," has three main plot threads.

The Charlotte/Lisa Plot:

Scene 1: The Guggenheim.  I love that museum.  Wait -- they didn't visit, they're just walking past. Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend Harry (Evan Handler) reveals that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but they found it early, so he has a 98% chance of full recovery. 

In other news, they're going glamping (glamor camping) with the kids at Governors Island this weekend.

Scene 2:  Nuclear family breakfast in a huge, super-elegant kitchen. Filmmaker Lisa won't be back from filming her documentary until late Friday, so she tells her husband, Herbert Wexley (wow, what unrealistic entitled name), to take their children to Governors Island for glamping with Charlotte and her boyfriend. 

Husband is played by Chris Jackson

Wait -- this is the first he's heard of it. "No, I've told you several times." "No you haven't."

 

"Sorry, I can't do it.  I have a photo shoot for my campaign."  He has to pretend to be a "regular guy," eat one of those...um...frankfurter sausage things...and ride on the...you know, the poor people train...the subway.  

"You can do the 'regular guy' shoot on Monday, " Filmmaker Lisa commands. "This weekend we're going glamping with the Goldblatts."

Scene 3: Art Dealer Charlotte is trying to cook, but she's too distracted.  Her friend Anthony (Mario Cantone) asks if she's ok. 

Her children, a girl and a nonbinary person, ask if they can skip glamping.  "No, you're going" It's important because her boyfriend has prostate cancer, but he doesn't want them knowing that.

Scene 4: Governors Island (no apostrophe), just south of Manhattan, with views of the skyline.   The nonbinary child notes that there's a spa and go-karts. 

Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend complains about the mosquitos. 

 Filmmaker Lisa bursts in, and her husband criticizes her for being late. "Well, four hours ago, I was in Atlanta."  Then they bicker because one of them told the other to buy chocolate to make s'mores.  This couple is on the outs.

Scene 5: A tent big enough for three beds and a living room set. The boyfriend and the kids are lounging around, playing on their cell phones, when Art Dealer Charlotte bursts in and complains that they should be doing outdoor activities. They refuse. My parents used to say that on family vacations.  "You shouldn't be lounging around the cabin reading comic books.  Go enjoy the outdoors."  How does one "enjoy" the outdoors?  It's a place you go through on the way to enjoying things.

Meanwhile, Filmmaker Lisa and her husband bicker. She takes a photo of him and their kids.  When he looks at it, he accidentally scrolls to the last one she took: a selfie with her editor Marion (Mehcad Brooks).

"Are you having an affair with Michael B. Handsome?  Talk about getting your chocolate in Atlanta!"

"No, it's just a work crush."

He continues to growl, so Lisa stomps off, and runs into Charlotte at the pier.  They complain about their partners, and decide to ditch them and take a spa day. 

Cut to the spa. Close up of ladies in bikinis.  They're really pushing the heterosexual male gaze. 

Carrie/Miranda and Seema after the break

David Labiosa: the Biggest Bulge on Seinfeld

Seinfeld was not well known for its beefcake. There were some spongworthy guest stars, such as Anthony Starke in "The Jimmy" (1995), but they were rarely displayed shirtless or in swimsuits. But in "The Busboy" (June 26, 1991), fans saw "all that and more."

The most gigantic beneath-the-belt bulge in history.

George accidentally gets a busboy named Antonio fired, and goes to his apartment to apologize. Antonio is angry, taciturn -- and a Greek god. Viewers wanted to know, who is this Michelangelo's David come to life? This Apollo masquerading as a mortal? And why did the producers squeeze him into jeans so tight that his superheroic endowment was so completely and obviously visible?

 Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Were they trying to make him look more threatening?  If so, it didn't work.

29-year old David Labios had never had such a gender-transgressive role.  Antonio resists macho gender expectations by having a pet cat named Pequita, and by effusively hugging George at the end of the episode.

Maybe that was the point: the stereotyped super-macho guy turns out to be sensitive and sweet, i.e., gay.

Born in 1961, David studied acting at New York University, and first appeared on screen as Carlos Rivera, a boy accused of murder, in the tv movie Death Penalty (1980).

 

 

One of his more iconic roles was a change of pace from the stereotyping: The Entity (1982), about a single mother (1970s staple Barbara Hershey)  plagued by a murderous poltergeist.  The director removed a scene where, under the control of the evil spirit, she tries to her teenage son (David), but also deprived audiences from the opportunity to see him shirtless.

He went on to appear in many of the iconic tv series of the 1980s and 1990s, including The White Shadow, Falcon Crest, The Powers of Matthew Star, Hill Street Blues, and Hunter, often as a Hispanic-stereotyped thug, gang member, or streetwise cop, but also a pr guy in The Guardian (1984); a heterosexual hookup in A Sinful Life (1989); and a singer in There Goes My Baby (1994), with Dermot Mulroney and Ricky Schroeder, 

 His war hero Juan Medina in An American Story (1992) won him an Emmy nomination. 

More after the break

Male Nudity in English Class: The Canterbury Tales

During my junior year in college, I heard The Word in my college class for the first time.  My Culture and Civilization of Modern Germany class was devoted to proving that no German ever wrote about homosexualitat, but the professor in my Chaucer class, a big, hoarse-voiced woman named Dr. Dorothy, thought that The Canterbury Tales was all about how terrible "homosexuality" was.

Ok, but the Pasolini adaption of The Canterbury Tales had the most impressive male nudity I had ever seen at that point.  I can't show a picture here, but those guys were huge.


















The Pardoner, one of the pilgrims who tell stories on the road to Canterbury, was thin and willowy, beardless, with long yellow hair and a high pitched voice.

"An effeminate homosexual!" Dr. Dorothy cried, obviously delighted to say a forbidden word.  "How grotesque!"

Ok, but look at the Squire: a powerfully built young man of about twenty.  But instead of jousting and fighting dragons, he spends his time dancing, singing, and embroidering, quite feminine pursuits. He is a "lover and a lusty bachelor," so busy having sex that he doesn't sleep much at night.  Yet who does he have sex with?  Chaucer leaves this vague, but traditionally squires were devoted to the knights they served.






In The Miller's Tale, a parish clerk named Absolon is infatuated with the Miller's wife, and asks her for a kiss through a peep-hole.  Instead, the Miller shoves his bare butt through and farts in Absolon's face.  But Absolon gets revenge by shoving a red-hot poker into the Miller's butt.

"Symbolic homosexuality!" Dr. Dorothy cried, enjoying the shocked expressions on the students' faces. "How humiliating for the Miller!"

Ok, but look at The Knight's Tale, about two bosom buddies, Arcite and Palamon, who are both in love with Emily.  A classic triangulation, with the quarrel over the girl an impediment to their love, which is described in lushly romantic terms:

Sworn as we are, and each unto the other,
That never, though for death in any pain,
Never, indeed, till death shall part us twain.

Medieval literature was filled with men in love, like Roland and Oliver.  Shakespeare and John Fletcher used the same story as the basis for The Two Noble Kinsmen (1634), here performed by Tyler Neale and Tim Elliott.

A Knight's Tale (2001), starring Heath Ledger, tells a different story, but it does feature a nude Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), plus a gay couple, the Knight's humorous sidekicks, Roland and Wat (Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk).

As I discovered in my classes in Modern British and American Literature, you can't always believe what you hear from a college professor.

See also: Pasolini's Canterbury Tales: More gay characters and cocks than Chaucer imagined

"Superman" (2025): You'll believe a man can queerbait

"Ghost Island": Submitted for Your Approval: Surly Boy, Swishy Boy, Hunkoid, Two Girls, and the Haunted Hotel Room

 

Someone asked me to review the third season of Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark remake, entitled Ghost Island, to see if one of the kids is trans.  It's Nickelodeon, so probably not, but I have an hour to kill, and maybe some of the kids are old enough to be hunkoids.  I watched Episode 1.

First Story: The Tale of Room 13.  Isn't there supposed to be a frame story with the Midnight Society gathering?

Scene 1: In 1983, a young mother, her preteen daughter, and a baby try to check into the Veil Hotel.  The desk clerk says: "Sorry, we're all booked, except for Room 13, and we don't rent that one out."  Because it's evil and eats people.  "But you're the only hotel on the island, and it's dark and rainy.  What are we supposed to do?"  Make your reservations in advance, like everybody else in the world?  

When the desk clerk leaves, Mom sends her daughter, who has the bizarre early 20th century girls' book name Betty Anne - to steal the key to Room 13!

It's a lovely old-fashioned suite.  While Mom settles down to take a bath -- during a thunderstorm? -- Betty Anne's electronic spelling game gives her the words "Water" and "Danger."  Then she vanishes! The baby vanishes, too, and a disembodied voice tells Mom to "Run!" But it's too late: A ghostly figure jumps out of the mirror and grabs her.

Scene 2: Present day suburbia, but with lots more kids than one generally sees playing outside.  Kayla, a young-teen girl, is twirling in her room, picking up random objects and tossing them into a suitcase. She accidentally knocks over some photos of her hugging another girl, and feels sad.  Then her swishy friend emerges from the closet wearing some of her clothes, and asks how he looks.  She rates him a 9.  Ok, there's a gay kid, or at least a "High School Musical"-style gay-vague kid.  

"Ugh, why are you bringing books to a tropical resort?" he complains. He sees the photos of Kayla and the Other Girl, and gets upset, but puts on a brave front.  I'm guessing a recently-deceased sister.

Kayla wonders if she should stay home.  Swishy friend -- Leo (Luca Padovan) -- admits that it won't be easy (to go to a resort?), but she has to try.

A car honks -- it's time to go. Switch to Kayla, Leo, Giggly Girl, Surly Boy, and their Mom frolicking on a boat, heading for the resort. This must be a flashback.  Mom is much older than the girl in the photograph, so obviously Giggly Girl is the recently-deceased one. She must have died on the island, which is why Kayla is reluctant to go back.  

Scene 3: The arrive at the Veil Hotel from Scene 1, a rather industrial-looking two-story structure. Is this still a flashback?  Exuding enthusiasm, they talk about the unsolved disappearances at the hotel.  Mom introduces her boyfriend, Robbie (Jason Cao), which disturbs Surly Boy for some reason.  "How long has this been going on?" he demands. He must be upset because Mom is dating another guy soon after her divorce.

Mom gives them their room assignment: the four kids will share a suite, and she will be staying at Robbie's bungalow for some...um, cuddling.  

Scene 4: They ask the desk clerk, Stanley, if the hotel is really haunted.  "Yes.  The hotel is filled with tortured souls like me." "Are you a ghost?"  No, working in the service sector.

He escorts them to their suite -- Room 14.  Kayla looks around. "Where's Room 13, where everyone disappears?"  "We don't have a Room 13.  Superstitious guests refuse to stay in it, so we number from 12 to 14."  

Their suite is nothing like Room 13 from 1983: open, airy, with giant windows looking out onto the beach.  Shawn Mendes stayed there!  They all squeal and hug. Leo is wearing pink nail polish, but everyone uses he/him pronouns, so I'm identifying him as a swishy gay kid, not a trans girl.  I just hope they hired an actual feminine-presenting actor not a straight guy playing up the stereotypes. 

Scene 5: While everyone is lounging around and calling their mothers, Kayla explores the suite -- and finds drops of blood on the sink!  She turns the thermostat down to 76, and a disembodied voice says "Help me! I'm cold."  So put on a ghost-sweater.  

Scene 6: At the beach, Leo and Surly Boy argue about the DC Comics Infinite Earths, while Kayla looks depressed.  She pulls out a picture of the five of them.  The Giggly Girl (don't they give any of these people names?) pops up out of nowhere and says "I miss her too."  So the flashback is over, and Mom is the dead one.  They could indicate these time jumps better.  

Her deathbed wish was to have the four friends return to the island, for some reason.

More after the break

Out Our Way: Teenagers Before Girl-Craziness

When I was a kid in the 1960s, I was jealous of the comics they got across the river in Davenport, Iowa.  They got Peanuts, we got Winthrop.  They got The Wizard of Id, we got Apartment 3-G.  I sort of liked Alley Oop and Prince Valiant, but what was up with the single-panel strip, Out Our Way? 

 It was about an unnamed family -- mom, young adult daughter, teenage son, younger son -- drawn in grotesquely realistic detail.

They spoke in nearly incomprehensible slang and had bizarre customs. There was an "ice box" instead of a refrigerator, a gigantic radio instead of a tv.  They bathed in a tub in the kitchen.

The older son had a job, though he looked barely fifteen.

Confused, repelled, yet fascinated, I tried to decipher the strips day after day, week after week.  The world they portrayed was vastly different from the world I knew.

Boys in my world were always fully clothed, except in locker rooms, but in Out Our Way, they stripped down for baths and for bed and to swim.   They displayed a remarkable physicality, an awareness of the way their bodies looked and felt and moved.

Boys in my world did not touch each other, except during sports matches and fights. We were expected to find physical contact abhorrent.  But in Out Our Way, boys un-selfconsciously pressed against each other, draped their legs over each other's bodies, hugged, slept in the same bed

In my world, every trait, interest, and concern was gender-polarized.  Boys carried their books at their waist, girls across their chest.  Boys said "p.e." but "gym class," and girls "gym" but "p.e. class."  And the punishment for transgression was severe. But in Our Our Way, boys un-selfconsciously wore dresses.  The teenager performed "women's work," cooked (in an apron), cleaned, tended to his young brother.

Boys in my world were expected to groan with longing over the girls who walked in slow-motion across the schoolyard, their long hair blowing in the wind. They were expected to evaluate the hotness of actresses on tv, discuss breasts and bras, and claim innumerable sexual conquests.  But boys in Out Our Way never displayed the slightest heterosexual interest.  Instead, they consistently mocked the silliness of heterosexual romance.

What sort of world was this?

Many years later, I found that the comics I was reading were reprints from the 1930s, and even then, many had been nostalgic, evoking the author J.R. Williams' childhood at the turn of the century.

I was gazing into a time capsule, into a era when heterosexual desire was expected to appear at the end of adolescence, not at the beginning, so teenage boys were free from the "What girl do you like?" chant.