Michael Seater: The "Life with Derek" guy grows up, gets a boyfriend, and displays a Derek d___

  

Link to the Derek d___

Born in Toronto in 1987, Michael Seater first appeared on screen in Night of the Living (1997), a short about a guy whose father turns into a zombie.  Two years of minor roles followed, and then Michael hit YTV/Nickelodeon gold with The Zack Files (2000-2002)

What gay teenager didn't rush home from school to watch the dreamy Zack(Robert Clark), and his buds Cam and Spencer (Jake Epstein, Michael) face bizarre paranormal events?  Like shoes that make it impossible to stop running, a cereal that makes him age rapidly, or an overdue library book that turns him into Alice in Wonderland. 

He went on to play paranormal investigator Lucas in Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (2002-2006). Noah Reid, later Patrick's boyfriend/husband on Schitt's Creek, played his best buddy Marshall, and he also had a love/hate relationship with school bully Vaughn (Robert Clark again).  They are sucked into a wormhole, turn invisible, repeat the same day over and over.  In my favorite episode, a chemistry accident sends Marshall through the periodic table: he becomes hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and so on.  Meanwhile, his older brother Grant arrives at the school and turns into sodium.  Marshall has changed into chlorine, so they stabilize as salt. Just go with it.

Left: Robert Clark

Next Michael moved into the more traditional teencom Life with Derek (2005-2009): He has a sibling rivalry with his adopted sister Casey (Ashley Leggat) and, in the first season, an intense, passionate, joined-at-the-hip best buddy, Sam (Kit Weyman).  Then it's girls, girls, girls every second of every day.

In Regenesis (2006-2007), Michael plays homeless teenager Owen, who moves in with paranormal investigator David (Peter Outerbridge, left), but ends up mentally damaged after an experimental treatment to cure his drug addiction 

Michael's adult roles have involved fewer subtexts:

18 to Life (2010-2011): newlywed18-year olds move in with their parents.

The "virgin getting laid" comedy Sin Bin (2012).  

The "virgin getting laid before the world ends comedy" Sadie's Last Days on Earth (2016).

In 10 episodes of Bomb Girls, 2013, set during World War II, Michael's bomb engineer Ivan dates closeted lesbian Betty, then Betty's crush Kate, then Nazi spy Helen.  Then he dies in a bomb factory explosion.  No gay male characters.

In The Wedding Planners, which aired for seven episodes in March-May 2020, Michael and his sisters plan weddings.  It doesn't look like any of them featured same-sex couples.

Most recently Michael played a gay-coded villain on The Murdoch Mysteries.  In 2009, gay student James Gillies and his boyfriend murder a professor in a reflection of the Leopold and Loeb case.  In 2023, he returns to torment Murdoch, kidnap The Girl, and survive various lethal stunts.  The show features a gay couple, so it's not just queer villains, but still, one doesn't expect such a blatant stereotype in 2023. 

And in Life with Luca, 2023, he returns to Derek as a grown-up.  He and Casey each have children who replicate the sibling-rivalry of their youth -- Luca is Casey's son.

More after the break

Black Friday: Devon Sawa fights holiday shopper-monsters and wins the Girl. WIth a nude dude from the other movie.

 

Devon Sawa was the wunderkind of the 1990s, starring in some iconic coming-of-age movies with strong gay subtexts --  Night of the Twisters, The Boys Club, Wild America -- while getting the full Tiger Beat Fave Rave teen idol treatment.  In the 2000s he moved on to sleazy horror, like many former teen idols, and audiences moved on.  

After filling my review of Hacks with photos of the grown-up, bulked up, heavily inked Devon, I realized that I hadn't seen any of his work since Final Destination.  So I checked out his more recent work on the IMDB, looking for gay characters or subtexts.

No luck: a lot of gritty, hard-bitten cops, criminals, and cowboys who have sex with ladies. Two TV series: Nikita, with the icon of a lady showing her legs and the phrase "Looks do kill": and Somewhere Between, with an icon of a lady's face and bare shoulders looking bemused as she's floating in the air.  

 

The only one that appeared to have gay content was the horror/comedy Black Friday, about the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., when shoppers mob the big box stores, jostling each other in search of deep discounts on Christmas presents. 

In this case, the shoppers turn into real life monsters, so toy store employees have to fight them off. I can imagine a lot of comedic bits, like a monster shopper using its disembodied arm to pull toys off a high shelf.  The Google AI notes that one of the characters is gay, and mentions a husband back home. 

Note: two movies called Black Friday, both about shoppers turning into monsters, premiered in 2020 and 2021.  This is the 2021 version.

Of course, I need to watch the trailer before investing in the whole thing.  

Scene 1: Pre-dawn, the morning after Thanksgiving. Toy store manager, horror veteran Bruce Campbell, says  "Happy Black Friday" over an intercom as Christmas music plays.  Horndog Devon Sawa makes a date with The Girl to get pancakes after the big rush is over.  It wouldn't be Christmas without the protagonist devoting his first scene to demonstrating that he's not gay.  

Femme Stephen Peck  assigns New Guy Ryan Lee to the registers.  Ryan Lee played Sue's gay friend on "The Middle," but most likely Stephen Peck, second from the left, is the one with the husband.  Unfortunately, the internet is full of another Stephen Peck, film legend Gregory Peck's son, so research is impossible.

Louis Kurtzman, who wears a flowery shirt, skates over to Gruff Michael Jai White,and announces that he's temping tonight. Flowery shirt -- maybe he's the one with the husband?

Left: Michael Jai White's physique.

Scene 2: Store Manager announces "There's no day more harmful than today." I thought stores made 30% of their sales on Black Friday.  New Guy, Gruff Guy, and a third employee pour booze into their coffees.

Scene 3: Showtime!  Everyone takes their places. They keep saying "tonight," but it must be before dawn on Friday.   

After a few shots of beserk, grabby shoppers, The Girl notices a shopper with head injuries growling about.  He rushes toward New Guy, who overturns a display of balls to stop him.

More after the break.

Dakare Chatman: Ballroom dancer, conservative spokesperson, Christ follower, gay ally

  

Link to the n*de photos

Charleston, South Carolina resident Dakare Chatman has four acting credits on the IMDB:

1. Two episodes as an unnamed high school student on the serial-killer drama Mr. Mercedes, 2019.

2. "Youth Group Teen" in Righteous Gemstones Season 1.  He is especially noticeable in Episode 1.9, where Kelvin tells the youth group that he has transformed himself into "something dark."

3. "Kook," uncredited, on an episode of Outer Banks, 2020.

4. In Righteous Gemstones Episode 2.8, 2022, he returns as "Mr. Dukare,"who  buys Junior's defunct video arcade games.   

More about Dakare: he's a singer, ballroom dancer, Christ-follower, traveler, and optimist, active in the AME Church.  He was on the National Youth Advisory Board of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, and won their Constituting America Contest twice. This got him an interview on the conservative news show Fox and Friends

Dakare is now the artistic director of Practice to Perform, a semi-pro ballroom dancer, and still active in politics.  In 2024, he was the manager of the re-election campaign for Sheriff Kristin Graziano of Charleston, the first lesbian sheriff in South Carolina history. 

Wait -- Kristin Graziano is a Democrat.  Has Dakare changed parties?

Conservative think tank, AME church, Christ-follower, and gay-positive. A very unusual combination.

This photo from Christmas is rousing my gaydar.  Dakare's Instagram contains no photos of him with any ladies except some friends and dance partners.

Gay or not, I'm sure he won't mind fans appreciating his cuteness.  And that cool, campy cutlery on his kitchen wall.

More after the break