Boomerang: Queer Inclusivity and Tequan's Pecs

Eddie Murphy is a major homophobe, so I haven't seen many of his movies, and I never heard of Boomerang (1992). It sounds dreadful: a player gets his comeuppance when he falls for a female version of himself.

But the tv version on BET (available on Vudu and Amazon Prime) stars Tequan Richmond, the dreamy teen idol from Everybody Hates Chris, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to run through a few episodes on fast-forward, just in case he takes his shirt off.


He plays Bryson, son of the female player, a successful music executive (at age 26?) into hooking up.  Except this is 2019, and hooking up is no longer considered a character flaw; in fact, it's a common pastime among his cohort of coworkers/buddies:




1. Simone  (Tetona Jackson), daughter of  Eddie Murphy character, co-owner the company, and Bryson's on-off girlfriend.

2. Ari (Leland B. Martin, left), his best friend

3. Tia (Lala Milan), a singer.

4. David (RJ Walker), who runs a storefront church.

5. Crystal (Brittany Inge), his ex-wife

Plots involve helping each other out of the crisis du jour rather than punishing players.

And guess what?  In the nearly thirty years since the original movie, times have changed.  Homophobia is no longer considered funny (except in movies aimed at teenage boys), and inclusivity is in.  Tia is a lesbian  dating a woman named Rocky, and Ari is bisexual.  Not just "bisexual but only dating women at this moment," actually kissing guys.

In the episode PRIDE, they all attend the Atlanta Black Pride Festival (which for some reason takes place in the wintertime) to film Tia's new music video, and Ari gets schooled by an ex-girlfriend "You like both?  That means you gay!"  But he keeps his bi flag unfurled.  Meanwhile David shows up as a street preacher, but instead of the usual "Y'all going to hell!' screaming, he says "Y'all are all beautiful!"

You're probably wondering if Tequan shows his physique.

Not often.  But after all that queer inclusivity, who cares?

See also: Everybody Hates Chris

Justin Morrit, the Guy Who Shared Rob Lowe

Have you seen the famous Rob Lowe sex tape?  It depicts then-Brat Pack star Rob Lowe and a friend having sex with two women in a hotel room in Atlanta in 1988, on the night before the Democratic National Convention.

Only one of the women appears on the tape, plus Rob Lowe and his friend.

I didn't know that heterosexuals had the West Hollywood custom of "sharing."

They don't do anything specifically with each other, but one assumes that they did off-cameras.

Unfortunately, the tape doesn't show much of the second guy other than a muscular silhouette.  This is a better picture.

Not a bad boyfriend candidate.  I can see why Rob invited him to Atlanta.







His name is Justin Moritt.  He doesn't have any credits on IMDB before 1988, so I don't know how he and Rob met.  Since then he's worked as a production assistant, then a production manager, and finally a producer, of films like Ghost (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995).

 He was married to actress Krista Allen from 1996 to 1999.

They have a son, Jake Moritt, born in 1997, now working as a production assistant.

According to his Facebook page, Justin likes Tim Allen, Radiohead, bodybuilder Casa Wilson, and the Marani Hair Salon in L.A.

When you search Google Images for "Justin Morrit," this picture pops up of a tall guy with a tattooed nipple and his pants falling off.  Obviously not our Justin Morrit, but maybe a relation.

And some pictures from one of Rob Lowe's many on-screen homoerotic relationships, this one with Doug Savant in Masquerade (1988).

Is this what was going on in the hotel room in Atlanta that night?

See also: Mario's Date with Rob Lowe

The Gay Scene of "Atlanta"

I tend to skip tv series pegged as "a remarkable accomplishment," "richly nuanced," and "a triumph."  It will be invariably be gay-free and full of hetero-romantic lo-oo-oove.

But the first season of Atlanta was cheap, and I figured I might get some black beefcake out of the deal.

It's advertised as a comedy, but it's actually a drama with absurdist touches set in the hip hop-heavy world of Atlanta.

Slacker Earn (Donald Glover, no relation to Danny Glover) has failed at everything he's ever tried, to the  "I've heard it all before" disapproval of his girlfriend and parents.  Lately he's been trying to help his cousin Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) start a rap career under the name Paper Boi.

The first episode began with a shootout in a parking lot, and then a lot of hugging and kissing between Earn and his girlfriend, so I skipped to Episode #2, which, according to the episode guide, "deals with issues of homophobia and transphobia."

Problem: Earn and Alfred mumble.  Words slur into other words.  They interrupt and talk over each other  It's like a real conversation, overheard from across the room, loaded down with hiphop slang.  I can't understand most of what they are saying.  Fortunately, most of the other characters enunciate.

1. Earn and Alfred are at the police station, waiting to be booked for "disturbing the peace."  Riffs on injustice in the justice system and annoying bureaucratic red tape.  They discuss whether female-presenting person Lisa (Jason Jamal, top photo, in drag) is a man or a woman, and tease each other about wanting to hae sex with her (I think.  The dialogue is mostly "mumble, mumble...that's a man, man....  mumble, mumble...shiiit, no....mumble, mumble...you know you would.")

2. The light atmosphere turns dark when another inmate spits toilet water into an officer's face, whereupon he is savagely beaten and tazed.  In some states spitting on someone is a felony, due to the unfounded fear that you can transmit HIV that way.

3. Alfred is released on bail and goes out into the world, where he is discomforted by doting fans. A woman gets upset with her children for pretending to shoot each other, as in Paper Boi's song about shooting someone, but when Paper Boi himself shows up, she's all smiles and selfies.

4. Alfred and his sidekick Darius (Lakeith Stanfield of Get Out) go to a bar and have an existential conversation, I think.

5. Meanwhile, Earn is still in the holding tank, waiting to be assigned a jail cell, because his girlfriend won't pay his bail.  A guy turns around and goes into a long monologue about not seeing his friend for 12 years, and then getting into a fight with him.

6. Now Earn is stuck between Johnny (Luke Forbes) and Lisa, who are flirting but won't let him move.  Apparently they dated in high school.   The other inmates point out "Dude, that a man.  You gay!"  Johnny insists that he's not gay, becoming more and more irate.   Earn tries to defuse the situation: "Sexual orientation...mumble, mumble... complicated.... mumble, mumble...do what you want."

I agree that a man who is interested in female-presenting persons is not gay, regardless of what type of equipment they have. But this all has an unpleasant homophobic taste. 

But apparently the rest of the series is gay-free.

Later episodes continue to mix hefty levels of violence with absurdist humor. There is ample beefcake  (such as Harold House Moore as someone named Swiff, no "t"),  and even some penises on display.

And a lot of boy-girl lo-oo-oove.

The Mysterious "North Atlanta High Boys' Swim Team" Photo

This photo was entitled "Good luck to the North Atlanta High Boys' Swim Team."

I'm all for fluidity in gender, but I could swear that this boys' team consists of six girls, a baby, and a single boy.

Looking at the original website didn't help: it's devoted to "finding synonyms and antonyms."  "Swim team" is a synonym of "Diving team."

So I searched for the original phrase, and found it on "Talk Up APS," the official blog of the Atlanta Public Schools, in February 2011.

This illustration is a little more conventional.Four guys named Rehan, Sam, Neal, and Dillon.

North Atlanta High, in the Paces neighborhood about 10 miles north of downtown,  has 1,800 students.  It offers swimming and diving as separate sports, plus wrestling, basketball, and cross-country.

The phrase also appears on a webpage entitled "What to talk about with a boy in middle school cupboard design," whatever that means (I can't link to it; the danger signs go up).

Ok, I'm game.  I searched for middle school boys' cupboards, and came up with three 8th graders displaying the superhero-style scooters they built in shop class.  It beats birdhouses.

They go to Amery Middle School in Amery, Wisconsin, about 50 miles east of Minneapolis, the home town of this guy named Hunter, who is now wrestling for the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

What about the original image, wrongly identified as the "North Atlanta Swim Team."  A google image search reveals it as the "Sir Francis Drake High School Dive Team" in San Anselmo, California, in Marin County, about 20 miles north of San Francisco.

This is half of the water polo team (I picked the side with the weird hair).

And the one guy on the team, amid six girls and a baby?  His name is Rick.   He also played football and baseball, and took AP Language, American History, and Statistics.  He graduated in 2017, and is now at the Air Force Academy, majoring in mathematics.

And the point of all this is?

I got to conduct fun research and look at photos of cute guys.

You got to marvel at the inanity of the google search algorithm, and look at photos of cute guys.

Time well spent.