"The Unlisted": Come for the Australian-Indian Culture, Stay for the Gay Subtexts

In The Unlisted, twelve-year old twins Kal (the cool one) and Dru (the smart one, signified by his glasses) are...

Did I say twelve?  They are played by sixteen-year old Vrund and Ved Rao, who could easily be mistaken for college students, and look decidedly out of place in a school full of 12-year olds.

If you can get past the jarring age discrepancy, the setting in the Australian-Indian community is interesting.  In the first episode, everyone is in a flurry to prepare for Divali.  I liked the scene where the jar of ghee breaks, so they have to run from store to store, but everyone is sold out, except for one shop which won't sell to Kal because he doesn't speak Hindi: "You can't pick and choose your culture."

In the second episode, a mean girl is spying on them,so they invite her into the family store and disgust her with Indian snacks like chili banana chips and nimboo pickles.

In the third episode, it's Multicultural Day, so Grandma introduces the school to the Indian sport of kabbadi.

Why not just make it a sitcom about clashing values of modern and traditional Australian-Indians? But instead we have dystopian sci-fi:

A corporation called The Infinity Group is providing free dental exams to all students, but Dru  is afraid of dentists, so he talks Kal into taking his place.  Tim (Otis Dhanji), whose parents refused to permit the checkup, goes missing.

Later everyone who got a "checkup" freezes in place.  They are being controlled by dental implants!  Plus they are super-strong and fast.

 Dru must pretend that he is being controlled, and get Kal to take his place for the athletic tests, while the boys try to unravel the sinister plot.

Eventually they find allies in their aunt, a doctor who got a job with the initiative without realizing what it was about, and Jiao  (Zachary Wan), whose implant never worked.

And four refugees who knew too much and are now on the run:  three girls and Jacob (Nya Cofie, right), although Gemma (Jean Hinchliffe) is so androgynous that I thought the character was meant to be nonbinary.

Originality of the plot: C-.  It's been done before.  See:  The Tripods.

Beefcake: D.  Most of the actors are too young to be of interest.

Gay characters: A.  The twins have a built-in gay subtext, two of the refugee girls are in a romantic relationship, an adult ally says she was "queer before there was a word for it," and lack of expressed heterosexual interest abounds.

Fade out kiss: C.  Dru states that he and Chloe are "just friends," but Grandma goes on and on about which girl thinks the boys are handsome and wants to date them.

Australian-Indian culture: A+.

Coffs Harbour: Big Bananas, Aboriginals, and Drag Queens

Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, is about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane.















Originally its economy was based on bananas, so there are many  big bananas in town, including the Big Banana Fun Park.










And the big bananas who compete in the many aquatic events, such as the Coffs Harbor Ocean Swim and the Coffs Harbour Triathlon.

There are 8 high schools in town (most called "colleges").    Australian high schools don't offer wrestling, but there are lots of swim teams.

There's also a campus of Southern Cross University.

If you get tired of the big bananas, Coffs Harbor features the Bunker Cartoon Gallery, a museum dedicated to the history of Australian cartooning, and the annual Buskers and Comedy Festival (a busker is a street performer).

Although I suppose they have some big bananas, too.

And a variety of outdoor activities, including hiking, golf, tennis, scuba diving, and surfing.  These guys belong to the boardriding club.

Big bananas are a prerequisite for membership, I suppose.

5.6% of the population of Coffs Harbor is Aboriginal, nearly double the national average of 3%.  Most belong to the Gumbaynggirr, one of the largest Aboriginal tribes in New South Wales.  The language had almost died out by the 1990s, but now there are classes and activities, and about 700 people can speak it.

Gumbaynggirr educator Clark Webb looks like he has a big...well, never mind.

  Every July Aboriginals and their allies across the country celebrate NAIDOC Week (National Aboriginal and Torres Islanders Day Observance Committee).  In 2019, the Coffs Harbour NAIDOC featured a football carnival, an art exhibition, an elders' lunch sponsored by the Deadly Sistahs Girlz, and:

An after party hosted by rhe Fearless Felicia Foxx, the "Realest Tidda of Sidney"

A drag queen at a family-friendly event in rural Australia?

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Kamal Ellis

Kamil Ellis is the young Australian actor who starred in seasons 3-4 of Nowhere Boys.  This was the first time he played a generic role: previously his characters tended to embrace his aboriginal heritage.

Cleverman  (2016-17) sounds like a psycho-slasher, but he is actually the leader of the Dreamtime in a tv series about hairymen (sort of aboriginal Neanderthals) experiencing racism and discrimination in contemporary Australia.  Kamal plays Mungo, a boy who tries to escape capture and ends up being beaten to death.



















Deep Water (2016) is based on the real-life murders and disappearances of gay men near Bondi Beach, Sydney, in the 1980s.  Kamil plays Jason, a boy who hangs out on the beach.

The reality series Bushwacked (2014) sends Kamil and journalists Kayne Tremills and Jordan Walters into the outback in search of Australia's weirdest animals. 

Dance Academy (2010-13) traces the lives of mean girls and it-boys at Sidney's National Dance Academy (apparently they dance shirtless on occasion).  Kamil appears in 3 episodes as Jayden, a street kid with dancing cred.

In addition to his on-screen acting, Kamil has had a long career as an aboriginal dancer and singer.  His credits include:
Ganang Spirit Dancers
Secret River Sidney Theater
Bangarra Dancers
Koormurri Dreaming 

He's done so much of interest as a kid, I can't wait to see him as an adult.

The Top 10 Nowhere Boys

Nowhere Boys, on Amazon Prime and Vudu, is an Australian teen supernatural drama about four boys who get lost in the woods on a school field trip,  When they return, everything is different.  A disabled brother can walk.  A single mom is married.  One boy doesn't seem to exist at all.

With the help of various allies and love interests, they figure out that they have somehow become lost in a parallel world.  It sounds like a science fiction premise, but it is actually supernatural.  Getting home requires magical spells and fighting demons.

The four boys are:
1. Popular it-boy Sam (Rahart Adams).

2. Goth Felix (Dougie Baldwin)

3. Nerd Andy (Joel Lok).  I don't see any gay subtexts, but at least he doesn't get a girlfriend.

4. Jock Jake (Matt Testro)

In Season 2 (2013-14), the boys discover that they can now control the four elements (air, water, fire, earth).  Now they must travel between the two parallel worlds.

5. For instance, Jake's father Gary (Damian Richardson) is a cop in the alternate world.  Somehow the Mega-Demon arranges for them to encounter each other, but if they make physical contact, the world will explode.

In Seasons 3 and 4, at least five years has passed -- one of the students is now a teacher, and the four original boys are the subject of a stage play.

This time several kids and their principal are zapped into Empty World, where all of the people have vanished (along with most of the food).  The main group consists of:

6. Luke (Kamil Ellis), a science fiction nerd who keeps saying  "This is just like that episode of Next Generation where Dr. Crusher..."  He doesn't get a girlfriend.

By the way, Kamil belongs to the Wiradjuri, the largest Aboriginal tribe in New South Wales.











7. Popular Heath (Joe Klocek, left)


It-girl Nicco
















8. Drama queen Jesse (Jordie Race-Coldrey).   He gets a boyfriend.

9. Outsider Ben (William McKenna).

10. Principal Blake (Nicholas Coghlan) arrives in Empty World a year before the others, and the isolation has driven him daffy.  And maybe a bit evil.

Not a lot of beefcake photos available.  But everybody does't need to have their pecs and abs on display all the time.  There's nothing wrong with looking like the Boy Next Door instead of a 28-year old fitness model.  In fact, after a diet of Riverdale and its clones, it's a pleasant change of pace.

"Boys in the Trees": My Favorite Movie of the Year

Boys in the Trees (2016) turned out to be my favorite movie of the year, but I would never have known from the trailer.  It's another one of those misleading trailers that makes a drama look like a comedy or a tearjerker look like a fantasy.

 In this case, it looks like supernatural horror will be released on Halloween and terrorize two boys on their walk home.  The movie is not about that at all.  It's about gay kids.

Halloween in Australia is in the spring, near the end of the school year, and Golden Boy Corey (Tobey Wallace) is going to be graduating.  He has been offered a scholarship to study photography at the University of New York, but he plans to stay home to be close to his friends, especially Janko (Justin Holborow).

On Halloween night, Corey and his pack go out, like they always do, to wear scary masks and brutalize the weaker kids.  During a break in the wilding, Corey walks through an abandoned skate park, and finds Jonah (Gulliver McGrath), a former friend who he abandoned for his clique of jerks.  Jonah is injured, bleeding, staring.

Does he need first aid?  Does he need an ambulance?  No, Jonah just wants one thing: "Walk me home," he demands, apparently a practice that they engaged in many times in the old days.  Corey agrees, for old time's sake, because he's worried about Jonah's injury, because he feels guilty.  Because he has no choice.

On the way home, Jonah forces Corey to act out ghost stories:
1. In a tunnel: A girl was murdered there, and doesn't realize that she's dead.

2. In an abandoned house: A boy abandoned his dreams, and years later they came back to haunt him.

3. In their school: Jonah himself discovered that most of the boys in class had turned into wolves.  "And for those who didn't change, those left behind,those that didn't develop the taste for blood, there was only one thing you could do...run."

Suddenly the years melt away, and Corey and Jonah are friends again. They visit the Wishing Tree, where all of their childhood dreams are hanging from branches, and wonder why they ever gave up so much.

For some reason, Corey insists on taking a break from their walk home to have sex with his girlfriend.  When he returns, Jonah is missing.  Corey goes to his house, but there's no one there but an old man who won't speak.  Finally he finds him at a strange Dia de los Muertos festival, and chases him into the woods. 

Then Jonah tells one last ghost story, about a man you meet twice in your life.  The first time, you don't remember.  The second, you never forget.

Eventually they will have to finish the walk home.  Corey resists, knowing what he will find there (we viewers know, too, of course.  It's been obvious since Story #1).  Maybe he could change the ending? No, it's too late.  They share a hug before Jonah shows him where he lives.

Jonah is gay -- we know because the bullies refer to him as a "fag" (the director cut scenes that show him actually dating boys).  Due to the sex-with-girlfriend interlude, we're expected to think of Corey as straight, their friendship as platonic.  But with the hugs and almost-kisses of Jonah and then Janko, I'm sure that Corey is gay, the possibility of same-sex desire abandoned on that Wishing Tree as the "adult" world of heteronormative responsibility encroached.

Besides, there's a coda with Corey living his dream in New York, having a video chat with girlfriend-turned-gal pal, talking about a freelance photography gig, then putting on a hot gladiator costume to head down to Halloween in the Village, the second gayest festival of the year.  His apartment features a gigantic photo of Jonah.

The movie is beautifully produced, with stunning imagery and stunningly evocative dialogue.  Of course, many of Jonah's lines would never be spoken by a real person, but then, Jonah isn't actually a person, is he?

"They won't let us go forward."
"Then let's go back, where the dreams are true."

The Many Faces of Sam McCarthy

Sam McCarthy stole the show on Dead to Me, flawlessly portraying Jen's teenage son as by turns vulnerable and angry, bitchy and endearing.  So naturally I wanted to research this up-and-coming teen idol.

He was born in 2002, son of former Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy.  He has been performing on screen since 2016, with guest roles in 4 tv series (The Family, The Jim Gaffigan Show, The Blacklist, Teen Wolf) and recurring roles in 2 (as main characters' teenage sons in Dead to Me and Condor).

Also a movie role: in All These Small Moments (2018), he plays the brother of a teenage boy who is infatuated with an older woman.

And the upcoming 18 to Party (2019), about some 8th-graders in 1984 trying to get into a nightclub.

Doesn't look like a lot of gay interest, but give him time.

An image search was not fruitful. There are dozens of "Sam McCarthy" different instagram, twitter, and facebook accounts.  It's a horrendously common name, and half the people who have it are girls.

This is definitely the right Sam, and I think the top photo is, too.

This is not the right one, but ripped anyway.




















Maybe what Sam looked like a few years ago.

Maybe what he will look like in about 10 years.

Nice abs on this Sam McCarthy.  Or is Sam the girl he's with?

A Sam McCarthy from Blenheim, which is a parish in Oxfordshire, England, home to the famous Blenheim Palace.





















This Sam McCarthy lives in Hornchurch, Barking and Dagenham, East London, about 18 miles from Trafalgar Square.  How'd you like to write all that on a trick card?

And one of these guys is a Sam McCarthy from Padua College in Australia.

There are about 8 Padua Colleges in Australia.  I don't know which one it is, except maybe the one in Victoria that represents the student body with photos like this.

I assume that one or more of these guys is named Sam McCarthy.

See also: Dead to Me.

Grammar School Beefcake

You thought I meant 10 year olds, didn't you?

In the United States, "grammar school" is an old-fashioned term for "grade school," or more technically "elementary school," for kindergarten through sixth grade (roughly age five to twelve).

So I was surprised to see this photo of Bolton Grammar School boxers.  Those guys don't look twelve years old to me.

Turns out that in Britain and Commonwealth countries, a "grammar school" teaches the Sixth Form, the final three years of your pre-university education (ages 16-18). Most grammar schools have merged into comprehensive secondary schools, but some with a particularly prestigious history remain.  They are roughly equivalent to the elite boarding schools of the U.S.

Now, let's épater les bourgeois, frighten the horses, and give Mrs. Grundy a conniption by looking at grammar school beefcake.

1. The Bolton Grammar School Manchester, founded in 1516, is now just the Bolton School, and admits kids from infancy through Sixth Form.  Alumni include Sir Ian McKellen.

2. Burton Grammar School, London, founded in 1520, moved to Friars Walk, then Bond Street, then Winshill (aren't British street names colorful? they beat the endless Elms and Mains in the U.S.)

 It became part of the comprehensive school system in 1975.

3. Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, founded in 1527, is currently a Sixth Form College.  Alumni include Robert Burton, author of Anatomy of Melancholy, and gymnast Hamish Carter.

4. The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, founded in 1562.  It achieved Academy Status in 2011, and prides itself on its A-Level results, with many graduates placed in Oxford and Cambridge.

5. St. Olave's and St. Saviour's Grammar School, London, founded as two separate schools in 1562 and 1571, now admits both boys and girls.  Old Boys include John Harvard (who founded Harvard University), novelist Lawrence Durrell, and martial artists Nick Osipczak.

6. Brisbane Grammar School, Brisbane, Australia, founded in 1868, enrolls about 1700 boys age 15-18.  It has an open admission policy.

7. Ipswich Grammar School, Ipswich, Australia, founded in 1863, is highly selective.  It enrolls about 1000 boys.

8. Trinity Grammar School is an Anglican-run day and boarding school in Sydney, founded in 1913.  Among its alumni is Kenneth To, who won 6 medals at the 2010 Youth Olympics and was the 2012 Overall Male winner of the FINA Cup.

9. Christ Church Grammar School is not actually in New Zealand.  It's an Anglican-run pre-primary to grade 12 boarding school for boys in Perth, Australia.

Old Boys include water polo stars George and Andrew Ford.