Katts and Dog

The Canadian kid-oriented series that aired in the U.S. during the late 1980s came in all varieties. You Can't Do That on Television was sketch-comedy, Degrassi Junior High teen angst, and Katts and Dog (1988-93) teen adventure.

It aired as Rin Tin Tin, K-9 Cop in the United States and Rin Tin Tin Junior in France.  The owner of the original dog actor (1918-32) never trademarked his name, so his descendants continue to appear at animal events, and unrelated dogs have appeared in radio programs, movies, and two tv shows.  The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-59), starred Lee Aaker as a 19th century orphan being raised by the U.S. Calvary at Fort Apache.  It was trying unsuccessfully to compete with Lassie (1954-73), with the female collie owned by several boys, including Jon Provost (left, during his hippie years).  But most people remember Tommy Rettig, whose tv mom June Lockhart moved on to become the mom on the original Lost in Space.

By the 1980s, Rin Tin Tin was a distant memory.  His connection to the Katts and Dog dog, called Rudy or Rinty, is only mentioned once. 

The premise: Hank Katts (Jesse Collins) and his dog Rudy/Rinty go to work together in the K-9 division, where they rescue kidnapped boys and heiresses, keep drugs out of school, are held hostage, shoot suspects, and so on in adventures that are not always kid-friendly.  He begins dating widowed mother Maggie and mentoring her son, s Officer Hank Katts, who worked with a German shepherd named Rudy or Rinty (Rudolph Von Holstein III).  He lived with Maggie, the widow of his late brother, and her son, slim blond Stevie (12-year old Andrew Bednarski).

Homophobic televangelist Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network provided most of the funding for the show, disapproved of an unrelated man and woman living in the same house, so Maggie was killed, and Hank adopted Stevie.    His job was to ignore orders like "stay here where it's safe," snoop around on his own, get captured by the bad guys, and require a nick of time rescue.

He required nick of time rescues in most episodes.  Sometimes he and Hank required rescue together.

Hank and Stevie behaved nothing like foster father and adopted son.  Instead, their relationship reflected the superhero-sidekicks of the 1940s.  The two were inseparable, and engaged in activities that elsewhere would be reserved for romantic partners: going to dinners and movies, going on vacations.  They shared an emotional intimacy and an easy physicality that was rare in the cop-kid bond. 

More after the break

Alix and Enak: Jonny and Hadji in Ancient Rome

If the gay kids of Britain had it good, then France must have been a Paradise of beefcake and bonding: bandes-dessinee (hard-bound comic books) overbrimmed with same-sex couples, including Tintin and Captain Haddock, Spirou and Fantasio, Corentin and Kim, and Alix and Enak.

 Alix, who premiered in 1948, was a Roman citizen from the province of Gaul (modern France) who travels through the ancient world,  through Gaul, Egypt, Persia, and eventually as far afield as India, China, and the Pacific, having death-defying adventures in historically accurate settings (give or take a few hundred years) with beautifully detailed backgrounds.






Alix is blond-hared, handsome, muscular, and frequently nude.

That's right, nude.

His creator, Jacques Martin, had no qualms about introducing rear and occasional frontal nudity into his strips.

But that's not all.  Alix is accompanied by his boyfriend Enak, a slightly younger Egyptian, dark skinned, equally handsome, muscular, and nude.

Sort of a Hadji to his Jonny Quest, or a Raji to his Terry.

In the early books, they have no interest in girls; they are devoted to each other, rescuing each other from deadly danger over and over again, saying things like "I won't leave without you!" and "If anything were to happen to you. . . ."

In the books published since the 1980s, they occasionally get girlfriends, but only as momentary dalliances; nothing can interfere with their devotion to each other.

Thirty volumes have appeared, along with some "straight' history of the ancient world illustrated by Alix comics. They have never been translated into English, but you don't need to read French to enjoy the beautifully detailed backgrounds -- or the beefcake.

Aida: Nubian Beefcake Musical

Aida is a favorite musical in high school and college drama departments.  With music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, a  source in an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, and a setting in ancient Egypt that begs for beefcake, where can you go wrong?

A lot of places.

First, the heterosexism is unrelenting.  Hetero-love is the guiding principle of the universe, the meaning of life, able to transcend time and space, etc., etc., yawn.

Second, the plot is staggeringly complex.  Everybody is in love with several people at once (all male-female, of course).

Aida is a Nubian princess captured and sent into slavery, where she becomes the servant of the Egyptian princess Amneris, and draws the attention of Amneris' fiance Radames. Meanwhile, the Nubian servant Mereb catches her attention.

Aida become the leader of a Nubian slave revolt, and also uncovers a secret plot to poison the Pharaoh.

Third, everybody dies.  I hate movies where everybody dies, and I hate musicals where everybody dies even more.  Mereb is stabbed to death.  Aida and Radames are buried alive; ok, they return four thousand years later in a modern-day man and woman looking at exhibits at an Egyptian museum, but still....

Fourth, the lyrics are awful.  Listen to Mereb singing "How I Know You":
I grew up in your hometown, at least began to grow
I hadn't got to my first shave before the body blow
Egyptians in the courtyard, my family in chains
You witnessed our abduction, which possibly explains
How I know you, how I know you
Before that fateful morning, my family enjoyed
A privileged existence, for my father was employed
As advisor to the King no less, which surely rings a bell
For as your are his daughter, you probably can tell

What's a body blow?  What kind of dumb rhyme is chains/explains?   Give me a break

That leaves the beefcake.  Egyptians and Nubians have to be shirtless, right?

Yes, but only the guards and other extras.  The main cast of high-caste Egyptian royalty wear bicep and pec-covering robes.

Still, Nubians were black, so in the U.S., there's a great deal of African-American beefcake among those extras.

And Mereb, the Nubian slave boy, sometimes gets to show some chest.

Or not.  I know this Mereb is fully clothed, but Joel Miller has a nice chest and a handsome face, and when are you ever going to see him again?

Maybe at an Egyptian museum in your next life.

King Tut's Tomb Was Discovered by Two Gay Men

Everybody has heard about Howard Carter (1874-1939), the Egyptologist who was excavating in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt in 1922, when he discovered a tomb that had somehow escaped three thousand years of grave robbers.  It belonged to Tuntakhamun or King Tut, who died in 1321 BC, at age 18 (you can see a reconstructed head and torso, nipples and all, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London).

He became a celebrity during the 20th century, portrayed in popular culture by everyone from Victor Buono (on Batman) to Steve Martin (on Saturday Night Live), with Howard Carter himself almost forgotten.

But Carter didn't just stumble onto a tomb.  He was a competent Egyptologist with four gay connections.

 1. He never married.

That was not, in itself, unusual during the early years of the 20th century.  Medical science of the era taught that sexual activity was extremely hazardous, sometimes fatal, and should be avoided whenever possible, so many men avoided it altogether.

2. He studied Arabic so he could communicate more readily with Arab men.

3. When he realized that he had discovered something big, he wired George Herbert, Earl of Carnavon (1866-1923), who bankrolled the expedition, to share in the opening of the tomb with him.

Herbert was an avid Egyptologist (he died of an infected mosquito bite during an expedition).

And wealthy (his home is now used to film Downton Abbey). 
And gay.  He was married, but his wife, Almina, learned to tolerate his affairs, expecially in the field.

4. Rumor has it that Carter and Herbert were lovers.  It's impossible to know for sure after 100 years, but both seemed to prefer Arab men, keying into the fetishization of the Orient common in the era.  So maybe not.

See also: Ancient Egyptian Beefcake.

The Blue Hawk

What gay boy could resist buying Peter Dickinson's The Blue Hawk (1976): the cover displayed a gorgeous young man with olive skin and black curly hair, his muscles visible beneath his a blue robe.

The British edition was almost as good.



















He is Tron, a teenager of humble parentage in a nameless Egypt-like kingdom, who has been raised to become a priest.  In the midst of a turgid plot involving palace intrigues and invasions from without, Tron meets the young King, who is quite obviously taken with him, inviting him to dinner and to go hawking, and asking “where will you sleep tonight?”

Neither the King nor Tron has ever been in a non-coercive relationship, so they grope their way toward love with many hesitations and missteps.  Tron vows to “serve” the King, who obligingly sends him off on a secret mission.  He gets lost, and everyone thinks that he is dead.

When he returns, the King  comes “striding forth with outstretched arms, his whole being seeming to pulse with pleasure in the living instant,” but instead of telling Tron how much he loves him, he hides (barely) behind metaphor: he whispers that losing Tron was like “the emptiness when you lose a favorite hawk, but worse, far worse.”  His master’s pet: close, but not close enough.

When they are back in the palace, the King insists that Tron not leave his side; their arms are linked or his hand is on Tron’s shoulder or he is stroking Tron’s hair even at the most important of council meetings.  But if Tron is merely a favored pet, why does the King constantly seek his advice on complex matters of state?  On a second secret assignment, Tron is wounded, and the King rushes to his side.  But again, neither overtly declares his love:

The King came in.  He looked very tired. . .but the air around around him seemed to tingle with excitement and happiness.  He stretched his arm down in a gesture that would have become a hug of joy in their meeting if Tron had not been wounded; life and warmth seemed to flow from his fingertips.

One can admire and respect a subordinate, but one can only love an equal.  At the end of the novel, he is on his way to ask the King if they can become – not master and servant or king and faithful subject, but something else that Dickinsen does not and perhaps cannot describe, not in 1976, a same-sex love that is exclusive and permanent.