Tintin and Captain Haddock

When I studied Spanish, I got songs about liking blonde girls ("Las rubias me gustan mas") and a story about Juan y Maria in love.  

When I studied French, I got comics: the muscular Roman Alix and his Egyptian boyfriend Enak; Asterix the Gaul;  the cowboy Lucky Luke; the race car driver Michel Vaillant; bellhop turned adventurer Spirou and his reporter boyfriend Fantasio; and of course, Tintin.











A teenage reporter, Tintin first appeared in the Belgian children's magazine Le Petit Vingtième.  23 comic albums, or bandes-dessinees, appeared between 1930 and 1976, sending Tintin to the Congo, Egypt, Tibet,  America, and eventually the Moon (a 24th, Tintin and Aleph-Art, was left unfinished at cartoonist Herge's death).  The albums have been translated into over 100 languages, and in an interesting twist, dozens of dialects. Would you like to know how the Antwerp and Oostend dialect differs from ordinary Dutch?  How about Picard and Gallois from standard French?

There was not a lot of beefcake in the comic stories or the animated films and tv series, but two live-action films starring Jean-Pierre Talbot took care of that.

Early on, Tintin made new friends in each adventure.  His most intimate relationship came in The Blue Lotus, when he rescued Chang, a Chinese boy victimized by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

But in The Crab with the Golden Claws, Tintin meets the blustering, irascible Captain Haddock and helps him reclaim his ancestral home, Marlinspike Manor.  Tintin moves in.  After that, there is no question: they are a couple..

During their adventures, Haddock and Tintin work as a team, rescuing each other over and over, hugging, pressing against each other.  At home, they are blatantly domestic, often shown sitting at breakfast, lounging around the parlor, going to movies, taking vacations.

Neither expresses any interest in women, but in Tintin in Tibet, when Tintin's old friend Chang writes to ask for help, Haddock blisters with jealousy and refuses to accompany him on the adventure (he relents later).  And when Haddock spends time with a new friend, Tintin mopes and pouts.

Many commentators, including Jamie Bell, who played Tintin in the 2011 movie, have noticed that Tintin and Haddock behave precisely as a gay couple.

Even Herge himself found it necessary to address the "accusations": he said that Tintin and Haddock could not actively pursue women because mostly boys read the comics, and they were interested in adventure, not romance.  But if that is the case, why did Herge put them into a relationship that looked and felt precisely like a romance?

Anyway, he was wrong: gay boys wanted both adventure and romance.  And they found both in Tintin.

See also: Fifty million Frenchmen can't be straight. 

The homo*rotic hijinks of Skyler Gisondo's crew

The Eagle: When Gay Subtexts Aren't Enough

The Eagle (2011) is a gay-subtext romance set in Roman Britain in 140 AD.

The plot is rather convoluted, but it seems to be about a young Roman soldier, Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum), whose father disappeared on an expedition north of Hadrian's Wall many years ago, along with his entire Legion, plus the bronze eagle that represents "the honor of Rome."

Marcus hears a rumor that the Eagle has survived, so he sets out in search of it.  He brings along his slave Esca (Jamie Bell), who is from northern Britain and can speak the Pictish language (Gaelic is used as a stand-in).

After many scenes of the two riding through desolate wilderness, they are captured by the Seal People, the most barbaric of the Pictish tribes.  Esca buddy-bonds with their Prince (Tahar Rahim) and settles among them, explaining that Marcus is his slave.

Marcus believes that he has been tricked.

But at the proper moment, Esca reveals that he has tricked the Sea People.  They retrieve the Eagle and head back to Roman territory.  They even find the lost Ninth Legion in the process.

All of the classic gay-subtext elements are here:
1. Minimal or no heterosexual interest.
2. Men who rescue each other from danger.
3. And who walk off into the final fade-out side by side.

I still didn't like it.  It was dull and plodding, with scenes of gore juxtaposed with scenes of...well, talking.  And no attempt to provide a standard English to stand in for Latin.  Hearing Roman soldiers speark colloquial American really grates on the ears, particularly after hearing the superbly done Latinate English of Spartacus.

Plus there's no chemistry between Marcus and Esca.  They're supposed to be in love with each other.  There should be glances, gestures.  But I don't even see much of a friendship.  Esca accompanies Marcus to the north because he has no choice, he's a slave; and Marcus uses Esca for his language skills.

At the end of the movie, as they're walking off together, Esca asks "What now?"  Marcus says "You decide."

It's a cute line, but it doesn't seem deserved.  Based on what we've seen, we expect them to say "Well, thanks for your help" and part.





There's actually more chemistry between Esca and the Seal People prince (Tahur Rahim).

The director and actors insist that the movie has no gay subtexts.  Channing Tatum states that there's love in the relationship, like in any relationship, but that doesn't mean that Marcus and Esca are a couple (even though, he jokes, he and Jamie Bell have been having sex for years).

Except in 2011, writers and directors usually take pains to ensure that their characters must be read as heterosexual by adding hetero-romance or at least some longing glances here and there.  If they weren't intending gay subtexts, why not add hetero-romance?

Maybe because the movie is based on a children's novel, The Eagle of the Ninth, published by Rosemary Sutclif in 1954, the glory era of gay subtexts, where men without women was an accepted literary convention, especially in juvenile fiction.

Sutclif wrote over 100 children's novels, many about two boys or two men together.

Jamie Bell: Not Wearing a Sign

Born in 1986, Jamie Bell first gained the attention of gay viewers with Billy Elliot (2000), about a boy who wants to become a ballet dancer in spite of the disapproval of his working-class British family, friends, and entire community.  They think dancing is for poofs (only his gay friend supports him). (Later it was made into Billy Elliot: The Musical).

Nicholas Nickleby (2002) upped the homoeroticism of the original Dickens novel, giving Nicholas (Charlie Hunnan) and abused classmate Smike (Jamie) an overtly romantic bond.

Undertow (2004) was a change of pace, transporting Jamie from Britain to rural Georgia.  But he got to keep the thin, sickly look to play Chris Munn, who has to flee into the woods with his younger brother (Devon Allen) to escape a murderous uncle (Josh Lucas).  The buddy-bonding here is between brothers, but at least Jamie hangs out in his underwear.

I haven't seen Dear Wendy (2004), but it seems to be a dark fable about boys, guns, and friendship.  Or The Chumscrubber (2005), but it seems to be the same, except with drugs instead of guns, and with nudity.

But I did see Tintin (2011), the animated version of the famous comic strip, which doesn't skimp on the homoromance between Tintin and Captain Haddock.

More recently, Jamie has bulked up so he can display a muscular physique in actioners like The Eagle (2011), in which Roman soldier Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) and his boyfriend/slave Esca (Jamie) wander barbarian Europe in search of a lost golden emblem.

With all the gay-friendly content, you'd expect Jamie to be used to gay rumors.  But he finds them surprising and "weird," since none of his characters is actually Wearing a Sign. Still, he got t a familial connection to the LGBT community when he married the bisexual Rachel Evan Wood.

Billy Elliot: The Musical: Breaking Out of the Gender Box

Since getting my Ph.D. in 2001, I have worked at three universities, and at each one, a colleague -- a highly educated Ph.D. -- has asked:  "You're an expert on gays.  Tell me this -- why do gay men act so weird?  All swishy and girly?"

Sighing, I point out yet again that:
1. Most gay men do not have gender-atypical mannerisms, tastes, or interests.
2. Many heterosexual men do.

They never believe me.  "Gay" and "feminine" are so intimately linked in their minds that they see femininity in gay men when none is present, and ignore it in straight men.

Thus, every story that challenges hegemonic masculinity is a gay story, regardless of the sexual identity of the star.

Billy Eliot (2000) was about the movie about a working-class British kid (Jamie Bell) who wants to become a ballet dancer rather than a boxer, in spite of the opposition of his family and peers (it also starred Matthew James Thomas as a gay kid Billy beats up for being "bent").  In 2005, it was transformed into a musical, with book by Lee Hall and music by Elton John. It has become one of the most popular musicals of all time, with productions on Broadway, on London's West End, and in Australia, and in touring companies worldwide.

All musicals require a hetero-romance, and Billy Elliot: The Musical gets one, between Billy and his dance teacher's daughter, Debbie.  But it's very brief, and they don't share a love duet.

Besides, the musical version also gives Billy's gay friend Michael a bigger role.  He likes to wear dresses, an atypical interest that parallels ballet.  He has a crush on Billy.  Although Billy explains that he's heterosexual (gender atypical interests have nothing to do with same-sex desire, like I've been telling people for years), in the end he kisses Michael on the cheek.

The actors who portray eleven or twelve-year old Billy can't work a lot of hours, so there have to be a lot of them, a whole crew of Billys for each production.  Some of the more prominent are Kiril Kulish (bff of actor Sterling Beaumon, top photo), Giuseppe Bausillo (second photo), and Fox Jackson-Keen (left).