Daria: Sparks of Humanity in the Craziness of Modern Life

After appearing as a minor character on MTV's animated Beavis and Butthead, sardonic high schooler Daria spun off into her own series in 1997.  You could tell by the theme song that this would be no Beavis redux:

Excuse me...EXCUSE ME...You're standing on my neck!

Daria is a super-intelligent, anti-social, outcast student at bourgeois Lawndale High, negotiating horribly incompetent, glory-grubbing teachers and idiotic students.

Lke squeaky-voiced Kevin, a football quarterback in spite of his less-than-spectacular physique, and his ditzy girlfriend Brittany.

Home is no better.  Mom Helen is a high-power attorney who is constantly taking phone calls from work, too busy to notice her daughters.  Dad Jake is a high-strung moron with a traumatic past.

Sister Quinn is super-popular, a member of the vacuous Fashion Club, dating a dozen guys, including the trio Joey, Jeffy, and Jamie, afraid to let on how smart she actually is.

Daria has a gay-subtext buddy relationship with fellow outcast, the artistic Jane ("we'll always be freaking friends"), and there are a few other people in Lawndale who she can stand the sight of:

Trent, Jane's brother, an aspiring singer in the punk group Mystic Spiral (left, fan pic from Deviantart.com)

Tom, Jane's boyfriend, who Daria eventually steals (below).

Mack, the only black male student at Lawndale High (second below), and his overachieving girlfriend Jodie, are allies.














It's not just "aren't most people idiots" 1990s angst.  Daria has many faults of her own -- she is judgmental, temperamental, inclined to jealousy, terrified of rejection.  She often gets her comeuppance.

All of the characters are flawed, but they all demonstrate some redeeming traits, too, moments of kindness, anxiety about the future, sparks of humanity that shine through the craziness.

A lot of beefcake -- cute animated guys, that is.  But rarely shirtless.  These photos are all from the opening montage of the movie Is It Fall Yet?  

Not a lot of gay content, other than the Daria-Jane subtext and the three inseparable J's.

 An occasional homophobic aside:

Daria notes that in Medieval England, King John made Robin Hood his "special friend."

One of the J's suggests that Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet is gay, and therefore should be banned from the locker room.

A predatory bisexual woman tries to convince Jane that she's a lesbian in order to get into her pants.

Not nearly as bad as other animated sitcoms of the period, or today. Have you seen Family Guy lately?




Plus it is amazingly well-written, funny without being vulgar, and that rarest of creatures, sarcasm with a heart.  Well worth getting ahold of the complete series on DVD (65 episodes and two movies).

The Inbetweeners: Classic Britcom About Homophobic Teens

The U.S. usually wins the prize for homophobic comedy.  On tv, we have Family Guy, American Dad, Working, Two Broke Girls, The Game, and everything on Comedy Central. In movies, everything with Seth Green.

Britcoms are usually kinder & gentler.  But The Inbetweeners (2008-2010), which was nominated for Best Sitcom at the British Comedy Awards three times, and actually won "Outstanding Contribution to British Comedy," takes hatred of gay people to an all-time high.

It was about four high school friends:
1. Focus character Will McKenzie (Simon Bird).
2. Foul-mouthed Jay Cartwright (James Buckley)
3. Neurotic Simon Cooper (Joe Thomas)
4. Dim-witted Neil Sutherland (Blake Harrison)

Like the cliched teenage boys of Archie Comics, they are interested in only two things: 1. having sex with girls who have big breasts; 2. proving that they are not gay.  They pursue these twin quests with lots of profanity, misogyny, and homophobia, from the mild ("Homework is gay!") to the severe ("you touched my leg!" gay panic).

If the series wasn't bad enough, it spawned books, "Best of" DVDs, and 2 movies.

The Inbetweeners (2011) has the boys going to Crete to meet women with big breasts and prove they're not gay.  In one particularly offensive scene, Jay and Neil sneak into a nightclub to meet women with big breasts, but it's a gay club!  You know what happens next.

The Inbetweeners 2 (2014) is currently filming in Australia.

And an American remake on MTV (2012) with Jay Pollari, Bubba Lewis, Zack Pearlman, and Mark L. Young. It only lasted 12 episodes.  I never saw it, so I don't know if they toned down the homophobia.

Jackass: The Gayest Show on TV

The MTV reality series Jackass (2000-2002) and spin-off movies (2002, 2006, 2009, 2011) were about guys (including "Wee Man" Jason Acuna, left) engaging in crazy stunts:

 Bam Margera uses Steve-O as bait to fish for sharks.
Steve-O stuffs raw chicken in his underwear and crosses a tight-rope over a pit of alligators.

A house falls on Johnny Knoxville (left).

Or practical jokes, often involving nudity or revealing thongs.

Chris Pontius (left) walks through a hotel lobby naked.

Wee man invades a board meeting naked.

The guys hugged, kissed, and climbed all over each other while naked, a big, bold, in-your face homoeroticism that had nothing to do with subtexts.

When Vanity Fair asked if Jackass was "a smidge gay,"  Johnny Knoxville retorted that it was a lot gay: "We're over here sitting on rainbows!  We're a gay pride parade!"

One could interpret the homoeroticism as just another "gross out" factor for the intended audience of heterosexual male adolescents: "Look, Chris just put his mouth on Steve-O's junk!  Sick!"  But it was so gleeful, unself-conscious, and endearing that you couldn't be cynical.

Jackass received a lot of criticism, mostly about how it was crass, vulgar, idiotic, dumbed-down, not nearly as intellectually stimulating as King Lear.  

Ok, it wasn't King Lear.  But you got to see more penises.  A lot more.

Steve-O and Chris Pontius went on to the nature program Wildboyz (2003-2006), which involved frolicking naked with wild animals, not to mention partying down with Australian aboriginal dudes.  And got them on my list of Top 10 Nature Show Hunks.

The Hard Times of RJ Berger: A Teencom Where Size Matters

Would you watch a tv series about a high school nerd who suddenly becomes popular with the ladies when they discover that he has an enormous...um, you know?

Even if it was on MTV, not well known for its pro-gay programming?

Something is wrong with that premise -- as I understand it, it's usually men, not women, who believe that size matters: every inch increases your erotic desirability for gay men, and for straight men, your overall worth as a human being.  So the nerd's not getting more cheerleader-models.

The Hard Times of RJ Berger (2010-2011) actually spent little time on discussions of erotic desirability.  It was a sitcom version of a 1980s teen nerd comedy, with the nerd RJ (Paul Iacono, below) torn between the girl-next-door who has a crush on him and the Girl of His Dreams, who is dating an abrasive jock (Jayson Blair, top photo).  He also has a portly best friend (Jareb Duplaise, seen here in Epic Movie).

A significant plot arc involves RJ attempting to bond with his Dad, the studly Rick (Larry Poindexter), from whom he has inherited his "gift."  Rick previously worked as a stripper, and now, down-and-out after his divorce, he has returned to his old life at the Hunkeez Club (RJ is offered a job there as well, but he's too young).

It's all actually rather pleasant, with an enormous amount of beefcake, some bulges, and virtually none of MTV's trademark homophobia.

A gay student, Guillermo (Justin Cone) appears a few times, and eventually RJ discovers that his nemesis Max is also gay, but strictly closeted.  RJ attempts to use the "secret" to his advantage; but he's playing on the brutish Max's internalized homophobia, not on a belief that being gay is shameful.

Paul Iacono, who is gay in real life, also starred in the gay-free remake of Fame (2009).

Jayson Blair has played several gay characters, and in The New Normal (2012-2013), he played the estranged husband of the woman who becomes the surrogate for a gay couple.

Get Season 2 for the male stripper and gay kiss episodes.