The Top 10 Hunks of "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance"

I never saw the original Dark Crystal movie. In December 1982, I was in the middle of my first year in grad school at Indiana University, and I didn't have time for "The Lord of the Rings with Muppets."  Seriously, why didn't the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien sue? 

And I'm not actually planning to watch the prequel series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Reason  (2019).  The opening monologue is ridiculously long and complicated, the Hobbits....look ridiculous, the characters are impossible to keep track of, and the plot is the standard yawn-inducing defeat the Darkness.  

As far as I can figure, the plot involves capitalist vulture-monsters called Skeezix or something, who oppress the gentle, nature-loving Hobbits...um, I mean Gelflings, who don't even realize that they are being oppressed  (talk about false consciousness!).  The Skeezix are all dying, but they've found a way to stay alive by eating the pink soup that is the Gelfling life-essence.

Meanwhile Darkness is coming, some sort of eco-catastrophe, and it's up to the Chosen One and her ragtag band to defeat it and the Gelfling-eating vulture-monsters.   The maguffin is the Dark Crystal, which used to be the source of all life on the planet, but has recently gone over to the Dark Side.  

I read ahead -- at some point between the end of the series and the start of the movie, all of the Gelflings are killed.  No parallels with the Holocaust there.

But apparently the tv series is gay-positive.  Deet, one of the main characters, has two dads, and there's a lesbian relationship between Tavra and Onica.

No beefcake in a show featuring Muppets, of course, but I thought maybe some of the voice actors or puppeteers would exude some hotness.

1.Harris Dickinson (top photo) as Gurjin.  He previously starred in Beach Rats, about a teenage boy who identifies as straight but has sex with men.

2. Charlie Condou (left), previously of the British soap Coronation Street as Mitjan.  Charlie is gay, adding to the long list of gay actors in the series, everyone from Harvey Fierstein to Benedict Wong.

3. Taron Egerton as Rian.  He played a young Elton John in Rocketman (2019), and is apparently gay, also.

4. Jason Isaacs, best known in a blond wig as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, as the Skezix Emperor.

5. Victor Yerrid, shown here in the midst of furry S&M cosplay, as the puppeteer who portrays Hup.

6. Theo James as Rek'yr (don't worry, the apostrophes don't have any phonetic significance, they just look cool).  He played Four in the Divergent-Insurgent-Allegiant movie series.

7.  Ralph Inerson as The Hunter.  Apparently he has a frontal nude scene in The Witch (2015)

8.  Shazad Latif  as Kegan.  

That's only 8, but I'm too busy to finish.  I have to figure out why this tv series is getting so many rave reviews.

And what's up with all the beards.

See also: The Muppet Show

Watching the Muppet Show

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, I spent most of my free time in a little bookstore off the Student Union lobby. It stocked some bestsellers and miscellaneous nonfiction, including The Little Prince and Dag Hammarskjold's Markings,  but mostly science fiction and fantasy, with some underground comics under the counter.

It provided a bright belonging place for "head cases," boy who were majoring in English or philosophy or music, who wanted something greater and nobler from life than carrying briefcases into skyscrapers.  We called ourselves the Bookstore Gang.

During any hour of the afternoon and early evening, half a dozen members of the Bookstore Gang could be found standing by the counter, or sitting on it, or browsing through the shelves, or reading in the armchairs or green couch that blazed with western sunlight.  We discussed classes, comic books, movies, ghosts, and politics, but for some reason never girls.  When the bookstore closed, we adjourned to the Rathskeller or to the TV Lounge, to argue and advise and review, discussing The Wizard of Id or Saturday Night Live, yelling "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" while stuck-up Business Majors stared.

Everything we watched or listened to or read was hip, anarchic, iconoclastic, but my favorite was The Muppet Show (1976-81), with Kermit the Frog from Sesame Street hosting a comedy-variety show, juxtaposing parodies of medical dramas or Star Trek ("Pigs....in space")  with musical numbers, while the elderly gay couple Statler and Waldorf heckled everything (except for the famous guest stars, of course).

And what a cast of guest stars!  Everybody who was anybody stopped by:
Joan Baez
Milton Berle
Bert and Ernie
Joel Grey
Arlo Guthrie
Vincent Price
Tony Randall
Sylvester Stallone

Other hip, anarchic, iconoclastic tv programs and movies -- Monte Python, Mary Hartman, Saturday Night Live, WKRP in Cincinnati, Blazing Saddles, The Cheap Detective, Silent Movie -- were loaded down with fag jokes and hetero-horniness, but The Muppet Show had neither.

Only Miss Piggy regularly displayed heterosexual interest -- at Kermit and various male guest stars -- and she was always rejected. And instead of constantly ridiculing gender transgressions, same-sex contact, and "fags," like most venues in the 1970s, The Muppet Show offered a pleasant nonchalance about diversity in size, shape, affect, and affection (who knew what Gonzo the Great was into?).

Muppet creator Jim Henson was a gay ally, as is his daughter Lisa, now CEO of Jim Henson Enterprises. In 2012, the company severed ties with Chick-Fil-A due to its homophobic bias, and donated existing proceeds to GLAAD.

I always knew that the Muppets were gay-friendly.