"The Almighty Johnsons": Norse Gods Kissing Girls in New Zealand

On the eve of his 21st birthday,  Auckland boy Axl Johnson (Emmett Skilton) and his mates are out buying beer, when they stop to watch a meteor shower.  Suddenly a car almost runs him over.  A lady emerges to "apologize" (the viewer sees that it was intentional).  Instead of yelling "You stupid bitch, watch where you're going!", Axl flirts with her and invites her to his party.

Next scene: Axl's older brother Mike (Tim Balme) and his wife emerge from their house to look at the meteor shower.  They discuss lovey stuff and hug and kiss.  

Two establishing-that-they-are-heterosexual scenes in a row? 

But...The Almighty Johnsons, on Amazon Prime, got good reviews.  A mythological-fantasy-comedy, an amiable take on the old "supernatural beings living among us" trope.  It's set in New Zealand, which automatically makes it interesting.  And the tiniest of googles of the cast members reveals countless beefcake photos.  I'll keep going.

Next scene: Axl's quiet, shy brother Ty (Jared Turner)  is being rejected by a girl, who wants to be "just friends."  

Ok, I get it.  He's not gay, either.  Geez, do you have to shove it down my throat?

Next scene: Axl's final brother Anders (Dean O'Gorman) is kissing a girl.

Really?  Four of them?  Is this heterosexual porn?  Five seconds of Norse gods stuff, ten minutes of sex?

Apparently so.  The next three scenes:

1. Axl is having sex with the woman from the car accident, when they are interrrupted by an earthquake.

2.Mike is having sex with his wife, same thing.

3. Anders is having sex with the girl, same thing.  The girl jumps up from the bed.  Naked girl butt.

Lord have mercy!  I'm outta here!

If you have the stomach to continue, you'll find Axl's improbably buffed grandpa having sex with a girl (of course!), then tearing himself away long enough to tell Axl that he is the reincarnation of the Norse god Odin.  

All of his family, and a good number of his mates, are also reincarnated Norse gods, but Axl is the Chosen One: he is destined to find the reincarnation of Frigg, his wife back in Asgard, and thus restore the gods to power.

That's right, it gets even worse: the goal of the quest, the theme of everyone's dreaming, is the Everlasting Feminine.

There are apparently some gay and bi characters, such as Bryn (John Leigh), an exceptionally short giant, and Jacob (Arthur Meek), an exceptionally tall dwarf, the adopted parents of Axl's flatmate/girlfriend Gaia.  Or maybe they're just pretending to be gay to fit in.  The plot synopsis is confusing.

And Zeb (Hayden Frost), Axl's other flatmate, a mortal who isn't aware of the Big Secret.  Or at least he dates girls only when under a spell.

Again, the plot synopsis is confusing.  And I'm definitely not sticking around to find out.

In Search of Maori Beefcake: Palmerston North, New Zealand

I was searching for "North Scott County High School" and got "Palmerston North Boys' High School" instead.

Close.

Palmerston North is a small city of 86,000 on on the north island of New Zealand, about 90 miles from Wellington, but not near any other Palmerstons.

According to the New Zealand Tourism Website, its main attractions are the Herb Farm, the Orlando County Golf Course, the Kung Fu Academy, the New Zealand Rugby Museum, and the Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science, and History, which has a website in both English and Maori.

16.5% of the population is Maori.  Sounds like a good place to look for Maori men.

Luckily, there's a Tournament of Champions New Zealand bodybuilding competition held in Palmerston North during the week of June 20th, 2019.

All of the photos are of women, or .web files that can't be downloaded, or too tiny to bother with, but trust me, there's not a single non-white person in the lot.

Well, maybe I'll have more luck with twinks.

Palmerston North has seven secondary schools:

1. Awatapu College, a co-ed high school.  No swimming or wrestling,but it does have a fitness club.

No Maori guys on any of its websites.

2. Freyburg High School, which features Rumaki (a Maori immersion program).  I assume that the administration is gay-friendly.

3. Longburn Adventist School, a boarding school affiliated with the fundamentalist Seventh-Day Adventist Church, featuring "Christian family values. I'm going to assume that the administration is NOT gay-friendly.

But they don't mind mud wrestling.

4.-5. Palmerston North Boys and Palmerston North Girls.

6. Queen Elizabeth College, a "small family school" with a Maori immersion program.  The majority of teaching occurs in Te Matui, the school's Marae (meeting place).

It appears that 90% of the students enrolled in Maori immersion programs are not ethnic Maori. Interesting.  In the U.S., we don't get a lot of non-Navajos in Navajo immersion programs.

7. St. Peters College, a "Catholic faith community."  Its summer sports include Athletics, Cricket, Softball, Touch (as in touch rugby), and Super Sports.

It also appears that Maori guys are in short supply in New Zealand.  I guess I'll have to go look for myself.

10 Things You Should Know about Chris Petrovski

Someone found his way onto this website by googling "Chris Petrovski gay."  I never heard of Chris Petrovski before, so I had to look him up.  I discovered 10 essential facts.

1. He is 27 years old, born in Macedonia but raised in New Zealand.  He moved as an infant, so he has to fake his Slavic accents.

2. His first role involved displaying his chest in Spartacus: War of the Damned (2010).

3. After college he moved to the U.S. to become a serious actor.  He graduated from the Stella Adler Academy.

4. He starred in Live to Tell (2012), about a gay teenager who keeps a vblog, and Finding Dad (2012), about a teenager who comes between a long-term gay couple.

5. He starred in In the Moment (2016-2017), about the life of a struggling actor, with episodes on "what to do if your friends aren't actors" and "where to work out in L.A."

6. Currently he is appearing on Madam Secretary, about a female secretary of state (not based on Hillary Clinton).  His character is a Russian soldier who becomes an American spy.

7.  He has a lot of male friends.

8. He has a wife.

9. Finding beefcake pics is easy. The guy doesn't appear to own a shirt.

10.  I also found an underwear pic,but it was too revealing for a G-rated blog.

Searching for Beefcake in Shakespeare's Hamlet

Hamlet (1603) is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays.  It's heavy-laden with gay subtexts, from the tortured Hamlet's buddy-bond with Horatio to the  backstage chumminess of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Many contemporary versions, parodies, and pastiches have a queer mentality, too.  Remember Mary Anne on Gilligan's Island as a drag-king Laertes listening to his father pontificate?

But I never thought of watching it for the beefcake, until I saw this still of Filip Adeyev in a Russian version of the tragedy.

Aranui High School often wins out over other productions in New Zealand's National Festival of Shakespeare in Schools.  In 2006 they gave Hamlet a Maori context, with Te Awhiroa Kuka-Sweet as the Prince of Denmark.

In 2014, Hiraeth Artistic Productions in London mounted an all-male Hamlet set in a Liverpool prison, with both buddy-bonding and multiple shirtless shots.

The Theatre de Vanves in Paris went even farther, with Hamlet (Robin Causse) completely nude throughout (the other players wore clothes).

Earlier this year, chestworthy actor and reality-tv star Tom Sandoval appeared on the Bravo talk show Watch What Happens Live to perform the "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his shirt off.  Presumably the intended audience wouldn't pay attention any other way.

Richard Oliver Gross, the New Zealand Sculptor of Male Nudes

Ok, I had to find out about this Richard Oliver Gross, who scattered statues of nude men all over the Kiwi landscape.   He doesn't appear in most directories of 20th century artists, but there's a brief biography in Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Born 1882 in Barrow-in-Furness, England.  That's my new favorite English village name.

Studied under Albert Toft, "an academic sculptor heavily influenced by the classics."  Moved to South Africa, where he married Ethel Jane Bailey in 1912.  They had three children.

Later they moved to New Zealand, and took up dairy farming near Helensville, on the North Island.

After World War I, he moved to Auckland, where he specialized in memorial sculptures, in association with two architects that he met at the Quion Club (a club for Auckland-area artists): William Gummer and M.K. Draffin.

Under their association, he sculpted at least 9 memorials, 8 with barechested or nude men.



1. The Cambridge Memorial (1923): a shirtless man digging.

2. The Auckland Grammar School Memorial: a naked man atop a sword.

3. The Havelock North Memorial (no nudity)

4. The frieze at the Auckland War Memorial Museum















5. The Wellington Cenotaph.

6. The Athlete (top photo).  It was so controversial that the headlines booted out the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.

7. The Holland Memorial (left)















8. The One Tree Hill Memorial.  A Maori warrior, not nude, but with muscular arms.

9. The Memorial to Michael Joseph Savage, the Prime Minister.

When criticized for his male nudity, Gross said that it represented our efforts to reach "spiritual accomplishment."

Right.  When I see naked men, I'm not usually thinking of spiritual things.










Gross disapproved of the new modernistm in art, and didn't do a lot of original works in the 1940s and 1950s.  He turned to writing poetry, and held many administrative posts, including president of the Auckland Society of Arts.

He died in 1964, survived by his wife and one son.

No specific evidence that he was gay.  But he did gay men everywhere a service by insisting that the male body could be inspiring and beautiful.

See also: Top Ten Public Penises of New Zealand

Top 10 Public Penises of New Zealand #1: The North Island

People in the U.S. tend to think of New Zealand as Australia's smaller, more remote cousin, notable only for Maori culture and some very weird movies.

But it has its own culture, with a distinctive English dialect, distinctive customs, foods, and folklore.

And a lot of beefcake.

Here are the top 10 public penises of New Zealand.    









1. Starting with Auckland, a city of 1.3 million on the North Island.

"The Athlete," at the gates of the Domain, Auckland's largest park, was sculpted by local artist Richard Gross in 1936.  Apparently he specialized in male nudes.  The City Council and church groups caused a fuss and forced him to cover up the dangly bits, but they're still visible on the nude runners in the frieze below.

2. This is a sculpture of a cloud and raindrops, according to sculptor Gregor Kregar.  It's outside the railroad station in the Auckland suburb of New Lynn

3. Paihia, a three hour drive to the north, is the site of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the British and the Maori came to an agreement in 1840.

Maori wood carvings, whakairo, often include nude men with unabashedly enormous sizes.

4. As you can see from this aroused whakairo in Hamilton Gardens, about 1 1/2 hours south of Auckland.

According to Google Translate, "ko haua" means "Is cut."a

5.  Te Kuiti, about an hour south of Hamilton Gardens,  is the sheep shearing capital of the world.  It hosts an annual World Sheep Shearing Competition (David Fagan has won 5 times).  And a statue of "The Shearer"

More after the break

What We Do in Shadows

What We Do In the Shadows (2014) is a mockumentary about four vampires sharing a flat in contemporary Wellington, New Zealand:

1. Viago (Taika Waititi, who also wrote and directed), a Byronesque partyboy.

2. Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), a sexually voracious Dracula.

3. Deacon (Jonathan Brugh, left), a newby (only 183 years old).

4. Petyr (Ben Fransham), an 8,000 year old inarticulate Nosferatu.

They are old-school vampires who vaporize in sunlight, have no reflection, and dislike crucifixes, but they have modern problems, like problems over chores, squabbles with friends and slaves, and how to meet potential victims in the increasingly tech-driven world of modern New Zealand.

Vladislav (left) butts heads with a shrewish female ex-lover, and another re-unites with his long-lost girlfriend.  There are no identifiably gay characters.  I counted at least one homophobic slur.  Yet there is a strong gay subtext in the struggles of four men living together.

Particularly with the newly-vampirized Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), who displays no heterosexual interest, before or after, and who "comes out" as a vampire to his best friend Stu (Stu Rutherford) in scene full of gay symbolism.

Vampires think of humans as either slaves or prey, so human-vampire friendships are scandalous.  Yet when Stu starts hanging out with the vampires, they all come to love him.  Then Stu comes as Nick's date to a vampire-zombie-witch masquerade ball, and they risk their lives to save him from becoming an appetizer.

None of the cast is apparently gay, although in interviews they often compare vampires to gay people, who also must "walk in shadows," hidden from a persecuting world.

In 2014?  Really?

Still, a perfect little vehicle for getting your mind off the roar of Christmas.

Fifty Ways of Saying Fabulous: A Gay Kiwi Boyhood

The gay-themed New Zealand movie Kawa (2010) was terrible, all about closets and angst and parents who fall to the ground screaming when they discover that their kid is gay.  But Fifty Ways of Saying Fabulous (2005), based on the novel by Graeme Aitkin, gets it nearly right.  It won't make my list of 10 Gay Movies I Loved, but it was pleasant.

The summer of 1975, in a small farming community on the vast plains of Otago, South Island, a place isolated from the rest of the world yet immersed in global pop culture.  Billy (Andrew Patterson, right) is 12-years old, overweight, feminine.

He hates farming and rugby, the two passions of everybody else in town, but he loves teen idol music and sci-fi tv, especially the glamorous space-explorer Lana (Judy from Lost in Space in the original novel).  So naturally he dons a black wig to become Lana, and his tomboy cousin Lou becomes her partner Brad, to act out interstellar adventures.

Billy's parents are nonchalant about his forays into drag, but at school it's downright savage, with bullying, bashing, and cries of "poof!"

He knows what a "poof" is: a man who wears dresses and knows "fifty ways of saying fabulous."  But he doesn't know what "gay" means.  Never once, in his twelve years of homophobic harassment, has anyone told him that same-sex desire or romance exist.  And maybe they don't know.  That was possible in Otago, New Zealand in 1975.  It was possible in my home town of Rock Island, Illinois; I didn't find out until 1976.

Then, as is the custom in movies, two things happen that change Billy's life forever.

1. Golden boy farm hand Jamie (Michael Dorman) arrives and begins strutting around with his shirt off or taking showers in the shed (in the book he bears a striking resemblance to David Cassidy).  Billy gets an intense, obsessive, undeniably homoerotic crush.  Same-sex desire most definitely exists.

2. Skinny, unpopular class nerd Roy (Jay Collins) starts putting the moves on Billy, who is surprised and hesitant ("Why do you like me?"), but soon warms up to his first boyfriend, complete with kisses and hugs and  theatrics.

Under Roy's tutelage, Billy come to understand what "gay" means.  His epiphany is not the least angst-ridden, and the reactions of the heterosexuals are not as homophobic as they would be in Kawa, set thirty years in the future.

50 Ways of Saying "Fabulous"

Speaking of Unfabulous, it evoked gay potential because the word "fabulous" has been gay-coded since the 1990s, keying in to the stereotype of gay men as overly-enthusiastic and overly-emotional.

On Seinfeld, George compliments Jerry's jacket: "I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality -- it's fabulous."

50 Ways of Saying Fabulous (2006) is about a boy learning to handle same-sex romance in 1970s New Zealand. 

The children's picture book, The Boy Who Cried Fabulous, by Leslea Newman, is about a boy who is delighted by everything around him:

What a fabulous coat, is it silk or wool?

What a fabulous bell, can I give it a pull?

What a fabulous door, does it open wide?

What a fabulous store, can I come inside?

The adults try to squash his enthusiasm as overly feminine, but finally he shows them how fabulous the world is.

There are many gay subtexts in the popular Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb (2008-) about brothers in a blended family: the endlessly inventive American Phineas (voiced by Vincent Martella of Everybody Hates Chris, left, with his brother Alexander), and taciturn Brit Ferb (voiced by bisexual actor Thomas Sangster, top photo).

The relationship between the stepbrothers, for one.
And their dad, voiced by Richard O'Brian, Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  

Reformed bully Buford and former victim Sanjeet are now inseparable partners, endlessly shipped in fan fiction, a throwback to the white-Indian couples of the 1960s, like Jonny Quest and Hadji.

Secret agent Perry the Platypus constantly tries to prevent mad scientist Dr. Doofenschmertz of Evil, Incorporated from taking over the world, or at least the "tri-state area."  The villain-nemesis bond is overtly portrayed as a romance, complete with love song.  When Dr. Doofenschmertz finds another nemesis, he "breaks up" with Perry, explaining "I didn't plan on it.  It just happened."

They've been subject to intense shipping too, usually with a teenage human Perry and Doof.  Here are some images on Deviant Art.

But the most obvious gay subtext comes when Phineas and Ferb set out to reunite Love Handelz, a pop group from the 1990s.  Former lead guitarist Bobbi Fabulous is now a hairdresser.  He believes that he is too old and "unfabulous" to perform again, but they convince him (in rap) that he's still attractive:

Phineas: The other guys play their instruments fine, but next to you, their looks are a crime!

Bobbi: Well, they say true beauty, it comes from within, but you have to be comfortable in your own skin!  So I exfoliate with this exotic cream. Just look at me: I look like a dream!

Phineas: You have to admit, he looks pretty darn good.

Bobbi: I'm fabulous!

See also: The Boy Who Cried Fabulous.