The Norwegian Fire Viking: Keefe's Fire Dance double is muscular and big beneath the belt, but the braggadochio and spelling errors....

 

Link to the n*de photos

In Righteous Gemstones Episode 3.3, Keefe entertains the family at Cousins' Night with a fire dance.  

A professional fire dancer taught Tony Cavalero how to use the rope darts, and stepped in when it came time to set them on fire.

The fire dancer is not listed in the IMDB cast list, so his identity remained a mystery to fans until recently, when Tony Cavalero "liked" his Instagram post about the experience.  He is Phillip Funderud, aka the Norwegian Fire Viking.  According to his professional description, he is  "a muscley circus artist/fire performer specializing in spinning and fire breathing."

It's muscular, dude.

His stunting profile says that after the Gemstones, he was hired to do fire dancing regularly on HBO shows, but nothing is listed on the IMDB.

Phillip is also a model, fitness trainer, general stunt performer, and bodybuilder (he competed for the first time at the NPR Atlantic Coast Championships in 2024, and won the True Novice award). 

There aren't many biographical details available, no home town or high school.  He speaks "a little Norwegian," so we can conclude that his parents moved to the U.S. before he was born or when he was a baby.

 Now Phillip lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He is heterosexual, with a wife and daughter posted in the third photo on his Instagram.  

More after the break

Pernille: Norwegian angst comedy with a gay dad, a bi nephew (probably), a gay wedding (almost), lots of funerals, and n*de Vikings

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I did my undergrad at a Swedish Lutheran college, where everyone had to read Ibsen and Strindberg (ugh!), and listen to Peer Gynt (shudder), so I don't trust Scandinavian fiction.  Even the comedies tend to the dark and dreary.  So, when Pernille (2021-24), renamed from the Norwegian Pørni for obvious reasons, appeared on Netflix as a "triumph of Norwegian television," I decided to do a little research before jumping in:

1. Any gay characters?  

2. How many deathbed scenes?

The premise: Pørni, a single mother (until she starts dating Bjørnar  in Episode 1.2), works for child protective services. After her sister's tragic death, she becomes responsible for her teenage nephew Leo (Jon Ranes)

Left: Gunnar Eiriksen plays Bjørnar, but I think this is a different one.

 Episode 1.3, "Don't Get a Boyfriend, Please":  "When Leo has an angry outburst during a match, Pørni urges him to deal with the elephant in the room." 

The elephant must have something to do with the request to not get a boyfriend.  Leo must be gay, and Auntie Pørni disapproves.

Nope, the elephant is: His dad killed his mother, and wll probably go to prison, but Leo hates him, and thinks that he should have died. 

Pørni advises that, regardless of the anger he feels, Leo owes the kid he attacked an apology, and he shouldn't have called him "mongo."  Not a gay slur -- it refers to a mental disability.

Episode 1.6: Leo has a "Big Day," but when I checked, it turned out to be his confirmation (joining the Lutheran Church).  And the guy sitting next to him is a family member, not a boyfriend.

Leo next appears in the plot synopsis in Episode 2.3, when a girl named Rains appears, and everyone is shocked: "I thought they broke up."  "No, they're just open to seeing other people."  Heterosexualized in Season 2!

But in Episode 5.6, which I skimmed through for another reason, Auntie Pørni asks Leo, "Have you seen Lukas lately?" with that eager gleam that you doubtless recognize from your childhood, when your parents were playing matchmaker.  He responds, "Not since I picked up the t-shirts for the bachelor party.  Why?"  "Oh, no reason."  Gleam, gleam, knowing smile. 

They use he/him pronouns: Lukas is a guy.  And it sounds very much as if Pørni is trying to push them together.  Maybe Leo has come out as bi.    

Actor Jon Ranes plays a youth gang member in the concurrent Flus (2022-24), and sings under the name Loverboy.  I don't know if he's gay in real life or not, but I have my suspicions.

I was so invested in skipping over the darkness, depression, and unyielding agony of life in Scandinavian comedies that I missed the elephant in the room:

Episode 1.1: While dealing with the grief over her sister's murder, Pørni learns that her elderly father (Nils Ole Oftenbro) is dying of an incurable brain tumor.  As he will be dead soon, he reveals a secret that he has been keeping for 70-plus years.

Yep he's gay.  And the brain tumor was a misdiagnosis.  He's fine; well, terribly depressed, but in a Scandinavian comedy, who isn't?  

Left: Nils Ole Oftenbro, early photo.  He's been acting since the 1960s.

 

More after the break. 

The bodybuilders behind the "Last Man Down": A dentist, a quidditch champ, a dentist, a big brother, a queer actor

The promo for the post-Apocalyptic thriller Last Man Down, on Netflix, was entirely involved with a shirtless, mega-muscular Grizzly Adams-type chopping wood.  What gay man wouldn't click on that? 

 Unfortunately, the story begins with a dead wife -- ugh -- and moves on to Grizzly meeting The Girl, who heals him, yada yada yada.

But I wasn't dissuaded.  The Grizzly Adams-type, producer-writer-star Daniel Stisen,  is so hunky that he must have appeared in something a bit less heterosexist, right? Or even gay-friendly?

Daniel was born in Mandel, a small town in southern Norway, to a bodybuilding father who taught him the tricks of the trade from an early age.  He began competing in powerlifting at age 16, and bodybuilding at age 20.  In 2006, he moved to Oslo to begin a modeling career and start his own bodybuilding website.  

According to his modeling profile, Daniel won't do nude shoots (darn it!).  He does give us a butt shot in Last Man Down, but the scene is ruined by the presence of a naked lady.  

He has a 50" chest, a 33" waist, and size 9 shoes.

Daniel's first role was Bodybuilder in Long Flat Balls 2 (2008) -- a comedy, not a porno.  After that, in Norway, London, and the U.S., he played: Hunk, Bodybuilder, Bodybuilder, Guard, Poker Player, Soldier, Soldier, Fighter, Police Officer, Police Officer, Body Guard, Warrior, Fighter, Bouncer, Body Guard.  Hardly any named roles.  

He's written and produced several short films, which don't have plot synopses on IMDB, but the titles tell all you need to know: Kill-X, Soldaten, Last Survivor, Gain, Retribution. Machismo to the max.

His Instagram and Facebook pages are full of his bodybuilding photos, with few depicting other people, so I can't tell if he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or both, or neither.  But a search on "Daniel Stisen" and "gay" revealed nothing but a lot of gay men drooling over his "perfect body."  

Oh, well, I tried.  But nearly every male cast member of Last Man Down seems to be a bodybuilder, so I researched the rest of them.

1. Kamil Lemieszewski,: no gay references, but a photo of him in the shower on Big Brother Poland gives us a glimpse of his penis.

More after the break

"Home for Christmas": The Girl with 5 Boyfriends and a Girlfriend

One reason I hate the holidays is my memory of many Christmases past with endless dissimulations and awkward silences.  Some of my relatives back home had a "don't ask, don't tell policy," and others didn't know at all (and would start screaming if they did), so:
West Hollywood became Santa Monica
Gay Pride became "a street fair"
Volunteering for the AIDS Project became volunteering for Big Brothers
The Metropolitan Community Church  became First Presbyterian
The boyfriend became a "friend," if I mentioned him at all.
And I had a "girlfriend."

So I was interested in Hjem til Jul (Home for Christmas), a Norwegian short series in which 30-year old Johanne (Ida Elise Broch) gets so tired of her family's constant sneers and digs about being single that she blurts out "I have a boyfriend!"

Now she has three weeks to find a boyfriend for real and present him at the Christmas Eve dinner!

I know, this is the plotline of about 50% of Hallmark Christmas movies.  But bear with me.

With the help of her roommate/best friend Jørgun, Johanne posts a provocative profile on a dating app.  Some of the men are utter jerks, like Paul (Nader Khademi), who goes beserk in an escape room and then yells that they aren't intellectual equals, but most are perfectly nice, with one fatal flaw:

1. Stein (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen,top photo), a fitness enthusiast whose idea of a date is a spin class.

2.Henrik (Oddgeir Thune), who is old enough to be her father, and may in fact have dated her mother.

3. Jonas (Felix Sandman, left), only 19 years old, who is amazingly good in bed but dumps her by claiming that he's "leaving for Bali to go to college."

She also meets people on the street, at parties, and at the hospital where she works as an unconventional, "let's bend the rules" nurse:

4. Thomas (Kinsgford Siayor), a "cry on my shoulder" Christmas tree salesman and bartender.  He turns out to have a girlfriend.

5. Raul (Paul Andino), the hospital's "cheer up" clown.  Johanne just isn't into clowns.

6. A woman Johanne meets at a party, who goes down on her on the train.  She's just not into women, either.

After some subplots involving patients at the hospital and Johanne's parents trying out an open relationship, it's Christmas Eve. Who does Johanne bring home?

All eyes turn to the hallway as she brings in (spoiler alert!)

Jørgun, the roommate/best friend.  Everyone turns on their "little sister's coming out" smiles.  But then:

Raul the hospital clown, who has just started dating Jørgun, and:

The tough, non-nonsense hospital patient who has been mentoring her.

She brought people that she cares about. What difference does it make if they're romantically involved?

Gay characters:  The woman at the party.  Maybe Johanne's younger brother Sebastian (Arthur Hakalahti).  But everyone seems rather nonchalant about it. And subverting the "boyfriend for Christmas" trope queers the text.

Beefcake:  Three of the guys are displayed semi-nude.

Other Scenery:  Not very interesting.  The exterior shots are all on one street in the town of Røros

Misleading Title:  Johanne is not going "home for Christmas."  She lives in the same town with her family. It should be "A boyfriend for Christmas," but that tile is already taken by 5,000 Hallmark movies.

My Grade: B+.