November 22, 1963: Failed writer goes back to practically perfect 1960. Does he buddy bond, or meet The Girl? With Franco d*ck but no gl*ry holes

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I love time travel stories.  I've read all the classics: "All You Zombies," "A Sound of Thunder," "By His Bootstraps," "Mimsy were the Borogoves."   Time travel movies, not so much: they all seem to be about meeting, winning, and finding infinite happiness with The Girl. But when 9-22-63 dropped on Netflix, I saw that the disillusioned writer and his buddy work together together to prevent the Kennedy assassination.  Gay subtext -- ok, I'm in.

Scene 1:  Elderly Adult Education student Harry (Leon Ripper) reads a story about a boy whose his father murdered his mother and siblings on Halloween night, 1960.  Teacher Jake (James Franco) gives him an A+ -- right in front of the class.   What if he got an F?

Then Jake goes to the run-down diner near a horrible closed factory and orders a burger from elderly Al (Chris Cooper, backside on RG Beefcake and Bonding), who complains about his eating habits.  Not a good idea to diss the food you sell, buddy.  

The ex-wife comes in; they discuss his father's death, and then he signs the divorce papers.  This woman acts as if she is deeply -- very deeply -- in love with him, so why are they getting a divorce?  So they can reconcile later on, or just to establish that he's heterosexual?

Al goes into the kitchen for a few minutes, then returns, pale and haggard, and collapses.

Scene 2: Jake takes him home.  Big reveal: He's got cancer. "But you were fine five minutes ago."  "Come over tomorrow, and I'll explain everything"  

Back to class: A film about shock therapy in the 1930s, while students laugh and are bored.  So are we establishing that Jake is an awful teacher, or that kids today are awful?  

Scene 3: At the diner, Al says he'll explain everything  if Jake goes into the closet, looks around, and comes back.  I'd be suspicious -- there could be bodies in there, or he could lock you in and keep you a prisoner.  But Jake goes in...

And...plop!  He's outside the diner, but back in the early 1960s.  There's a billboard for Moxie Cola, and kids playing softball instead of scrolling on their phones.  So it's like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, You can also go back in time via a secret staircase  (on Dark Shadows) or in an elevator (Time at the Top).  

It's a wonderful, joyous, absurdly idealized world.  I couldn't get a screenshot that would do it justice. Everything is very bright, with primary colors dominating. Delighted factory workers file out for their lunch break.  A milkman (Colin Doyle) drops a bottle, and exclaims "For the love of Mike!"  No profanity in 1960, har har. Three girls drive past in a pink convertible.

An old guy notices that Jake is from the future, and yells "You shouldn't be here!"   So he runs back into the diner, and ends up in the present day.

"You were just in October 21, 1960," Al explains.  The time portal always goes back to the same moment.  He doesn't know where it came from or how it works, and he hasn't told anyone about it. But now that he's dying, Jake has to take over his goal: to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.  So he wants a random stranger to do the job?

Scene 4:  Jake accepts time travel instantly, but wonders why Al is interested in the JFK assassination.  "Because if JFK lived, he would have stopped U.S. involvement in Vietnam, all those boys would be alive, and the world would return to how it should be, always summer, primary colors, food that tastes good, polite kids, no divorce (hear that, Jake?), white men in charge (isn't your boss a woman, Jake buddy?), no gay people, and everyone joyful all the time."

Left: 1960s guys, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

"Then why haven't you prevented the assassination already?"

Al tells him to go back to 1960, carve something in the tree outside, and see if it's still there today.   

Scene 5: Jake goes back -- same moment. He pushes off the "You don't belong here!" guy, carves JFK while locals glare at him, and rushes back to the present.

Left: Josh Duhamel, who plays Adult Education Student Harry's father, the one who murdered his family on Halloween, 1960.  Yeah, I thought it was fiction, too.

Yep, the carved JFK is still there. But then it fades away.

"When you return to the present, time will reset. You can stay for years, but when you get back, it resets. And no matter how long you're away, only two minutes have passed in the present." That's a lot of very precise rules for a magical gateway.

Oh, the reason he suddenly got sick: he went through for two years while Jake was signing the divorce papers.

"So if everything resets, how can I prevent the JFK assassination?"

"You have to go through, and never come back."   

I guess we've established, that Jake hates his job, he has no friends, his wife has divorced him, and his father is dead, so he has nothing to stay in 2016 for -- except the internet, global travel, medical breakthroughs, gay neighborhoods, cultural diversity....but it's a trade-off: life is perfect in the 1960s.  Um...I know this is Stephen King's nostalgic memory, but still, it's a little naive. Ok, a lot naive. Life wasn't perfect in the 1960s, even for straight white men. Remember "Growing Up Absurd"?

Al has prepared a fake id for him, a lot of early 1960s money, and a notebook full of sports matches to bet on, so he can support himself.  

Jake thinks he is crazy and runs off.

Scene 6: The Adult Education Program graduation.  Everyone is bored, not-engaged, not joyous, and the principal disses Harry, so Jake says "Screw it!  I'm going back to 1960!"

Al's dead, so Jake grabs the stuff, goes to the diner, and heads through the portal.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Fin Burke: A little shop of horrors, a certain school of magic, and a grave in the clouds. With his boyfriend, some artistic d*cks, and Cole Sprouse

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I spend over an hour looking for beefcake photos of cast members of Welcome to Derry, and all I found was a potential Chad Root and two of Fin Burke, in his underwear and hugging his boyfriend. He's definitely getting a profile.

Fin, aka Finley, was born in Toronto around 2006.  His mum Dawn worked in the script and continuity department for 125 episodes of Murdoch Mysteries (2008-25), about a 19th century detective (Yannick Bisson).  She has also worked on Goosebumps, American Psycho, Wind at My Back, The Listener, and Children Ruin Everything.

Fin attended Greenwood College High School in Toronto, where he took classes in acting and musical theater and starred in a lot of plays:

Troy Bolton in High School Musical

Wayne Hopkins in Puffs: an orphan boy who is invited to attend a certain school of magic (not that one).

Seymor in Little Shop of Horrors. Wait, why is he dancing with a dude?

Tyler in Public Enemy, about a family dinner "with a surreal twist."  If I'm reading the French correctly, playwright Olivier Choinière is queer, so I imagine there is some gay content.  

He also starred (as a voice on the telephone) in the 2023 short Clara is Awake: A teenage girl gets texts from someone who claims to have met her last summer; "I really miss you.  I know you better than you think."  Ulp.

She texts back: "Leave me alone. I don't know you, and you're being weird."  He doesn't leave her alone.  

He graduated in 2024, and enrolled in the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal as an acting major.

Two on-screen acting credits since:

The first episode of Welcome to Derry (2025): the snarly, critical older brother of "bury your gays" Teddy.

The short Grave in the Clouds (2025): a Jewish man (Steven Hobé) discovers that his teenage son (Fin) has written an essay denying the Holocaust, and introduces him to a survivor. 

More after the break. 

"Welcome to Derry": "It" prequel with interesting monsters, Cold War paranoia, 1960s racism, and "bury your gays."

 

I've seen the 1990 miniseries and the 2017/2019 movie adaptions of Stephen King's It, with Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard (left), respectively, playing the transdimensional "destroyer of worlds" who animates every 27 years to kill kids.  The original novel has a gay character (buried right away), and the 2017/2019 adaption has a gay-subtext guy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer and James Ransone, who sort of comes out in a blink-and-you-miss-it gesture. 

So I don't have high hopes for the tv series Welcome to Derry (2025).  The usual Stephen King heavily closeted and buried-right-away traditions will be compounded by the setting: 1962 (every 27 years, remember?).  But we'll give it a look.

Scene 1: The Music Man (1962) is playing on the big screen.  Young teenager Matty (Miles Eckhardt), sucking on a pacifier, watches.  Manager Cal yells at him for sneaking in without paying, and chases him into the lobby.  A girl covers for him (always kind, nurturing girls and blustering, bullying boys, innit?).  

Notice that it's Christmastime (actually January 4, 1962), and Matty has a black eye, signifying that he's a victim of abuse (obviously --what Stephen King kid hasn't been abused?)

Matty runs out into the snow, past a billboard reading "Welcome to Derry, Birthplace of Paul Bunyan."

Several towns claim to be the birthplace of the folk hero, including Ankely, Minnesota (where they hold Paul Bunyan days every summer), and Bangor, Maine.

Matty hitchhikes, and is picked up by a male-female couple, a Wednesday Addams-looking girl, and a young boy who spells out everythiing; "L-I-E-S,"  Not R-E-D-R-U-M? Asked where he's going, Matty says "Anywhere but Derry."

Weird family, bragging that the daughter is "our little harlot," and having the boy spell scary words like "necrosis," "kidnapping," "strangulation," and "cadaver."  "I want out!" Matty screams, and they repeat "Out! Out! Out!"  

Mom gives birth to a bloody bat-winged thing that flies around and attacks everyone before deciding to kill Matty.  

A very impressive scene. But what's with introducing a major character, then killing him off?

Scene 2: Four months later, April 1962.  A Femme Boy  is making a list of the fighter planes that fly by.  

The plane lands, and two soldiers get out: Russo and Hanlon (Jovan Adepo, seen here with his boyfriend in Watchmen). Russo complains about being stationed in small-town Derry, where nothing exciting ever happens, har har.  But the Big Boss notes that as the northernmost air force base in the U.S., it's essential to monitor Soviet air space and prep for Cold War era-nuclear war.  Wasn't Alaska a state in 1962?  

Hanlon has rented a house in town; he and the Missus are longing for "normal."

"Well, if normal is what you're looking for, you're going to love Derry."  Har-har.

Scene 3: Cut to the "idyllic" small town.  A year after Bay of Pigs led the world to the brink of nuclear war, everyone is on edge. At the high school, they practice "duck and cover."

A teen girl walks through the halls, getting stared at and pranked by jars of pickles.  Her friend consoles her.

Meanwhile, Femme Boy tells his boyfriend Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler), "We're not alone in the universe."  He doesn't mean gay people, seven years before Stonewall -- he means aliens.  Maybe they have one hidden in the Derry Air Base.  Boyfriend thinks he's crazy.  

"Teddy sucks balls" on his locker. Homophobic or all-purpose slur?

"Did you study for the test?"

"What's the point, when World War III is imminent?"

Femme Boy is played by Jack Molloy Legault, who fills his instagram with photos of his girlfriend.  But I assume that Mikkel Karim Fidler is gay in real life because, when his talent agency got him tickets to the advance screening of Karate Kid: Legends, his date was a boy. 

More after the break

Russell Posner: The incredibly cute gay teen of "The Mist" plays a politician, gets tied up, shows his d*ck, and vanishes. With bonus n*de Morgan Spector and Jack Black

 

Link to the n*de dudes.

I used this photo of an incredibly well hung guy as an  illustration for my profile of the Norwegian Fire Viking.  He looks a lot like the incredibly cute Russell Posner, so I thought I would do a profile, on the off chance that they are the same person.

Turns out that the incredibly cute Russell Posner is not too easy to track down.

Famous Birthdays promises "A complete biography."  The complete biography consists of: "Canadian actor, born in 2003." 

Rotten Tomatoes adds: "began acting in commercials while in elementary school, and made his stage debut in Lost in Yonkers in 2012." When he was nine years old?

Broadway World likewise promises a "complete biography," and says only that he starred in The Mist.

His listing on We Audition says only that he's a "New York based actor" 

Trying to find him by googling "Russell Posner" and any of "high school," "college," "theater," "commercials," "Canada," and "actor" yields a guy from Florida who died at age 77 and a postdoctoral researcher in oncology.

Plus a shirtless photo of an incredbly cute guy who doesn't look like him.

Russell has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with the 11 year old son in Eugene! (2012), a tv movie starring Eugene Mirman.

He played the 14-year old son of  Dan Landsman (Jack Black) in The D Train (2015).  Dan is organizing a high school reunion, and tries to get the most popular guy in school, Oliver (James Marsden), to come.  They end up doing incredibly s*xy stuff.  

Next Russell played the son of a journalist who decides to research The Pirates of Somalia (2017).

Russell's most famous work to date is in The Mist (2017), based on the Stephen King novel.  I just read the plot synopsis on the fan wiki, but it sounds incredibly homophobic:

As a murderous mist descends upon the town, high school Adrian (Russell) is at a party with his girlfriend, getting bullied for being gay (wait, he has a girlfriend...).  Later while taking refuge in a hospital, he kisses Tyler (Chris Gray), who beats him up, then relents and agrees to do stuff.

He is kidnapped by a psych ward patient who sees "the incredible evil" in him.  Must be about being gay

His Dad says that he could have loved him "in spite of being gay,"  if only he were "right in the head."  In spite of?  

More after the break

Salem's Lot

Speaking of Lance Kerwin, he offers a strong same-sex romance in Salem’s Lot (1979), based on the Stephen King novel.  When failed writer Ben Mears (former Starsky and Hutch hunk David Soul) returns to his home town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine to exorcise his demons, he demonstrates that he is heterosexual by dating a glamorous art teacher (Bonnie Bedelia), but mostly he bonds with middle-aged men, the town doctor and his former English teacher.  Meanwhile, local teenager Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) finds that his love of theater, art, and his best friend Danny makes him an outcast in his small town. Go figure.

Ben immediately notices Mark and asks who he is, but he never gets the nerve to speak to him.  They stare wide-eyed at each other, but each looks away when the other turns.  Later, at an antique shop, they meet each other’s gaze, and each pauses as if waiting for the other to speak.  Ben smiles shyly: he is determined to wait for Mark to make the first move.  But the teenager quickly rushes on.

Soon the boys and young men of Salem’s Lot start disappearing, or dying of pernicious anemia, and returning with glowing eyes and fangs.  Even though the hard-bodied handiman Mike (Geoffrey Lewis) grows fangs after the English teacher invites him home for the night, most of the suspicion falls upon the elderly owner of the antique shop, and upon Ben himself, who was a child during a previous run of boy-murders.  However, the real culprit turns out to be Mr. Barlow, a blue-faced Nosferatu who likes to bite boys.

The heavy-handed association of vampirism and pedophilia, absent in the original novel, adds a cringe-factor to Ben and Mark’s erotic intensity.  One wonders why director Tobe Hopper didn’t cut the endless longing gazes and have Ben take a big-brotherly interest in Mark.  Surely in 181 minutes there's enough time for scenes with the two of them throwing a football around or going to a monster movie.

Or else cast Mark with someone much younger.  In the novel he is 11,  one of Stephen King’s stable of wounded outsider boys seeking replacements for fathers who are distant, dead, or psychotic killers.  But Lance Kerwin is 19, obviously an adult, not a child, and obviously in the market for a boyfriend, not a big brother.

And the wounded Ben, desperately seeking approval from father figures of his own, is pitiably unfit to be a big brother.  His mute, inept attempts at connecting with Mark suggest that he is fighting an attraction that he himself finds deeply distressing.

The climactic scene nicely combines staking vampires with staving off same-sex desire.  Ben goes to a standard crumbing, evil mansion outside of town to confront Barlow, and Mark, who was captured and tied up earlier, now escapes and literally bumps into him on the front porch.  They grab at each other: after three hours of staring, they are finally touching!

Horrified (but not shrinking away), Ben shouts “Run as fast as you can, and keep running!”  Ostensibly he wants to protect the boy from vampires, but Mark has just demonstrated that he can take care of himself.  Ben’s urgency seems precipitated more by the touch: perhaps it brought his hidden passion dangerously close to the surface.    

After Ben goes into the house, Mark waits on the porch for a moment, but he cannot run away: taking the initiative in their relationship, he confronts Ben in the crumbling drawing room.  “I told you to go!” Ben shouts.  “No!” Mark shouts back. He is not going anywhere.

Seething with rage and passion, they stand face to face, inches apart.  They must either fight or kiss.  Are they still thinking about vampires?

But then they are distracted by the gruesome death of the town doctor, the last of Ben’s old mentors.  It is time for Ben to grow up. The rest of the scene involves only a few words of dialogue, mostly “Mark!” and “Ben!”, as they stake Barlow, set the town on fire to “cleanse it” of the other vampires (the human residents have all fled), and head south in Ben’s land rover.

Two years later, they are living together in Guatemala (the surviving vampires are out for revenge, so they have to keep moving).  Both blond, tanned, and grungy, they could be brothers, but their unselfconscious touching of hands denote lovers.

One night the glamorous art teacher re-appears, a vampire with glowing eyes and fangs, and Ben stakes her.
We might conclude that Ben has finally exorcised the last of his heterosexual demons, that homoerotic love wins – except that the dread with which he first approached Mark has not subsided.  They have never relaxed and gotten to know each other.  In the novel, Ben wakes from an nightmare calling Mark’s name, and when he asks “Do you love me?”, Mark responds with a hug .  But here the two are still strangers, together out of necessity rather than love.

Salem’s Lot fails because Mark and Ben cannot express a coherent relationship. They are of the wrong ages to be substitute parent and child, they never establish a homosocial friendship, and their wide-eyed stares of unstated attraction never give way to tenderness or intimacy.  Both of the actors were comfortable with the possibility of same-sex desire. But the director linked same-sex desire too inextricably linked to pedophilia, vampirism, and dark sinister secrets to allow the love between Mark and Ben to ever break out into the light of day.

Shane Haboucha

 Shane Haboucha got off to a heterosexist start.  In the music video "Stacey's Mom," the 13-year old played a kid obsessed with the breasts of his school friend's mother.

Nothing for gay boys to like in that, except maybe the pubescent beefcake.

His exposure led to guest shots on Bernie Mac, Oliver Beane, That's So Raven, and CSI, plus a recurring role on Everwood (2004-2005).

Mostly girl-crazy characters, even in the gay-friendly Everwood.  Indeed, Bernie Mac was quite homophobic.   (in a promo, Bernie discovers that his nephew likes girls, and shouts "My boy's normal!").

But there were also gay-positive roles.Thee OC episode "The Secret" (2003), about a boy with a gay dad.

On CSI (2005), Shane played a gay-vague boy victimized by a pedophile.

On Without a Trace (2005), he played a gay-vague boy who plans to bomb his school.  The school bullies torture him so he'll reveal its location.

Desperation (2006), based on a Stephen King novel, gave Shane some homoromantic moments.  When his friend Brian (Darren Victoria) is hit by a car and suffers brain damage, David Carver (Shane) prays for his healing, and offers himself to God as a substitute sacrifice. Immediately after, he and his parents are captured by the demonic sheriff of a ghost town.  Brian recovers.  David saves the day.

Shane's last acting role listed on imdb is in 2013.  IMDB also says that he graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2014, and now lives in Irvine, California.

He hasn't updated his facebook or twitter accounts since 2013, but here's a recent photo.

Beefcake and Bonding Under the Dome

I don't watch a lot of prime-time tv, due to its incessant heterosexualization, but I have made an exception for the first three episodes of Under the Dome (2013), because I found the premise intriguing: an invisible dome lands on the small town of Carter's Mill, trapping the townsfolk and whoever happened to be passing through.  It lets in light and some air and water, but no sound or radio waves, so they can't communicate with the outside world.

The same device was used in the 1999 Simpsons movie, but that was just an attempt by the U.S. government to kill everyone in Springfield (in a comedy?).  The residents aren't sure who built their dome. Maybe aliens?

The producers changed the premise of the original Stephen King novel, to allow for an ongoing storyline.  Maybe they would also add some gay characters.  Or some gay subtexts.

It started badly out, like Fringe, White Collar, Dexter, and practically every other drama, with a plaint of universal heterosexuality, a boy and a girl smooching it up. 

Nor were there any "teases," characters who could be identified as gay because the producers forgot to establish their heterosexuality. By the end of the first two episodes, all of the main characters had lost a heterosexual partner, discussed one, or flirted with one, with the exception of Caroline (#4, below).

Over 1000 people are trapped under the dome, but the main cast consists of:

1. Barbie (Mike Vogel, left), a hitman or mob  enforcer trapped in town after he finished murdering the husband of 

2. Journalist Julia, who invites him to stay with her (thinking her husband is on the other side of the dome) and begins a serious flirtation.

3. Deputy Linda Esquivel, who lost her husband on the other side of the dome, and becomes the town's sole police force.

4. Caroline, an African-American lesbian attorney, a new character, not in the book.  On tv, small towns are always gay-free, so they had to make her trapped while "passing through town" with her partner and 5. Juvenile delinquent daughter Norrie, who hooks up with 

6. Teen nerd Joe (Colin Ford, top photo).

7. Big Jim Rennie (Dean Norris, left), a used car salesman and city councilman who flirts with the waitress in the diner and is maneuvering to take over the town.

8. Junior (Alexander Koch, bottom photo), Big Jim's disturbed son, who has kidnapped 9. His ex-girlfriend Angie.

So is there anything of gay interest?

1. Caroline and her partner responding to people who are not aware that lesbians exist. ("Two moms?  What do you mean?  I don't understand?)

2. A lot of beefcake. A lot of shirts off, showers, and bedroom scenes. Carter's Mill is quite warm for Maine in October.

3. After the requisite opening scene, there haven't been many shots of men and women smooching it up.  I guess all of their partners are trapped on the other side of the dome.

4. Barbie has been buddy-bonding with both Joe (on the good side) and Big Jim (on the evil side).  I wonder where he will stand in the coming cosmic battle.

Stephen King's Cell

In the 1970s, Stephen King single-handedly revitalized the moribund genre of horror fiction by using contemporary settings, small-town high schools and supermarkets instead of castles in Transylvania, and by making his protagonists “total guys” who listen to rock music, watch the Boston Celtics, and drink Budweiser, instead of mild-mannered scholars translating eldrich lore from the Assyrian. But he failed to modernize the homophobia of the genre: In The Shining (1977), the Overlook Hotel in Colorado is haunted chiefly because it was the site of unimaginable depravity during the Jazz Age. There was even sex between men! In It (1986), the monster takes on most terrifying form imaginable, a pedophile Clown; there are also two gay human monsters, a lipstick-wearing swish and a bisexual pervert who likes to watch animals die. In The Tommyknockers (1987), a lisping gay necrophiliac swish receives a gory, well-deserved punishment. In Everything’s Eventual (2002), a man who stakes out a highway rest stop in the hope of engaging in sex with other men! receives a gory, well-deserved punishment.

Contrary to the pattern, Cell (2006) contains no gay monster, human or otherwise. Tom, one of the three survivors who band together when everyone with a cell phone turns into a murderous zombie, is certainly a stereotype, a throwback to the “confirmed bachelors” of 1960s comedy: mild-mannered, soft-spoken, with long, nimble fingers and King’s usual “something of a lisp.” Yet Tom displays hidden reserves of courage, he becomes an invaluable member of the group, and straight protagonist Clay likes him – the highest praise a gay man can hope for! King even addresses the pedophilia libel by giving Tom a paternal bond with twelve-year computer geek Jordan (see, gay men aren’t all pedophiles after all).

But King is careful to make Tom’s gayness nvisible. He is identified as “gay” only twice, both times during the concluding chapters (by then, King no doubt reasoned, his homophobic readers would be too engrossed in the story to toss the book aside in disgust). Otherwise you have to parse it out through stereotypes and subtle hints. When they take refuge at Tom’s house, Clay notes the fastidious neatness and muses that it is characteristic of men whose lives “don’t necessarily include women.” When Tom plans to spend the night with a hysterical teenage girl, to comfort her, he asks, “You know I’m safe with her, right?” Clay nods; he understands that Tom actually means “I won’t try anything sexual because I’m gay.” Even though civilization has collapsed and they are facing horrifying danger, they are still unable to lower their guard and Say the Word.

See also: Two Zombie Movies with Gay Characters.