West Side Story: Stick to the East Side

When I was in high school, we had to read West Side Story in conjunction with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  They were even bound together, in the same book.  Plus the orchestra played highlights from the score.  So I got a double dose, and I hated every moment of it.

Was there ever anything more heterosexist?

It's about two rival gangs in New York City, the Jets (white) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican).  Tony, a retired member of the Jets, meets a girl named Maria, who happens to be the sister of Bernardo, leader of the Sharks.  Guess what happens?

Right.  The Jets hate Maria, the Sharks hate Tony, conflict, conflict, conflict, our love will triumph, fight at the gym, death, everybody's sad.

A flame of heteronormativity envelops songs like "Maria" and "One Hand, One Heart."

Plus all of the Jets and Sharks have girlfriends.  Every one of them.

The most you can hope for is the tiniest bit of chest-pounding, girl-chasing buddy-bonding between Tony and Riff (the leader of the Jets), and Bernardo and his right-hand man Chino.

Horrible.  Absolutely unwatchable.

Which is surprising, when you consider that the writer Arthur Laurents, composer Leonard Bernstein, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim were all gay (see Hello, Dolly! for another example).

And about half of the cast members.

There isn't even any beefcake: the high-stepping hunks never take off their shirts.  Not once.

The original Broadway musical starred Larry Kert (Tony), Carol Lawrence (Maria), Michael Callan (Riff), Ken Le Roy (Bernardo), Jamie Sanchez (Chino),

The 1961 movie starred Richard Beymer (Tony, left), Natalie Wood (Maria), George Chakiris (Bernardo), Russ Tamblyn (Riff), and Jose de Vega (Chino).

Many other hunks have played Tony, such as Colt Prattes (top photo) and Matthew Cavenaugh.

Including some gay ones.

I can not figure out why.

See also: Leonard Bernstein's Mass; Michael Callan: A Gay Guy and His Pretend Wife.

The 12 Most Homophobic, Heterosexist, and Horrible Songs

Heterosexism is commonplace in the "girl! girl! girl!' banter of popular music.  But some songs are so heterosexist, homophobic, or otherwise horrible that I literally can't stand to hear them.  If they come on tv, I click the channel, and if I can't find the remote, I run from the room.  If they're playing in a store, I leave. And heaven help the friend who starts singing one of them!

1. "It's a Man's World" (James Brown, 1966)

It's a man's world, but you're nothing...nothing at all, without a woman!

(See: Homophobic Moments in Music)

2. "She Bangs" (Ricky Martin, 2000).

A gay guy singing about how much he likes the way a girl moves, and then a pun on "shebang" and a dirty phrase for sex.  Can't get any more Uncle Tom than that.

3. "Stand Tall" (Burton Cummings, 1976)

December 1976: I was home sick, looking for a gay comic book, and thinking "No way am I a swish!"  And I heard on the radio:

Stand tall, don't you fall, don't go and do something foolish
All you're feeling right now is silly human pride.

Right, not gay, don't do anything foolish.

4. "Lady" (Kenny Rogers, 1980).

October 1980. I was cruising at the levee, looking for love, negotiating the incessant "what girl do you like?" chants of my family and friends.  And I heard:

Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor, and I love you.
Let me hold you in my arms forever more....

5. "When Doves Cry" (Prince and the Revolution, 1984).

June 1984: I'm on my way to Hell-fer-Sartain State University for the worst year of my life, and this ultra-feminine, super-gay coded guy starts singing about a heterosexual breakup:

How can you just leave me standing, alone in a world so cold?
Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold

(See Looking for Beefcake in Nashville.)

6. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Judy Garland, 1944).

Once I was sick and stayed home on Christmas day, and the drag queen next door was playing this horror by gay icon Judy Garland over and over and over. It's still the main cause of the spike in suicides every Christmas.

More (gulp!) after the break.

13 Things I Hate About Will and Grace

Will and Grace (1998-2005) was a multiple-Emmy award winning sitcom about a gay man, Will (Eric McCormack), his best friend Jack (Sean Hayes), and their heterosexual female life partners, Grace (Debra Messing) and Karen (Megan Mullaley).

I hated it.  I still hate it.  I can't watch an episode without seething with rage and trying to kill my tv set.

Here are the top 10 things I hate about it.

1. I know that some gay men (and straight men) have feminine mannerisms, but every gay male character on the program, except for a few famous guest stars, prances.  They wear face cream and listen to show tunes and call each other "Mary."  Will goes even farther.  He believes that he is a girl, literally.  In one episode, Will's visiting cousin states that he needs "a woman's opinon" about something, and Will immediately chirps "Sure, I'll be glad to help."

3. Every gay stereotype you ever heard is absolutely true.  Grace or Karen frequently make astonishingly homophobic statements, and Will has to admit that they are correct.  In one episode, a gay man has to pretend to be interested in a woman, but he doesn't know how.  Grace says: "Treat her like your mother."  Will protests, "That's homophobic!  All gay men aren't in love with their mothers. . .um. . .ok, ok, treat her like your mother."

4. Gay men like sex with women.  A lot.  Will/Grace and Jack/Karen are always cuddling, smooching, pawing at each other.  Will and Jack occasionally kiss other women, too.

5. But they like sex with men more.  That's right, gayness is a sexual preference.  You have to try both sexes, and decide which one you prefer, like deciding between strawberry and chocolate ice cream.  In one episode, Will admits that he had sex with a woman in order to "be sure."

6. They like sex with men, but relationships are heterosexual. Will gets married to his cop beau in the last episode, but before that he had 3,000 episodes paired with Grace.  And the last episode fast-forwards to reveal Jack and Karen living together for 20 years.  Same-sex bonds come and go, but heterosexual bonds are forever.

7. There is no gay culture.  Will and Jack must spend all of their time among heterosexuals, because there are no gay political groups, social groups, sports groups, churches, or community centers.  Just a lot of gay bars, and in one episode a bookstore.



8. All gay men are affluent sophisticated lawyers who live in Manhattan and have gym-toned physiques and listen to show tunes and are utterly self-absorbed.  Of course, the straight women are the same.

9. There are no lesbians.  Will is constantly telling people that he is gay, but Grace only states that she is a woman. She doesn't have to mention that she's heterosexual, because lesbians don't exist.  Except in one episode, where they were portrayed as butch, predatory, and "confused."  One "changes back" into heterosexual after kissing Will.

10. Sean Hayes utterly refused to acknowledge that he was gay during the entire run of the show.  I can't imagine how much internalized homophobia and self-hatred it takes to do that.  Of course, if he actually believed all of the contemptible things his character was saying about gay people, I can understand why he would hate himself.

11. Leslie Jordan plays a flamboyantly feminine gay man -- even more feminine than the other characters, so much that Karen's homophobia changes from ridicule to hatred.  But he insists that he is straight.

12. Grace and Karen throw around "fags" and "homos" with utter abandon, and instead of calling them out for their homophobia, Will and Jack meekly accept the abuse.

13.  Sorry, I couldn't confine myself to 10.  But this is the last one: Will doesn't know that gay men exist.
In one episode, Will is going on a blind date.  As he sits in a restaurant waiting for his date, he strikes up a conversation with the man at the next table.  He states that he, too, is waiting for a blind date. 

At this point, what would you conclude?

Right.

But Will doesn't. He says: "You know how women are, they always like to make an entrance." He is gay, and yet he is absolutely certain that every man on Earth is straight.

Postscript:  I just heard some horrible news.  After 12 blissfully gay-free years, self-hating Willa nd Jack -- and their fag-hating  life partners Grace and Karen --are returning for another season of homophobic hijinks.  Somehow, with the new fascist regime and the throwback of gay rights to the 1950s, it seems fitting.

March 1985: The Brady Bunch Dad Plays a Swishy Queen

You have to be careful watching tv.  The producers, actors, and directors are not your friends; even when they are gay, they are often Uncle Toms.  So it's impossible to avoid frequent statements that assert that everyone on earth is heterosexual, that you do not exist:
"Well, Joe, you're getting to that age when you start to notice girls"
"All guys look at girls.  It's only natural."
"She's every man's fantasy."

If you are careful, you can usually avoid the more virulent statements that assert that you exist, but you are a swishy joke or a predatory monster.

I let my guard down one night in the summer of 1986.  Who would expect virulent homophobia on Murder, She Wrote?

I had no interest in the Sunday night old-person's series (1984-1996) about a small-town mystery writer (played by Angela Lansbury) who kept stumbling across -- and solving -- murders.

Usually the victim was a relative or friend -- "Oh, no, you invited Aunt Jessica to Thanksgiving!  That means one of us will die!"

But Alan was a fan, for some reason, and that Sunday evening, we watched an episode called  "Footnote to Murder" (10 March 1985).

Jessica goes to a mystery writer's convention full of petty jealousy, feuds, backstabbing, and vindictiveness, and of course someone ends up dead.  Unfortunately, her best friend is the prime suspect.

 Robert Reid, formerly the Brady Bunch dad, played swishy uber-stereotype Adrian Winslow, who is criticized for writing novels about "Greek boys mincing about."

"At least my books sell," he simpers.

Who's buying all of these mysteries about Greek boys mincing about?

Although an uber-swishy, lavender-laced, fruit-flavored 1950's stereotype who writes about swishy queens in in ancient Greece, he's also closeted.  "The young man I was dining with last night was a reporter," he explains.

So the word "gay" is never used.  Just a lot of condescending smirks and whispered innuendos.

At least he's not the murderer, just a swishy red herring.

At the time I didn't think anything of it -- virulent homophobia was commonplace on tv during the 1980s.

Then, in 1992, Robert Reed died.  Of colon cancer, but he turned out to be HIV positive, resulting in crazy media headlines like "Mike Brady Had AIDS"!

And his Brady Bunch costars revealed that Reed was, in fact, gay.  They all knew, back in the 1960s, but of course they couldn't say anything for fear that having "America's Favorite Dad" come out would destroy his career -- and their show.

So a gay man agrees to play this horrible 1950s stereotype?

He also hated The Brady Bunch, and actually refused to appear in some episodes that he thought were particularly stupid.

A paycheck is a paycheck.  You did what you had to do, in those days.

See also: Christopher Knight/Peter Brady, Barry Williams/Greg Brady; and Razzle Dazzle: 1970s Variety Shows.

Uncle Tom Award #8: Chris Colfer's Land of Stories

You probably remember Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel, the gay kid on Glee.  He is still acting (in 2015 he played the young Noel Coward), and producing, but arguably his main claim to fame today is the juvenile fantasy series Land of Stories.  The first, Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, appeared in 2012, and shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, probably because of the name recognition.

Other books in the series, Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns (2013), Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning (2014), and Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms (2015), have also done well.

A gay author who played a gay person on tv and supports innumerable gay charities, from It Gets Better to the Trevor Project to Uprising of Love (for LGBT Russians)?  Obviously he would make gay people an unremarkable part of his fictional world.

Obviously.

Right?

Um...

The premise is well known from such properties as The 10th Kingdom and Once Upon a Time: fairy tales are real, historically accurate depictions of events that occurred in a parallel reality.  Teenage twins Alex and Connor (a boy and a girl) find themselves in Fairy World, and change the course of both fairy and human history.   Let's go through a run-down of the major characters;

Alex dates a boy named Rook, and Connor dates a girl named Bree.  Next!


Their mother, Charlotte, gets a new boyfriend.  Next!

Jack, the grown-up Beanstalk Climber, marries Goldilocks of Three Bears fame.

The Evil Queen of Sleeping Beauty fame had a boyfriend.  Sleeping Beauty herself is married to Prince Charming.

Froggy, aka Charlie Charming, aka the Frog Prince, is dating the grown-up Red Riding Hood.

That leaves a couple of very minor characters who don't mention any specifically heterosexual interests.

There isn't even any room for a Dumbledore to be gay and closeted and come out after the fact.

There aren't even any potential gay subtexts, as every major relationship is carefully organized into a boy-girl pattern.

Let's review:

A gay author who played a gay person on tv and supports innumerable gay charities has written a series of juvenile fantasy novels in which every single character of consequence is firmly and undeniably identified as heterosexual.

Hey, Uncle Tom...um, I mean Chris, I thought you supported gay kids' right to exist?

Uncle Tom Award #2: So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance (2005-) is a dance-competition series that is too heterosexist for words: men and women paired together to replicate the myth of universal heterosexual desire and the erasure of gay people from the world, over and over, week after week.  Sometimes gay men, like Travis Wall, or men who look gay, participate in the brainwashing, whereupon homophobic host Nigel Lithgoe tries his best to turn them straight, saying things like "Isn't that a hot woman you're dancing with?  Aren't you lucky to be dancing with such a beautiful woman?"


Once they had two men, Mitchell Kiber and Misha Belfer performing -- for the shock value, introduced by the song "It's a Man's World":
It's a man's world,
But you're nothing -- nothing at all -- without a woman.

When the male couple performed, Mr. Homophobe told them point blank that they shouldn't be dancing together, that they should "dance" with women: "Who knows, you might like it!"

Very easy to see what he really meant: "Don't be gay, try sex with women.  Who knows, you might like it!"

Utterly disgusting.  And it's not only still on the air, it's popular!

In 2008, Nico Archambault won in the Canadian version, and became the resident choreographer in 2009-2010.  He has also performed in The American Music Awards, Starmania, and several music videos, and starred in two movies: Nureyev (2009), about the life of gay Russian dancer Rudolph Nureyev, and Sur le rythme (2011), about a female aspiring dancer who falls in love (he plays the romantic lead).

Nico is heterosexual, but growing up, he was often "accused" of being gay due to his interest in dance, so he suffered severe trauma.

How traumatic to be accused of something so horrible!

He has designed an anti-bullying t-shirt line called "Stand Up, Rise Above."

Rise above the taunts of the bullies who "accuse" you of being gay?

Hey, Nico, did you know there are kids in the world who are actually gay?

See also: It's a Man's World.

Brock Ciarlelli: The Uncle Tom of "The Middle"

As a long time fan of the dysfunctional-family sitcom The Middle (2009), I have complained several times about the incessant heterosexism: boys like girls, girls like boys, period, end of story.

Charlie McDermott's Axl has some gay subtext scenes.

I thought that preteen Brick was gay, but no, the minute his character hit puberty, his "hormones" kicked in, and he became girl crazy.

And that's about it.

There is a recurring gay character, sort of: the uber-stereotypic swish Brad, Sue's high school friend.  The joke is: no one realizes that Brad is gay except Sue's parents, Frankie and Mike.

Certainly not Sue, who is unaware that gay people exist.  Not even Brad, also unaware.

Wait -- don't these teenagers watch Glee?  

So who is this person with the 5,000 teeth who has won two Young Artist Awards for his contribution to the erasure of gay people from the world?

His name is Brock Ciarlelli, and he's 19 years old, a Littleton, Colorado native currently studying at Chapman University.

Other than The Middle, he only has two projects listed on the IMDB: a walk-on in the thriller 2.0 (2010) and the tv movie Beth and Ali (2013).

Asked if he minded playing a gay character, he said "no."

Asked about his character's obliviousness to his gay identity, he said: "to me, that says that sexual orientation doesn't matter."

I've got news for you Brock: sexual orientation matters a great deal to the LGBT kids who are told daily that no gay people exist.

Brock and other teen favorites, such as Nickelodeon's Nick Cannon, are involved in an anti-bullying program where they talk to kids in classrooms via Skype.

That doesn't make up for being an Uncle Tom.

Postscript: In the October 14, 2015 episode, Brad comes out to Sue, sort of:

Brad:  "Sue, I have something to tell you.  I'm...."
Sue: "I know."
Frankie (voiceover): "Since Brad had the courage to tell Sue who he was...."

Ok, the word "gay" was never used.  It still must never be spoken, only implied.

See also: Axl in Underwear; Raising Hope/The Middle

Culture Club: From Hinting "We're Gay!" to Yelling "We're Straight"

In 1982, the conservative retrenchment had not quite set in yet, and hinting that you might be gay marked you as naughty, scandalous, and cool.  So the Culture Club pretended.

Lead singer Boy George was actually gay, and drummer Jon Moss (left) was bisexual.  The other band members, Mikey Craig (below) and Roy Hay, were heterosexual.  But they all had fun inviting speculation, giving coy answers to inquiries, and recording songs that dropped the "girl! girl! girl!" refrains in favor of hints and signals.

Some of their songs treated sexual identity as a choice.  You could decide to be straight today and gay tomorrow, why not?

"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" (1982)
In my heart, the fire's burning
Choose my color, find a star.

Sometimes "gay" and "straight" were just labels, unable to capture the fluidity of desire.

"Karma Chameleon" (1983)
I'm a man without conviction,
I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction.

But by 1984, the era of Ronald Reagan and Rambo and Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and Brave New World, only heterosexuals were welcome. Homophobia skyrocketed.  At first Culture Club rebelled:

"The War Song" (1984)
Now we're fighting in our hearts, fighting in the streets
Won't somebody help me
Man is far behind in the search for something new
Like a Philistine, we're burning witches too.

Then they gave up and started yelling, loudly, that they were just kidding, they had been heterosexual all along:

"God, Thank You Woman" (1986)
Woman, thank you, thank you.
God, thank you, woman.
Woman, you're so sweet, I would give my heart to you.
There's nothing I wouldn't do.

Then they went away.

Boy George waited until 1995, when the conservative retrenchment was over, to reveal that he was, in fact, gay.

See also: Subtext Songs of the 1980s; The Village People

Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Slave as Object of Desire

In the first years of the twentieth century, everyone read Uncle Tom's Cabin, the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) that, in Abraham Lincoln's famous joke, "started the Civil War."

Or they went to see one of the many silent film or theatrical versions.

 The characters and events were as intimately familiar as anything in today's Harry Potter or Twilight series.

You would call anyone evil a Simon Legree.

Anything with an unknown origin was compared to Topsy, who was never born; she "just growed."

Jokesters called anyone impossibly virtuous a Little Eva.

And Uncle Tom, the doddering, creaking, white-haired, who sang and danced and reveled in his slavery, proclaiming it the best of all possible worlds?

By the 1940s, his name was being applied to African-Americans who supported or abetted racist policies.  Today anyone in an oppressed group who sells out to the oppressor is called an Uncle Tom.

Like the gay writers and actors who fill our tv screens with screaming-queen stereotypes.

But in the original novel, Uncle Tom was no sell-out: he was strong-willed and principled, standing up to slave owners to obey the dictates of his conscience.

And he wasn't a doddering oldster: he was in his 40s, still strong, his muscles an object of both admiration and fear.

The comic book versions depict him as more of a sex symbol than an elderly minstrel, his overalls falling open to reveal his massive chest.

The  poster for the 1965 film version (top photo) shows the back side of a naked muscleman, and promises: "the real story of how it all happened -- the SLAVES, the MASTERS, the LOVERS!"

Although the movie contains no nudity and no lovers.

Uncle Tom has a wife in the novel, but she is of minimal importance.  What is important is the homoerotic desire that he elicits in his owners:

Simon Legree, who beats him because he refuses to harm another man.

And especially Augustine St. Clare, the gay-vague fop who opposes slavery even though his wife forces him to own slaves, and who wants to free Tom but can't bear the idea of not being able to gaze on his sleek, shimmering muscles anymore.

See also: The Uncle Tom Award #1: Todd Graff; and Brock Ciarlelli, the Uncle Tom of the Middle.

Weeds: Gay and Gay-Vague Drug Dealers

You're probably wondering what Alexander Gould has been up to since he played David Collins, the young heir to the Collins fortune, in the 2005 reboot of the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows.

He's done some voice over work and guest starred on several dramas, such as Supernatural and Pushing Daisies.

He starred in How to Eat Fried Worms (2006) and the short Ties (2011), about a man (Jacob Grodnik) who gets stuck in a junkyard while taking his father's ashes to a memorial service, and bonds with the teenage Evan (Alexander Gould).

But he's most famous for Weeds (2005-2012), about suburban housewife Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies, and eventually rises through the ranks of an international drug syndicate.  Her oldest son Silas (Hunter Parrish, left) assists her.

Alexander played Shane, her youngest son, a sensitive, often-bullied boy with a violent, unpredictable side.  After several seasons of out-of-control behavior, he settled down, went to the police academy and became a LAPD cop.

Shane expressed little heterosexual interest, except when he was goaded on by his friends or his uncle, leading fans to wonder if he was gay.  Not to worry: in Season 6, the writers took care of that little "problem" by giving him a girlfriend.

There were a couple of "real" gay characters on the show: Sanjay (gay actor Maulik Pancholy), one of Nancy's dealers, who was gay for a few seasons then turned straight and married a woman; and Josh (Justin Chatwin), who was selling marijuana to kids, breaking Nancy's cardinal rule, until she discovered that he was gay and blackmailed him.

Sounds rather homophobic.

Oh well, at least there was ample beefcake.  And Alexander is a gay ally.  He wore a white knot to the 2009 Emmy Awards to symbolize his commitment to marriage equality.

See also: David Collins, Gay Heir to the Throne

Cameron Monaghan: Being Not-Gay is a Choice

I've never seen Shameless, the long-running British series (2004-) or its American counterpart (2011-), about the antiheroic Frank Gallagher and his sociopathic brood.  One of his "problems" is a gay son, Ian (played by Gerard Kearns in the U.K. and Cameron Monaghan, left, in the U.S.).

My problem: Ian often has relationships with women (at least in the U.K. version).  In the sixth season, he settles down to a long-term relationship with a woman.  Asked if he's bisexual, he replies "No, I've just found the right person."  Apparently every man, gay or straight, is looking for the Woman of His Dreams.

It's become quite a film convention to present "gay" male characters who prefer relationships with women (other examples can be found in Party Monster, Transamerica, Noah's Arc, Chelsea Boys, and of course Will and Grace).   Instead of stating that the characters are bisexual, producers insist: "No, they're gay.  It's just that, like all men, they find sex and romance with women infinitely superior." A blatant Uncle Tom attempt to demean, diminish, and erase same-sex desire.

Gerard Kearns apparently disliked playing a "gay" character for six years; in an interview, he said that the gay sex scene were "awkward" and "made him squirm."

But Cameron Monaghan doesn't seem to have a problem with it.  He previously played a gay teenager in the short Two Boys (2010).

And in the Disney movie Prom (2011), his gay-vague Corey helps best friend Lucas (Nolan Sotillo) get a date with the Girl of His Dreams, but Lucas realizes that he would rather be with Cory.  They blow off the prom and go to a concert together.

Still, the actor doesn't seem to be very savvy about gay identity, implying in an interview that his character "made the choice" to be gay.

He is so often rumored to be gay that he recently "came out" as not-gay on Twitter: "No, I'm not gay. Yes, I play a gay character. No, the question should not be relevant."  Apparently he is not familiar with the terms "straight" or "heterosexual."

Struck by Lightning: A Big, Scary Gay Scandal

23-year old Chris Colfer, the gay actor who plays the uber-feminine Kurt on Glee, made waves in January 2013 when he wrote, produced, and starred in the black comedy Struck By Lightning.  He plays high schooler Carson Phillips, who doesn't display any romantic or erotic interest in anyone but is probably supposed to be gay.

Carson aspires to go to Northwestern University, major in journalism, and become an editor at The New Yorker (how's that for a specific goal?).

The best way to get into Northwestern?  Submit a literary magazine that he edited.
The best way to get good submissions?  Blackmail students into submitting.

I'm not sure that's logical, but there's scandal aplenty to draw from.

1. Claire (Sarah Hyland) is having sex with the brother of her boyfriend (Robbie Amell, below, previously of True Jackson VP), who also happens to be the coach.

2. Rich kid Nicholas (Carter Jenkins of Aliens in the Attic, top photo) is secretly gay, and involved with drama club queen Scott (Graham Rogers).
3. Dwayne (Matt Prokop) smokes pot.
4. Foreign-exchange student Emilio (Robert Aguirre) is really from San Diego.

Plus there's a nude photo, a Goth girl into S&M, a baby born out of wedlock, and addiction to prescription drugs.  Eventually the entire student body hates Carson.

To make matters worse,  Carson's application was "lost in the mail," so he doesn't get into Northwestern, and will have to attend community college (he didn't have a safety school?).  But it wasn't really lost in the mail, his crazy mother destroyed it so his dreams wouldn't be realized.

But it's all irrelevant anyway, since Carson is dead.  He's struck by lightning in the first scene.  All of his morally suspect skullduggery was futile.

But everyone in the school, including the kids who hate him, comes to the funeral.  Apparently he touched their lives. . .um. . .somehow.

I don't quite understand what the movie is getting at.  Is it the moral of The Simpsons: "Never try"?  Is it "Don't make your goals so darn specific?"  Is it revealing the sordid underbelly of a "perfect" high school?

And Chris Colfer wins the Uncle Tom Award for his depiction of being gay as a big, scary scandal.  Some 43 years after Stonewall. (At least Carson doesn't blackmail the gay kid).

Gay Characters with Girlfriends

Why are so many gay male characters attracted to women?  And even state that they find women far more attractive than men?

Of course, a few gay men are attracted to women, and a few straight men are attracted to men.  They are technically bisexual.  For the overwhelming majority of gay men, women can be friends, period, just as, for the overwhelming majority of straight men, men can be friends, period.

In Party Monster (2003), homicidal club kid Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin) is identified as “gay,” not heterosexual, not bisexual.  But gay producers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey found it necessary to give him a girlfriend.  With her help, he almost escapes from his destructive “homosexual lifestyle.” 

 In Transamerica (2005), Kevin Zegers plays a teenage hustler named Toby, who again is “gay” but never glances at a boy. Instead, like “all” gay teenage boys, he spends a lot of time kissing girls and putting the moves on older women. 

 

On the Logo series Noah’s Arc, aspiring filmmaker Noah (Darryl Stephens) falls for the “straight” Chance Counter (Doug Spearman), who tells him that they can be together only if there is a woman involved. At first Noah is horrified, but then he reconsiders. He goes to the rendezvous, and begins kissing the woman enthusiastically until Chance calls things off.

On Shameless, Ian (Cameron Monaghan) is "gay," but has frequent romances with women.

The Chelsea Boys comic strip, which appears in many gay weeklies, not only proclaims that gay men are attracted to women, it criticizes those gay men who refuse to recognize this "law of nature."  In one continuity, the gang returns from the New York Gay Pride Parade to stumble upon the muscular naïve gay male Sky with a woman.  They are outraged: Sky  has obviously been brainwashed into believing that only heterosexual romance is valid.  But Sky argues that this is what Gay Pride is about in the first place, the freedom to have sex with whomever you want, male or female.

Although I agree that adults of any gender should be free to engage in consensual sexual relations, that's certainly not what Gay Pride is about.  
  

Sheer heterosexism again, proclaiming that all men, gay or straight, are interested in women. 

Uncle Tom Award #3: High School Musical

Time for another Uncle Tom Award, given to the actor, director, or producer who most effectively promotes heterosexism.  Award #2 goes to Kenny Ortega and Lucas Grabeel of High School Musical.

The Disney franchise (2006, 2007, 2008) was a parody of 1980s teen comedies, a boy-girl hetero-romance, and a paeon to "being who you are," as high schoolers Troy (Zac Efron, left), Chad (Corbin Bleu, below), and their teammates are torn between the machismo of sports and gender-transgressive singing and dancing in the Drama Club.

Lucas Grabeel played Ryan Evans, stylish, feminine, gay-coded brother of the quasi-villain Sharpay (Ashley Tinsdale).  Many fans point to the song "I Don't Dance," in which he tries to convince the Chad to perform in the upcoming talent show, as gay-subtext classic, loaded with innuendo and homoerotic energy.  Here's a clip.


 In the stage version, he's gay.

But not in the movie.  He couldn't be.  Director Kenny Ortega explains: "None of the kids can be gay, because they're too young to have sex."

So parents festoon their boy babies with bibs reading "Chick magnet."  Kindergarten boys and girls exchange valentines, and everyone says "Oh, how cute!"  But being gay is not about desire or romance, it's about sex, so if you aren't sexually active, you're not gay.

That's pretty disgusting.

 Attuned to the many "Ryan is gay" rumors, the writers gave him a girlfriend in the last installment.

Lucas Grabeel has been the subject of some gay rumors of his own, especially after he played Danny Nicoletta, the photographer friend of Harvey Milk who struggled to keep his memory alive, in Milk (2008).  He responded to them with an offensive statement on his website.  He really, really, really doesn't want you thinking he's gay:

"As an actor, you play roles. I'm NOT Ryan Evans. I'm NOT Kelly Kuzio from Veronica Mars, I'm NOT Lex Luthor [from Smallville]... I'm Lucas. But when I go to WORK,  I assume the character of whom I'm playing.. In the movie Milk, I PLAY gay.  That doesn't mean that I am gay. Sean Penn, one of the greatest actors of our generation, is playing Harvey Milk, a gay character... but he is married to Robin Wright-Penn. Most people in this movie are straight men playing gay men.... Emile Hersch, James Franco, and Diego Luna are just a few...."

Wow, quite a list.  Is there anybody in the world, who is really, actually gay, Lucas?  Or are gay people mythical creatures, like unicorns?

Why did you even agree to play a gay character?