Twelve Forever: The First Gay Protagonist of Any American Children's Program

In Twelve Forever, a 12-year old girl named Reggie is terrified by the prospect of growing up, so she creates a fantasy world called Endless Island, and populates it with interesting characters like Flower Woman (with flowers for eyes), Brown Roger (a small, hairy thing), and Guy Pleasant (half rock star, half dog).


For antagonists, she conjures up the Butt Witch and her henchman Big Deal, who try to force her to grow up.  She convinces two of her real-life friends, Todd and Esther, to come along.









Sounds like H.R. Pufnstuf meets Peter Pan, except those islands were real.   I'm not so sure about Endless Island. It sounds very much like a psychotic delusion.

I became interested due to an episode in which the Butt Witch tries to break up the romance between two burly wrestlers, Mack and Beefhouse.  Two burly male wrestlers!

The other characters are completely nonchalant about their gender, saying things like "I can't wait to find my soulmate," and so on.

This is definitely a gay -positive show.  Reggie herself gets a crush on a girl named Connelly.

Unfortunately, Reggie is such a self-centered jerk that she's impossible to watch.  When Connelly displays interest, she makes an excuse and runs away.  Repeatedly.

Imagine: you're 12 years old, you find a girl you like, and she makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you.   How's that for a crushing childhood trauma?

Later, at the school dance (4 male-female couples and Reggie), Connelly shows up, and a flustered Reggie forces her friends to leave, even though they are having fun.

Isn't it always the way: you find a gay-positive character, and they're unpleasant and possiblypsychotic?

Oh,well, who am I to nit-pick?  This is the first gay protagonist of any American children's tv program, cause for celebration.

The Gay Connection of "Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles"

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles.  An instant New York Times bestseller!  A cross between J. Rowling and Douglas Adams!  The next Harry Potter!

Ok, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, and the Harry Potter series isn't bad, either.  I'll give it a try.  Of course, I judge a fantasy novel primarily on gay subtexts: deep, passionate same-sex bonds, or at least a minimum of heterosexual interest.

How much do you want to bet that Ronan gets a girlfriend?

Page 2: Ronan Boyle is a 14 year old intern in the Galway, Ireland garda (police force).

Page 25: He is recruited by the Garda Special Unit, a secret police force dedicated to relations the faerie folk -- leprechauns, trolls, and others,who live in their own world, Tir Na Nog, but like to transfer over from their world to ours to cause mischief.

So far, so good.  No hetero interest, but no same-sex romances, either.

Page 35: Ronan is a big fan of Dame Judy Dench, and when stressed, imagines conversations with her.  The actress is 84 years old, so it's probably not a hetero-romantic thing.

Page 51: His parents are in prison after being framed for the theft of a  4,000 year old mummified Bog Man, the oldest artifact in ireland, so he's living with his guardian, Dolores, "an absolute delight." No romantic interest mentioned.

Page 60: Ronan arrives at the training academy and meets the other recruits, including Log, a very tall, muscular, thick-limbed girl with the strength of a chimpanzee.  Doesn't sound like romantic interest.

And Dermot, a "dreamboat," who has broad shoulders and a square jaw, and is so tall he can block out the sun. Definite attractiveness. Ronan dreams of their "becoming mates," but he doesn't seem particularly interested in Ronan. Homoerotic interest!

Dermot is not pictured in the book illustrations, so let's imagine him as the top photo.

Page 115: He visits Lord Diamond Dooley, who he believes actually stole the Bog Man and framed his parents.  Not exactly Voldemort, but close.

Page 131: The Malton Hotel has been robbed of 30,000 euros of wine.  The suspect is probably Lovely Liam, a gancanagh-- everyone who sees him falls in love with him.

In the original folklore, the gancanagh is a male fairy who seduces only women.  Let's hope that "everyone" here is inclusive, men and women both.








Page 145: Ronan and Captain De Valera, must go to Tir Na Nog to investigate. Ronan respects her, but there is no heterosexual interest implied.

So far, so good -- inclusivity and no heterosexual interest.  But it seems that everyone important in Ronan's life is female: his guardian, Log, the Captain, even his police dog partner.

Page 156: The Bridge of Riddles is just the way into the faerie town of Nogbottom.  It provides a brief setback  -- not nearly worth naming the book after.  Someone is trying to emulate Harry Potter "and the Chamber of Secrets" or "the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Page 188: Ronan keeps his eyes averted, but both the Captain and a male troll get a glimpse of Lovely Liam and fall in love with him.

Score!  An inclusive love spell!

Page 220: While transferring the prisoners to Dublin, Log wants to take time out to visit the wax museum.  She wants to see the statue of Liam Neeson, whom she finds hot. Ronan states that he is open to the idea of "meeting a wax Liam Neeson," but would would prefer a wax Judi Dench. For that he would have to go to London, a trip he has planned a thousand times.

Page 237: They begin the next case, tracking down harpies in County Wexford.  There's a fight, and Ronan sees something that will propel the plot into the next book of the series.

Page 245: A male victim says "When this is all over, I'd like to take you to dinner." Ronan isn't interested  because the proposed dinner will be an an awful restaurant, but he says "Brilliant!  Sounds like fun!"

Brilliant!   This is an adult asking a 14-year old to dinner, so doubtless he has no romantic intent.  But it still follows the conventions of a romantic date request.

I wonder if the author is gay.  I look him up online: Thomas R. Lennon, Lt. Dangle on Reno 911!  Heterosexual.

Page 280:  We're almost done. Only a few pages left, and we'll be home free.  Ronan is cursed during the fight, and is forced to relive his most embarrassing memory over and over.  Which is:

Page 281: Last year his guardian, who thought he should get a girlfriend before high school, set him up on a blind date with a "pretty girl" named Bridget.  They were skating, and he was tryingt to impress her by showing off, and...he fell, splitting his pants.

Damn.  Mr. Lennon waited to the very end to heterosexualize the boy!

Although it was a set-up date, so maybe Ronan wasn't really interested...but he was trying to impress her, and he did say that she was "pretty"....

Page 286: The end.

How much do you want to bet that in the next book in the series, Ronan gets a girlfriend?

See also: Thomas Lennon: From Dangle to Felix.

7 Hunks from "Once Upon a Time," Season 7

Once Upon a Time, Season 7 is a blatant, unnecessary reboot.

Season 1:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Storybrooke, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 7: Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 1: The Evil Queen Regina has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Snow White.

Season 7: The Evil Lady Tremaine has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Cinderella.

 Season 1: 10-year old Henry Mills tracks down his birth mother, who happens to be Snow White's daughter, the only one who can break the curse.

Season 7: 10-year old Lucy tracks down her birth father, Henry Mills, who happens to be Cinderella's long-lost husband, the only one who can break the curse.

Yawn.  And they're fresh out of fairytale characters.  The only new ones who show up are Mother Nature and Baron Samedi, Hansel and Gretel, and Captain Ahab.  I don't remember Mother Nature actually being a character in any story, and Baron Samedi is a Haitian voodoo god.

Season 7:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

It's also a beefcake-limited season. The main characters are Cinderella, Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepsisters, Lucy, Regina...men mostly relegated to recurring and guest roles.  I could only find 7 respectable hunks.

1. Andrew J. West (top photo) as the adult Henry Mills, who has forgotten that fairytale worlds exist.  He published a bestselling novel about them, but insists that it is pure fiction.  Oh, and he's Cinderella's husband and Lucy's father.

2. Jeff Pierre (second photo) as Prince Naveen from "The Frog Prince," who is cursed by Baron Samedi but doesn't really turn into a frog.

3. Nathan Parsons as Hansel, who, after the candy house thing, ends up in Oz, and then in Hyperion Heights, where he becomes a serial killer.

4. Liam Hall as the Prince, who dates Cinderella before she marries Henry.  He doesn't have a first name because in the fairytale he's called Prince Charming, but that name is taken.

5. Kevin Ryan as Robert, who is working for Baron Samedi because his lover has been turned into a frog.

6. Dan Payne as Ivo, Hansel and Gretel's father.

7. Chad Rook as Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, who owns a magic fish hook that Captain Hook needs to....well, who knows?

Gay Subtexts in "Lovecraft Country"

Although I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature, I don't read much literature any more.  The few times that I've picked up novels, swayed by rave reviews, I'm inevitably disappointed; homophobic slurs and a boy-meets-girl lo-ooo-ove plotline that wasn't mentioned in the plot synopsis.  So I agonized over whether to buy Lovecraft Country.  But I was intrigued by the combination of Jim Crow racism and Lovecraftian monsters.

So I started:

Atticus, a 22-year old Korean War Veteran, comes home to discover that his estranged father has vanished, leaving only the command "Go to Ardham" (that's Ardham, not Arkham). So he and his Uncle George set out on a harrowing road trip from Chicago to Ardham, Massachusetts.

Letiticia, a childhood friend, insists on coming along.  "Uh-oh," I thought, "Lo.ooo..ove approaching!"  But she and Atticus never spark; in fact, on the way home Atticus takes the back seat, away from Letiticia.

En route to Ardham, the trio faces the horrors of Jim Crow America.  For instance, they go into a "safe" restaurant, only to find that the safe one burned down, and entering the white-only replacement results in a lot of white people with guns chasing them. 

Finally they reach Ardham, and discover that Atticus is the chosen one of an ancient secret society,  the Order of the Ancient Dawn, which disapproves of his blackness but really has no choice.  Wealthy Samuel Braithwaite and his son Caleb have orchestrated the disappearance to get Atticus there to perform a ritual. 

Atticus performs it, all right, but not the way the old rich white men would like.

Later segments show Letiticia moving into a haunted house, haunted by both ghosts and the white people who don't want her in the neighborhood; 

Hippolyta (George's wife) stumbling upon a doorway to another world full of unknown horrors and a very possessive woman.

Atticus, Uncle George, and Montrose (his father) investigating the mystery of a missing lodge member.

Henry (George's son) is pursued by an evil doll.

The characters are more proactive than most horror novel protagonists, actively taking part in their situation...and...

None of them.  Not one of them falls in lo...ooo.ooove.

Plus there's substantial buddy bonding between Atticus and Uncle George. 

I also suspect that Caleb has an erotic attraction to Atticus hidden behind his manipulations.

The lack of heterosexual plotlines made me think that author Matt Ruff must be gay, but he's married to a woman, and his other novels have hetero-romances.

I understand that a new HBO tv series has been ordered from the book, with Jonathan Majors  (top photo) as Atticus, Michael Kenneth Williams (second photo) as Montrose, and Courtney Vance as Uncle George.

Caleb has been turned into a girl: Christine Braithwaite (Elizabeth Debicki).  How much do you want to bet that she and Atticus fall in...well, you know.

Gary Gygax and the Homophobic World of Dungeons and Dragons

When I was in college, Dungeons and Dragons was The Big Thing.  Everybody who was anybody -- and by that I mean the guys who hung out at Adam's Bookstore -- played. 

Actually, I never got into it, but I always felt that I should.  On the surface, it seems appealing -- creating a Medieval character and going on a quest, with dragons, orcs, elves, mages, runes, magic swords, barrow wights, you name it.  But the actual play felt mechanical and soulless.  "You raise your sword. Throw the dice to see if you slay the goblin.  You have lost 3 strength points but added five points to your stamina.  Roll the dice again."

I've never got into board games, either.  They call them "bored" games for a reason.

But it still brings back memories of that halcyon time, when Tolkien,  Renaissance Faires, the Society for Creative Anachronism, Isaac Asimov, Old Norse Sagas, Celtic folklore, comic books, and Dungeons and Dragons evoked a bright, glittering alternative to the dull world of jobs and marriages that we were destined for.  So, out of nostalgia, I bought Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons.














Also the cover illustration was sort of cool, and author Michael Witwer is cute.

The first half of the book was very interesting, and very well written.  We hear about Gary Gygax (1938-2008) growing up in Chicago and then the far suburb of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, exploring an abandoned asylum, having paranormal experiences, buddy-bonding with his best friend Dan, getting involved with the fledgling military role-playing game community of the 1960s.

Finding a bright, glittering alternative to the dull world of jobs and marriages that they were destined for.

Then suddenly destiny hits.  Gary gets married and has a lot of kids, gets a job, earns extra money by writing and editing gaming magazines.

For awhile the gaming world and the mundane world co-exist.  Gary plays his war games most nights with groups of boys and young men.  Sometimes, when it gets too late, he spends the night.  His wife is certain that he's having an affair, and storms into the house, only to be relieved to find him surrounded by teenage boys.

Yest she never suspects that he might be gay?

Then Gary invents Dungeons and Dragons, with no fanfare and no detail. 

The rest of the book is dull, dull, dull!  Gary sells a share of the business for a 10% royalty, corresponds with gaming publishers, negotiates with p.r. firms, gets rich, buys a mansion, gets a regular seat at the Playboy Club, has affairs with lots and lots of young ladies -- to the consternation of his wife, who breaks up with him on the plane on the way to London.

The joy is gone, buried under an avalanche of ledge books and tax forms.

And I found out a lot about Gary Gygax. Though Witwer tries to sugarcoat it as much as possible, it becomes increasingly obvious that Gary Gygax was not a nice person.  Authoritarian, imperious, judgmental, a leering, sexist jerk, promoting old-fashioned gender stereotypes.  An "America: Love It or Leave It" warmonger.  And, I assume, homophobic.

At least the author is.  Gay people do not exist in his book except in one story.  The 1980s backlash against Dungeons and Dragons began when a 16-year old college freshman, James Dallas Egbert III, vanished from his college campus.

The media latched onto D&D as the culprit, no doubt causing him to commit suicide (actually, he just ran away).

But, Witwer tells us, the lad was already unstable long before he discovered D&D.  He was an outsider, a science geek, too intelligent for his own good, and "an emergent homosexual."

I don't know what an emergent homosexual is, but it can't be good.

I feel betrayed.  One of the icons of my childhood has been tarnished.  The bright glittery world had a homophobic underbelly.

See also Dungeons and Dragons; Six Naked College Boys

Miss Peregrine's Home for Heterosexual Children

After he is bullied by some mean kids, 16-year old drugstore employee Jake (Asa Butterfield) received a telephone call from his raging, delusional grandpa, Abe Portman (Terence Stamp).

His deadbeat father, who doesn't have a job, can't get off work, so his boss drives him over. 

It's mid-afternoon when they leave but the middle of the night when they arrive, although in other scenes Abe lives close enough for Jake to bicycle over. 

Have you had enough inconsistencies yet?  Good-- we're just getting started.

They find Grandpa dead, with his eyes gouged out.  But he lives long enough to tell Jake to go to the Home.

Flashback to Grandpa babysitting the 5- and 10-year old Jake, and telling him about his childhood.  He lived in Poland before World War II, where there were "monsters" about, so his parents sent him to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, on an island off the coast of Wales, where he would be safe.

Ok, I get it.  Grandpa was Jewish.  Repeat:  Jewish. It's a perfectly legitimate word.  Why is everyone afraid to say it?

The Peculiar Children all had bizarro powers:
1. Emma was lighter than air.
2. Olive could start fires by touching things.
3. Fiona could make plants grow.
4. Millard was invisible.
5. Hugh (Milo Parker, left) was full of bees.
6. Horace (Hayden Keeler-Stone, below) could project his dreams onto a screen, like a movie (how did he ever discover that one?).

Abe left the home in 1941 to join the army, but he stayed in contact with the Headmistress, Miss Peregrine. 

Back to the present: Jake tells the whole story to his therapist, who suggest that the Peculiar Children were actually mentally ill or physically disabled or something.  Since Miss Peregrine is still alive -- she would be well over 100 -- why not pop over to Wales and check? 

So Jake and his dimwitted loser Dad drop everything and fly to a tiny village in Wales, where Dad pays some local boys to hang out with the mortified teenager.  They take him to the Home, in ruins since it was bombed by the Nazis in 1941.

Why would the Nazis bomb a children's home in a tiny town in Wales?

By the way, Dad (Chris O'Dowd) is writing a book on birds, and the tiny town has some interesting specimens.  We get the idea that the bird book is a pipe dream, something he is writing endlessly but will never finish. 

He's also amazingly neglectful:  "I see that something is troubling you.  If you want to talk about it, call your therapist.  I'm busy."

No wonder Jake later drops out of the family without a moment's hesitation.

Back to the House: somehow Jake takes a step to the right, and the Home is still there, with Miss Peregrine and the children the same age as they were in 1941  After some shenanigans and missteps, they explain: they're in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over.  Every night, just as the bomb falls, Miss Peregrine resets time 24 hours.

And there are similar time loops all over the world, where other Peculiar Children are kept safe from monsters by reliving the same day over and over.

These time loops are presented as marvelous paradises, but can you imagine how horrible it would be to live 70 years with the same 11 people, never growing up, no movies, no tv, nothing to do all day, every day?  They don't even take classes.  They play, eat giant carrots for dinner, watch Hugh's dreams on a movie screen (here's hoping he doesn't have an erotic dream), and then go outside to watch Miss Peregrine reset time as the bombs fall.

And there are monsters, eyeless creepy things who are  trying to regain their humanity by eating the eyes of Peculiar Children.  I think.

It's all completely muddled and nonsensical, a mishmash of Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, H. P. Lovecraft, and nonsense.  Plus two -- count 'em -- two hetero romances.

1. The morose teenage Enoch, who hates Jake on sight, finally gets the gumption (after 70 years) to tell Olive that he is in love with her. They walk off hand in hand.

2. Jake falls for Emma, his grandfather's girlfriend.  After the adventure is over and the eyeless monsters subdued, Grandpa Abe (alive again for some reason) tells him "Go to her."  So the 16-year old drops everything, including school and his parents, and rushes to the ship and kisses her. 

Oh, I forgot.  The Peculiar Children raise the Titanic or something.

I don't know what was more annoying, the incessant heterosexism or the fact that the MOVIE MAKES NO SENSE.

By the way, the top photo is the hunky Bryson Powers, who is listed in the credits as "Surfer Boy."  I don't remember anyone surfing in the movie. 



 

In Search of the Gay Bacchanal of "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Sometime around sixth grade, I was recommended The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) a "fantasy" about a boy exploring a mysterious land.

Sounds great, like Middle Earth, or Narnia, or maybe Oz.  A fantasy world with languages and cultures, histories, geographies! Maybe there would be a map!

I just had to leaf through the book to realize that it wasn't a fantasy at all.  There is no alternate world with well-thought out political systems, economies, and social structures.  It's a "world" full of incongruities, artifices, and horrible puns that ruin any sense of reality.

So Milo and his dog companion (who has a clock in his stomach because he's a "Watch Dog", get it?) are on a quest to save the daughters of King Azaz (from a to z, get it?) from the Mathemagician's attempt to eliminate language in favor of numbers.  The daughters, by the way, are named Rhyme and Reason (two characteristics of language)..

Idiotic!  There's no sense of wonder here!  This is not a land of dreams, it's a land of stupidity!

But apparently some other people, those who weren't conned into expecting another Tolkien, like the book.  It inspired a 1970 movie (starring Baby Boomer icon Butch Patrick), a stage play, a musical, an opera, and another upcoming movie directed by Matt Shakman (executive producer of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

 While reading an article on the upcoming movie, I learned that the author of Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster, got the idea while on a holiday at Fire Island.

Fire Island?  The gay resort?  So the author of Phantom Tollboth was gay?

Time to do more research: Apparently Norton Juster was an architect  living in New York, who won a grant to write a children's book about cities.  But he was suffering from writer's block, so he went out to Fire Island to clear his head -- or get some head.

The characters of Milo and the Watch Dog came to him suddenly, and he started plotting the book. When he got home and told his housemates, Jules Feiffer (left) asked to illustrate

Housemates, huh?  Three gay men living in New York together in a pre-Stonewall Bohemian bacchanal.  Maybe they cruised at the Everard Baths, or Uncle Charlie's on Christopher Street.

More research: In the late 1950s, Juster was just out of the Navy and living in a small basement apartment in Brooklyn.  Jules Feiffer was his upstairs neighbor.  They met while taking out the garbage, and became boyfriends...um...gay bffs...and eventually got their own place.

I was unable to discover the identity of the third housemate. No doubt some trick who spent the night and never left.


So a gay man's trip to a gay resort resulted in a collaboration with another gay man on the horrible but popular Phantom Tollbooth.

Uh-oh.  More research, and my vision of a pre-Stonewall gay bacchanal began to fall apart.

Jules Feiffer published a lot of heterosexist stories and cartoons about courtship and marriage, like Boy Girl Boy Girl.  He wrote screenplays about heterosexuals, like Bernard and Huey, and he complained about "fags" in Playboy.  And he was married to women three times.

Ok, so a gay man and his straight housemate collaborated on The Phantom Tollbooth.

Nope. Norton Juster started writing while in the Navy, as a "way to pick up girls."  When he and Feiffer became friends, they "competed over girls." He married a woman named Jeanne in 1964, and they were together until her death in 2018.  They lived on a farm in rural Massachusetts, and volunteered for Amherst Family Services. Not the most common life trajectory for a gay man.

Ok, so a heterosexual man and his heterosexual house mate collaborated on one of the worst "fantasy" novels I've ever encountered.

Figures.

"I Kill Giants": Just Shoot Me

I have had the misfortune of seeing I Kill Giants (2017).  It was one of several dreary choices that my relatives offered.  The cover shows a girl with a battle axe facing a giant, with an evocation of Harry Potter.  Naturally one expects a rollicking adventure with trolls, goblins, and magic swords, perhaps set in a fantasy world on the other side of the looking glass.

By the time I realized the depth of deception in that cover, it was too late: the movie was playing, and I couldn't say "let's watch something else!" or leave.  I had to bury my head in my cell phone for two annoying hours.

See, there aren't any giants, nor magical battle-axes.  A girl named Barbara (Madison Wolfe), who is much younger than the cover art suggests. is crazy.  She has created a whole elaborate mythology in her mind: a giant invasion is immanent, heralded by ghostly harbingers, and only the Chosen One (guess who?) can save the world.

And above all, don't go near the room at the top of the stairs.  The most horrible, most frightening thing imaginable lives there.

If only there were a teensy bit of ambiguity, the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, the giants are real. After all, no one believed Alice about Wonderland or Dorothy about Oz, either.

 But no, the movie all but screams at us from Scene #1: "THERE ARE NO GIANTS!  THIS GIRL IS CRAZY!  THE ONLY WAY SHE CAN GET BETTER IS TO GIVE UP THESE FANTASIES!"

Barbara isn't even a sympathetic crazy person, someone nice, caring. for instance. She rejects everyone who tries to reach out to her with a snarky comment: "Sorry, I don't have time for idiots like you!  I'm busy trying to save the world!"

Actually, she's trying to destroy death.  The giants represent death.  The horrible, frightening thing at the top of the stairs is Barbara's mother, who is dying amid iv bags and drawn curtains.

That big reveal was broadcast in scene #1, too.

When Barbara finally meets a giant, it turns out to be as interested in restoring her to sanity as people in the real world.  It delivers a long speech about how everyone eventually dies, and we should cherish each moment as a wonderful gift rather than worrying about the end.  Then there's a smarmy song, and Barbara is ready to finally visit Mom on her death bed.

So basically Bridge to Terabinthia, without the cute boy.

The only thing I liked about this movie was the girl power.  Barbara doesn't get a boyfriend.  Actually, there virtually no boys or men around at all.  Instead, a girl name Sophie makes a number of overtures of friendship.  Although rebuffed, she tries again and again, with the zeal of the smitten.  Finally, in one of the ending scenes (I forget which -- there are so many, they just keep ending the movie over and over), the two girls walk off hand in hand.  Lesbian subtext!







Here's the only boys: Art Parkinson in one scene as Barbara's clod of a brother.

And Noel Clarke (not nude) in one scene as the sympathetic psychologist's husband, who is holding their newborn baby.  Barbara snarkily tells them, "She's going to die."

Yeah, sure, in about 80 years.  But we should savor every moment, right?

Except for the moments wasted on this horrible movie.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to look at Noel Clarke's penis.

12 Fairytale Hunks of "Once Upon a Time"

Once Upon a Time is a pastiche of feuding figures from fairy tales (mostly Disney versions), mythology, novels, folklore -- you name it.  The main characters are Snow White, Snow's daughter Emma, her grandson Henry, Regina the Evil Queen (who turns into the Good Queen), Rumpelstiltskin, Prince Charming, Captain Hook, and Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

But many other recognizable faces from your childhood appear.

With physiques that are the stuff of legend.


1. Michael Socha as Will Scarlett, Robin Hood's chum.

2. Liam Garrigan as King Arthur, the mythical king of Dark Age Britain, seen here schtupping his bff Lancelot (just kidding)

3. Deniz Akdeniz as Aladdin (the one from the Disney movie, not the one from the 1001 Nights).

4. Charles Mesure as Blackbeard, the real-life pirate, aka Edward Teach (1680-1718)
























5. Sinqua Walls as Sir Lancelot from the Arthurian legends.

6. Hank Harris as Henry Jekyll, from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel (Sam Witwer as Mr. Hyde).





More after the break

Once Upon a Time: Finding or Losing True Love

In the idyllic New England town of Storybrooke, a young boy named Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), adopted son of Mayor Regina (Lana Parilla), suddenly realizes that everyone around him is a story book character, mostly from Disney adaptions of fairy tales.

His teacher is actually Snow White (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937)
Regina is actually the Evil Queen who gave Snow White the poisoned apple.

The seven dwarfs are wandering around doing various civilian jobs, as are the Magic Mirror, the Huntsman, Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), and characters from other Disney movies and fairy tales: Jiminy Cricket (from Pinocchio), Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel.

Henry has told only a few people of these amazing revelations, and they all think he's crazy.  They have no memories of their other lives, or really any memories of the past at all.  Oddly, no one questions this collective amnesia.

Or the fact that time is standing still: for the last thirty years, no one in Storybrooke has aged.  No one is born (Henry was born outside), no one dies.  No one moves to town (except Henry), no one leaves.

Then Henry's birth mother, Emma, arrives, and time starts again.

Another startling revelation: Emma is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming (real name David).  So Henry's  teacher is his grandmother.

We gradually discover what happened:  Regina is angry with Snow for destroying "her  happiness": apparently she told the evil Queen Cora that her daughter was dating a stable boy named Daniel (Noah Bean), and the queen had him killed. 

So Regina arranged for a "Dark Curse" to bring everyone to a world without magic and zap their memories.  She will then be able to keep Snow from being happy (that is, from dating Prince Charming).

This is the premise of Once Upon a Time (2011-), currently streaming on Netflix. I've only seen the first season, but I understand that it gets very, very complicated.  Regina has a long, harsh back story and eventually is redeemed and becomes The Good Queen, while Snow can be petty, vain, and...well, malicious.  The back stories of many other characters are revealed (evil people are invariably evil because their "true love" was killed).  And the palette expands from Storybrooke to Neverland, the Looking-Glass World,  and who knows where else?

Robin Hood (Tom Ellis) and Captain Hook {Colin O'Donoghue) fight Hades (Greg Germann) from Greek mythology, who is in love with the Wicked Witch of the West (from The Wizard of Oz)

Cruella Deville (from 1001 Dalmatians), Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty). and Ursula (from The Little Mermaid).kidnap Belle (from Beauty and the Beast)  in order to force her boyfriend Rupelstiltskin (who happens to be the son of Peter Pan) to give her the magic Gauntlet of Camelot, which he got from Victor Frankenstein.

Hokey smokes!

The mishmash of fairy tales, legends, mythology, popular novels, and Disney movies sounds very annoying.

Even in the first season, I am annoyed by the trope of "finding happiness" which is always equated with finding or reuniting with your "true love," the person you are destined to spend your life with.  When you have found your true love, you are by definition happy.  When you have not, you are by definition unhappy.

You can always tell when you find your true love: you stop whatever you're doing -- fighting goblins, running for your life, hugging your girlfriend -- and stare at them with a dumb expression.

There are only three motives for every act:
1. To find/win your true love/happiness
2. To fight those who are trying to destroy your true love/happiness.
3. To get revenge on those who have successfully destroyed your true love/happiness.

The concept of "true love" was invented during the 17th century to promote companionate marriages over the arranged marriages of the past.  It is amazingly simplistic and patently untrue: our emotional bonds with friends and lovers come in an infinite variety, and none were predestined at the beginning of time.  It's daytime soap opera nonsense.

Once doesn't offer much beefcake.  This is a show about the power struggles of princesses and queens, with men as mostly interchangeable "true loves," all around 30 years old (regardless of their true age), tall, fair-skinned, and dark-haired. Their only distinguishing characteristics appear to be hair length and degree of androgyny.   Although I have over 50 years of experience in evaluating masculine beauty, I have a hard time telling them apart.

I don't even know who this one plays.  Like, Emma's grandson, or Rupelstiltskin's grandfather, or both?

No identified gay characters in the first season -- I understand that there are some lesbian "true loves" around Season 6.

But I do find something gender-transgressive about Henry's obsession with the adults being adequately paired off: "You have to be together!  It's true love!"  It doesn't sound like the sort of thing a straight 10-year old would be harping about.

Disenchanted: A Gay-Free Heroic Fantasy Spoof

I'm not very happy with Matt Groening's (or his writers') inclusion of gay characters.

 The Simpsons has a very occasional homophobic stereotype prancing about, plus Smithers (who finally came out after 17 years) and Patty (28 years). Neither have the slightest inkling of gay history and culture.

They don't even get the offensive gestures right.  Remember when BOTH Patty and Smithers flashed limp wrists to demonstrate they are gay?  Patty?  Really....

On Futurama, Groening's science fiction spoof, gay people were mentioned exactly twice, both times disparagingly, and same-sex desire was dismissed as ridiculous once.

So I didn't have high hopes for Disenchanted (2018), Groening's parody of the fairy tale genre.

In the faux Medieval kingdom of Dreamland, teenage Princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson) is a drunken wastrel who rebels against the constrained princess life imagined by her father, King Zog (John DiMaggio).  Her partners in crime are:

1. The demon Lucie (Eric Andre, left).

2.  The naive, goodnatured elf Elfo (Nat Faxon, top photo and left).  I'm not sure, but think this is a photo of Faxon's character having sex with a guy (notice the bald spot on top).

Nice triceps, Nat.

Together Bean, Lucie, and Elfo have a sort of Leela-Fry-Bender dynamic.  Elfo even has a partially requited crush on Bean.

Other characters include:
1. King Zog, a brash, easily perturbed Archie Bunker type.
2. His second wife, Queen Oona, a snakelike creature who speaks with an Eastern European accent.
3. His sorcerer, Sorcerio (Billy West), who believes that elf blood holds the secret to immortality.

Various courtesans, advisors, and knights that it's hard to keep track of.

The society is sort of fun, a juxtaposition of magical-realm and the horrors of real Medieval life.

I like the fact that their religion isn't Christianity.  They worship the "one god who is the brother to the other one god," and there's a female high priestess.

The plotlines are rather predictable:  Bean rebels against an arranged marriage; Bean tries out a number of new jobs, including executioner; Lucie is captured by an exorcist; Elfo makes up a girlfriend to avoid admitting that he likes Bean.

I liked the episode where the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" turns out to be innocent, the victim of the murderous children.

But there are overarching plots inside of plots.  Elfo is not what he seems.  Bean's mother, who was turned to stone 15 years ago, is not what she seems, either.  Nor is Bean.  And some dark wizards are watching the activity in a magic flame and commenting on how well their plan is progressing.  It becomes quite complex, not to mention surprisingly dark, and ends on several cliffhangers.

The artwork is competent, the visual tropes pleasantly familiar from 30 years of Springfield, and there is a quite a lot of beefcake.  Even the portly King Zog was a muscular warrior, as shown in a flashback to his youth.

Gay references:  Not many.  When Bean decides to cozy up to invading Vikings, she says "I'm changing teams," and Lucie yells "Called it!"  He thinks that "changing teams" means turning lesbian.

You'd think a demon would know that you can't turn lesbian.

Generally in fantasy stories, when you encounter sirens, female creatures whose beautiful songs lure you to your death, only the men have to stop up their ears.  Women are immune.  But when Bean and the gang encounter them, Bean has to stop up her ears, too.  Nice for the myth to be somewhat less heterosexist.

And that's it.

Gay characters: Sorcerio refers to another guy as his ex-lover.  So he's gay.  I suppose.  But when they encounter a hippogriff, a horse-eagle-human hybrid that claims to be female but asserts that "gender is fluid," Sorcerio offers to have sex with it.

And that's it.