"No-End House": No-End Heterosexism from the Sci-Fi Channel

"No-End House," Season 2 of Channel Zero, is based on a creepypasta about a guy whose buddy talks him into going to the titular haunted house: 8 rooms, each more terrifying, and if you make it through them all, you win $500.  There's substantial buddy bonding, and no women are mentioned.  You can easily read the narrator as gay.

Then comes Channel Zero.  

According to the IMDB, it's a woman, Margot (Amy Forsyth) -- media always loves scaring women a lot more than scaring men -- and she goes in with her friends.

1.Jules (Aisha Dee)
2.J.D.
3.Dylan
4. Seth (Jeff Ward, left).

Three guys?  Some potential for same-sex bonding? I looked them up online...some beefcake, anyway.  So I purchased the second season of Channel Zero.

We begin with about 10 minutes of creepy grabbing-in-a-swimming-pool and I'll-love-you-forever scenes between a young Margot and Daddy John Carroll Lynch.  Way too incestuous!

Followed by another 10 minutes of a college-age Margot mourning the death of her boyfriend...um, I mean father, until her old friend Jules shows up and practically drags her out of the house to a bar. Maybe, for a change of pace, she could meet a guy her own age, who isn't a close relative?

Margot picks up the charismatic Seth, and Jules hangs out with just-friend-but-wanting more J.D.

The guys are so taken by the girls that they completely ignore each other. So much for male bonding.

They all decide to go to the No End House, which is quite a popular attraction, with cars lined up for a block.  If you go through all six rooms, you win.

Groups are let in 8 at a time, but members of Margot's group drop out during the first three rooms, leaving only the two couples and the morose Dylan

The remaining rooms lead to various creepy alternate worlds.

J.D. (Seamus Patterson, left) goes to what he thinks is his house, where he sees an alternative version of himself kissing a hot girl.  The two versions get into a fight over the girl's affection...um...

Dylan (Sebastian Piggot, left) is in the house searching for his wife, who was lost there earlier.  But he meets an alternative version, who doesn't recognize him.

Jules just sees a demonic orb floating around.

Margot finds a reality where an alternative of her father is still alive.  She decides to stay, demonic counterfeit or not, because she's still in love with him.

Fortunately, Seth talks her out of it.  He wants Margot to stay with him in the House forever.  Or rather, in a reality where they're the perfect husband and wife.

Torn between two lovers.  What's a girl to do?







Leave with Jules?

There's a lesbian subtext between the two friends, but it's totally drowned out by the creepy incest subtext.  Besides,  I was looking for male bonding.

Well, at least the guys are cute.

See also: Butcher's Block

Mark Lester after Oliver

Every kid I knew was forced to see Oliver! in 1968.  Our parents had the impression that musicals were somehow educational, and besides, it was Dickens.

Most of the kids I knew disliked it.  After all, it was a musical. About child abuse, domestic violence, and other fun stuff.   I found the heterosexist "true love" plot boring, but I liked the buddy-bonding between the streetwise Artful Dodger (15-year old Jack Wild) and the cherubic innocent Oliver (10-year old Mark Lester, left).

I followed Jack Wild onto H. R. Pufnstuf, but I heard nothing more about Mark Lester for many years. During the early 2000s, I was writing an article on demonic children in the movies, and I found that the cherub spent his pubescence playing violent or creepy, or both.  His characters seemed uncomfortable with their bodies, ravaged by uncontrollable desires, and obsessively heterosexual.

In Eyewitness (1970), also released as Sudden Terror, 12-year old Ziggy (Mark) witnesses a murder on the Mediterranean island of Malta,  and is pursued by the killer.  He goes on the lam, along with his girlfriend.

In Melody (1971), 10-year old Daniel (Mark) falls in love with a girl and decides to marry her. The adults disapprove of a 10-year old getting married, but it's the heart of the counterculture, and "true love" is always right.

In What the Peeper Saw (1972), also released as Night Hair Child and Diabolica malicia, 14-year old Marcus (Mark) is sexually attracted to his father's new wife (Britt Eklund).  She shares his interest, and they have sex. They conspire to kill Dad so they can be together. But is she really conspiring to kill Marcus? 

In Who Slew Auntie Roo (1972), 14-year old Christopher (Mark)  tries to rescue his sister from the demented Mrs. Forrest (Shelley Winters), who is holding her prisoner in the attic. 

Love Under the Elms (1975) was originally titled La prima volta sull' erba, "the first time on the grass." While visiting Italy, Mark meets a girl, and they have sex a lot. It ends badly, but if you want to see frontal nudity, this is the one.

Not many gay kids saw these movies -- they were all rated R for violence and sex

Mark strips down to a swimsuit or his underwear, or is accosted in the bathtub, in all of his violent/creepy movies, but with all the heterosexual longing going on, there's not much time for homoerotic subtexts. After Oliver!, I found one only in Senza ragione (1973), also known as Redneck. 

Lennox (Mark)  is kidnapped by two crooks, the evil Memphis (Telly Savalas) and the hunky Mosquito (Franco Nero, left).   Lennox bonds with Mosquito and they run away together, and spend the night, with rear nudity and a strong implication of sex between them.  But does Lennox really like the gangster, or is he plotting?  It ends badly.

Mark Lester also starred in some costume dramas that didn't require creepy sexuality.  He retired from acting in 1977, studied osteopathy, and opened an acupuncture clinic in England.  

The Boy Who Fought Mutants: Lee H. Montgomery

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1985, my mother called every week, usually early Saturday morning, and asked "What stars have you met?"  But she wasn't familiar with most of the actors of my generation, so "Michael J. Fox" got a polite murmur, "Robin Williams" a vague "Oh yeah, I've heard of him," and "Lee H. Montgomery" a blank "Who's that?"

But Lee had more than enough claims to fame (and he was a lot friendlier than Robin Williams).

He played the boy who taught his pet rat to kill in Ben (1972).  If you separate it from the premise, the theme song, sung by Michael Jackson, is a touching evocation of same-sex love:

Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for.
With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone,
And you, my friend, will see, you've got a friend in me.

In The Savage is Loose (1974), an entry in the "sexually dangerous kid" genre that Mark Lester  and Scott Jacoby specialized in, David (Lee) is shipwrecked on a desert island, along with his Dad (George C. Scott) and Mom.  David eventually morphs into the bodybuilding hunk John David Carson (left), and tries to kill his Dad so he can mate with Mom.  About the same plot as What the Peeper Saw, but with more nudity.

In Burnt Offerings (1976), a married couple (Oliver Reed, Karen Black) moves into a California mansion with their son David (Lee) and elderly Aunt Elizabeth (film legend Bette Davis).  As the house starts asserting  itself, it tries to drown David, and then drops a pillar on him.

Was there a fad for threatening half-naked kids in the 1970s?  It also happened in The Possession of Joel Delaney  and The Omen.

By the way, the hunky Oliver Reed hangs out in a swimsuit.

When Lee hit adolescence, his chunkiness melted away, and he did the standard tv movies and guest spots on Chips, Family Ties, Fame, Hotel, and Dallas.

By this time, Lee had a tight, firm, hirsute physique, and he knew what to do about it.  In Night Shadows (1984), also released as Mutant, he displays his chest at all times, even the most inconvenient (while renting a room, at the doctor's office five minutes after the doctor says "You can put your shirt back on").  Incidentally, there's also a strong homoerotic subtext as Mike (Lee) cries for his dead "brother" Josh (Wings Hauser).

Many of Lee's teenage and young adult performances feature displays of his chest and abs, and strong buddy-bonds: Prime Risk (1985) and The Midnight Hour (1985), the episode "Man to Man" of Highway to Heaven (1986), and one of the more controversial of the Schoolbreak Specials, "Hear Me Cry" (1984), about two high school boys who make a mutual suicide pact.

His characters are often uninterested in women, though a girl is usually thrown in, almost as an afterthought, to provide a heterosexist fade-out kiss.

In 1986, Lee retired from acting to concentrate on his music.

I met him at a party in 1987, and assumed he was gay, but I don't really have any evidence one way or the other.  The story is on Tales of West Hollywood.

The Goldenboy in the Attic: Jeb Stuart Adams

There are lots of threatened gay-vague kids in movies and tv, but not many are threatened by their own parents.  Flowers in the Attic (1987) is an exception.  It was based on a 1979 novel by Virginia Andrews, about four children who go to live with their grandmother because their mother doesn't like them.  But Grandma doesn't like them either; she locks them in the attic for several years, and finally tries to poison them.  The eldest two, Chris and Cathy, develop an incestuous romance.

The movie omits the incest, thus omitting any hint of heterosexual interest, transforming Chris (Jeb Stuart Adams) into a gay-vague teenager.  Grandma (Louise Fletcher) struts around with a Bible, accusing Chris and the other kids of "sin," which of course adds to the gay symbolism.

The incest angle, murderous relatives, and some nasty plot elements made the film controversial, but it didn't help Jeb's career.

Blond goldenboy Jeb Stuart Adam looked like he sprang up from the Appalachia of the Dukes of Hazzard, but he was actually the son of gay actor Nick Adams and his wife, Carol Nugent, and he grew up among the Hollywood glitterati.

His angelic smile and a smooth, firm but not muscular chest, making him perfect for roles as threatened kids: threatened by drug dealers on Quincy ME (1982),  a bad father in His Mistress (1984), and a hippie cult on Airwolf (1985).


He also had significant supporting roles in The Goonies and Once Bitten, plus a 7-episode story arc (1977-78) on Baa Baa Black Sheep, about World War II fighter pilots led by Pappy Boyington (Robert Conrad).

After Flowers in the Attic, Jeb was threatened a few more times, in They Live (1988), Dragnet (1990), and Sworn to Vengeance (1993), but you can't play threatened kids forever. He retired from acting and moved into production design and stuntwork.

Today Jeb has a successful real estate business in Ventura, California, specializing in the million-plus market.

The Incest Taboo

Scholars have written a lot of nonsense on the incest taboo, why most cultures forbid marriage or sexual relations between close relatives.

They say it's to avoid birth defects and other genetic abnormalities, but in fact such things are not apparent for several generations.

More likely it is a matter of exogamy: bringing a new person into the community brings new ideas, new fashions, new technology -- vital for cultural growth.

Plus the daily dynamics of sharing a household with someone while you're growing up makes them too familiar to be erotic.

In the U.S., marriage or sexual relations are forbidden between biological siblings, parents and children, and aunts/uncles/nieces/nephews.

First cousins (your uncle or aunt's child) are usually forbidden, and sometimes first cousins once removed (your parents' cousins) and second cousins (your cousins' children).

Most states also prohibit adopted parents, children, and siblings, even though genetics are not an issue.

The rules have gotten more strict during the last century.  In the Victorian Era, it was not uncommon to marry your uncle or your cousin.

Brothers

I don't know if erotic activity between brothers is more common than between brother and sister, but it certainly is less stigmatized.

A lot of guys characterize their same-sex activity as "play" or "fooling around," not real sex, especially in adolescence, so they have no qualms against doing things with their brother that they would never think of with their sister.

I never did anything with my own brother, but I've had two brothers cruise me at the same time.

Cousins

These sort of relationships are more common.  You rarely see your cousins, so they don't develop th familiarity that would preclude erotic relationships.

And they're often quite different from you physically, adding a little exoticism to the mix.

One of my first erotic experiences was seeing my Cousin Joe naked and (in retrospect) semi-aroused.  I was seven and a half, and he was a teenager.  I've also had erotic experiences with my Cousin George and Cousin Buster.

Fathers and Sons/Grandfathers and Grandsons

When young guys call you Daddy, they're referring to the social distance of your age difference, not imagining sex with their real father.

Father-son erotic activity is much less common, and more stigmatized, than brother-brother, probably because the parental dynamic is so different.  Nurturing and protecting you is not erotic.  Why would you be attracted to someone who changed your diapers when you were a baby?

I've never  had any erotic thoughts about my own father, or head about it in real life, although I thought long and hard about my Grandpa Prater.

Alan hooked up with a father and son at the same time, but they never actually interacted with each other.

Uncles and Nephews

 Like cousins, you don't see them often, and they're grownup while you're a kid, so they have all of the muscles, hair, and bulges you associate with the erotic.

Growing up, I had erotic thoughts about several of my uncles, especially Uncle Edd and Uncle Paul.  I've never had erotic thoughts about my nephew, who is now in his 20s, but there's still time.  Life is very long.

Bible Beefcake

When I was a kid, our church forbade any books except the Bible.  My parents were more lenient, permitting comic books and Scholastic Book Club selections, but the Bible had an advantage -- you could read it anywhere, during choir practice or Sunday school or a screaming hellfire sermon, and the adults would pay no attention -- or they would think you were especially devout, as you got your quota of beefcake, bonding, and sex.  Not to mention violence.

1. Beefcake.  David looks like a veritable Conan the Barbarian, wearing only a loincloth, wielding a magic sword as he stands over the slain Goliath.  And who knew that Cain assaulted Abel by kicking him in the crotch while they were both naked?

2. Bonding.  David and Jonathan had a love "surpassing the love of women."  That is, their homoromance far surpassed hetero-romance.  If only David didn't insist on bring Goliath's head along on their dates.  And why did Joseph reject women's advances to spend all of his time schmoozing with the Pharaoh ? (Photo below is Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).

3. Sex.  After the Flood, Noah was lying around drunk when his son Ham "uncovered his nakedness."  But to "uncover" someone's "nakedness" means doing more than sneaking a quick peek, and God got so upset over the incest that He decreed that Ham and all of his descendants (the Africans) should be slaves.  The Biblical support of slavery caused the first chip in the edifice of my fundamentalism.

Fast-forward a few thousand years to the New Testament, and Philip the Apostle sees an Ethiopian eunuch on the road, invites him to spend the night in his tent, and in the morning baptizes him.  Eunuchs are castrated, unable to have sex with women.  So who do they have sex with?  Just ask Philip.  (In 1986, my roommate Alan used the story of the Ethiopian eunuch to try to get with my boyfriend.)

See also: The Sacrifice of Isaac.

The Victorian Lusts of "Angels and Insects"

Do you want to see Douglas Henshall, the hunk of the British sci-fi series Primeval, nude and fully aroused?

Are you sure?  The scene is in a rather disturbing movie.

Ok, then.  Let's begin.

William Adamson (Mark Rylance) has been studying insects in the Amazon.  He returns to stuffy, repressed, Victorian England, and has trouble re-adjusting.  The wealthy Sir Harald Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp) invites him to come live on his estate, catalog his insect collection, and teach his children about the wonders of nature.

The estate is full of dark, brooding people who dress like insects.  Like all Victorians, they have lots of secrets and repressed sexual desires.  But not the interesting desires that lead to gay romance.  Something else altogether.

Adamson becomes infatuated with the "stunning" Eugenia, who just lost her husband to suicide.  She returns the interest, and they have energetic sex, and finally marry.

By the way, the sex involves Eugenia completely nude, frontal and all, but only Adamson's torso, although you can see that he is aroused, standing at attention beneath the bedclothes.

That part is impressive, but otherwise Mark Rylance is scrawny, with no muscles at all.  He was only 35 years old in 1995, but he seems much older.


They have five children, whom Adamson doesn't care for.

Eventually he discovers the reason: they aren't his (see, you can only have an emotional bond with children who are your biological progeny.  Bad luck for gay adoption!).

 Eugenia has been having a long-term affair with her older brother Edgar (Douglas Henshall).

Everyone else on the estate knows, and has been trying to inform Adamson in cleverly veiled ways.  But he only discovers by breaking into the bedroom while they're having sex (Henshall was fully aroused by accident, but director Philip Haas decided to keep the scene instead of reshooting).

Adamson decides that he has had enough of human society.  He leaves his wife and kids and returns to the Amazon, accompanied by the governess Matty, who was in love with him all along.

Need a shower yet?

The movie, by the way, is Angels and Insects (1995).  The original story was written by A.S. Byatt, who also wrote the homophobic Possession (1990), about closeted lesbians in Victorian England. No homophobia here, just the vagaries of heterosexual lust.