The Men of "Bomb Girls"

This is Billy MacLellan from The Silence (2019), a shot obviously not taken from the movie.  He's standing in a lake, pretending to be naked, biceps, chest, and abs on display, holding up a sign with a Canadian maple leaf and the logo: "Keep calm and save bomb girls."

I have no idea what that means,but if it will give me more glimpses of Billy's pecs and abs, I'm all for finding out.

It's a Canadian tv series (2012-2014) about four women working in a bomb factory during World War II.

Sounds dreary, but...

Are there any men?

It looks like each woman gets some: boyfriends, husbands, sons, fiancees who die in the war, or male allies.









Lorna (Meg Tilly), the middle-aged floor manager.  Think Paula on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

1. Marco (Antonio Cupo, left), who is ostracized by the other factory workers due to being Italian (Canada is at war with Italy).  He begins dating Lorna, which results in a pregnancy and miscarriage.  Later he dates Vera (below), and then he dies.

2. Bob (Peter Outerbridge), Lorna's husband, a disabled World War I Vet.

3. Ned (Gabe Gray), a doctor who starts dating Lorna and Bob's daughter Sheila.

Gladys (Jodi Balfour), the heiress, who can't decide on a beau. Definitely Rebecca on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

1. Gene (Brett Dier, left), Lorna and Bob's son, who suffers from PTSD due to his war experiences.  Gladys gets engaged to him after one date, even though she's engaged to someone else.

2.James (Sebastian Piggott), Glady's first fiancee, who has an affair with Hazel, gets an STD, and is killed in the war.

3. Clifford Parry (Tamoh Penikett, left), an intelligence officer who dates Gladys after the James-Gene story arc ends.

4.Rollie (James McGowan), Gladys' distant father.

Betty (Ali Liebert) the closeted lesbian.  Maybe Valencia on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (pansexual, but not closeted).

1. Ivan (Michael Seater, left), who dates Betty before she falls for Kate (below).  Afterwards Ivan dates Helen, a Nazi spy (the boy likes women with secrets!).  Then he dates Kate, and finally he is killed in a factory explosion 

2. Karl (Kjartan Hewitt), an escaped German POW who disses Betty for being in the closet.  Well, can you blame her?  This is 1941, after all.  She could lose her job, be institutionalized as a psychopath, and go to prison.

Kate (Charlotte Hegete), the naive, sheltered ingenue (Heather?)

1. Leon (Jim Codrington, left), an African-Canadian worker, who befriends Kate and gives her advice on starting a musical career.

2. Vernon (John Ralston), Kate's dad, an abusive street preacher.  Kate accidentally kills him, but Betty (above) takes the fall. 











Wait -- where does Billy McLellan fit into all of this?  Turns out that there is a fifth Bomb Girl:

Vera (Anastasia Philips), disfigured in an accident and now sleeping around.

1. Harold (Richard Fitzpatrick), the plant supervisor.  Vera sleeps with him to get a job, and gets pregnant.

2. Archie (Billy McLellan), an injured vet who she meets in the hospital.  After two episodes, he commits suicide.

What?  Billy appears in only a few episodes?  He's not even connected to one of the Fab Four?

And the show has no gay men?  A lot of lesbians, apparently, but no gay men?

Next!

Was Mary Poppins Gay?

The Disney film Mary Poppins (1964) stars Julie Andrews as a magical, mysterious governess who introduces her young charges (and their parents) to the importance of having fun, a direct ancestor of such "servant brings joie de vivre to dysfunctional family" tv programs as The Nanny and the Professor, The Nanny, Who's the Boss, Gimme a Break, and Charles in Charge.

After seeing the movie, millions of kids sought out the original novels by P.L. Travers (the first two in 1934-1935, seven later), and were astonished by the original Mary Poppins: much more mythological, a sky goddess, sister to the stars, plus harsh, stern, condescending, demanding, a nasty piece of work.  How had this whimsy-hating sociopath been transformed into someone who says "supercalifragilistic"?

I just saw Saving Mr. Banks (2013), about the 20-year quest of Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to convince the dour, whimsy-hating, jollity-hating,  Mickey Mouse-hating "my books have a serious purpose" Pamela L. Travers (Emma Thompson) into allowing a Disney film adaptation.  In desperate need of money as her book sales flagged, and desperate to present a hagiography of her father (Colin Farrell), an Irish storyteller saddled with a horrible job in a bank, she finally agreed, but with dozens of startlingly picky stipulations that straitjacket the screenwriter and lyricist (B.J. Novak, top photo)

1. Mr. Banks must not have a moustache (her father didn't), and he must be a positive, caring father.
2. The color red must not appear in the movie.
3. No animation.
4. Mary Poppins (never just "Mary") must not be attractive, must not smile, and must not dance.
5. There should be no hint of romantic interest between Mary Poppins and Cockney jack-of-all-trades Bert (Dick Van Dyke).

That last thing got me wondering: Pamela has no hetero-romance, in either her past flashbacks or in 1960s California.  Could she have been gay?

So I bought a recent biography by Valerie Lawson, Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Lifeof P.L. Travers.

Travers did have some hetero-romances.  She tended to fall in love with men who were old enough to be her father, and in positions of authority over her, so she could move from disciple to lover.  One was poet and theosophist AE Russell, whose son Diarmund became her agent.

Aside from her hero-worship flings, Travers seemed to prefer the company of woman.  She lived with Madge Burnard, daughter of the editor of Punch, for over a decade.  The two took vacations together and photographed each other nude. "But that does not indicate that they were lovers," Lawson assures us.

Later Travers became an intimate friend of Jessie Orage.  They exchanged letters of "increasing intimacy," according to Lawson, and joined a lesbian social group in Paris.  "But that, of course, is not conclusive proof that they were lesbians," Lawson assures us.

Good grief!  What would be conclusive proof?  A notarized coming-out statement?  This is more evidence than we have for 90% of the lesbians in the world, including most that you  are personally acquainted with.  You have no way of knowing if they are actually having sex  (if that is, in fact, the requirement for being a lesbian, which is ridiculous; you're gay regardless of how often, or if, you have sex). 

Her literary creation, Mary Poppins, is obviously a lesbian, too.  She treats men as friends but has ecstatic, mystical relationships with female elemental spirits, fairies, crones, and stars.  A worshipper of the Divine Feminine.  What other evidence do you need?

The "Let's Get the Gay Stuff Over With" episode of "I'm Sorry"

I'm Sorry (2017-) stars comedian Andrea Savage as a comedy writer named Andrea, who, like most comedians gets ideas from her quirky family and friends: her partner Mike (Tom Everett Scott, who used to be cute), her clueless mother Sharon (Kathy Baker), her socially awkward brother David (Nelson Franklin). 

Most of Andrea and Mike's social life appears to revolve around the preschool group that their daughter Amelia is in.  For instance, in Episode 2, Amelia's stray remark about another girl makes Andrea believe that she is racist. 

Apparently sets of parents date each other, have relationships, get upset over "cheating," and break up, just like romantic couples. In Episode 8, Andrea and Mike court another couple of parents, only to find things getting "weird" during the playdate.

In the episode I watched, "Too Slow," Andrea and Mike court the only lesbian parents in the play group, hoping that they will help Amelia realize that there are different kinds of parents.

 On the playdate, the two turn out to be assholes, letting their son run wild and screaming at a hapless play park employee (Ben Cho, the only cute guy in the episode). 

Andrea and Mike decide to break up with them, but don't want to come across as homophobic.  Fellow parent Brian (Gary Anthony Williams) states that he knew they were assholes, but wasn't going to "talk trash about the only lesbian parents in the play group."

Meanwhile (might as well get all of the gay stuff out of the way in one episode), Andrea suspects that her brother David is gay because he's over 30, never had a girlfriend, and constantly talks about how much fun he has with his roommate. 

Wait -- what is this, 1985?  No gay guy introduces his boyfriend as his "roommate" anymore. 

Andrea tells her mother about the lesbian parents at play group and David being gay, all in the same conversation.  Mom is perplexed -- how did everyone suddenly become gay?  there weren't any gays when she was a girl.  And how do lesbians have a child? She is also worried about David facing a "hard life" of homophobic bakeries and...well, that's all she's heard about.

When Andrea encourages David to come out, he states that he's not gay, and in alarm asks her for the names of everyone she's told.  Homebound, socially awkward software engineers have to be careful about their reputations, right, David? 

 "How do you know you're straight?"  Andrea asks, implying that he really should give man-on-man sex a try before making a firm decision to be heterosexual.  She's been down in vagina country a few times, but didn't find anything there appealing enough to make it a habit.

Mom is relieved to discover that David is, in fact, straight.  But she feels guilty for being relieved.

Thus we have a glimpse into the contradictory life of the modern heterosexual, who isn't quite sure what being gay is all about, but thinks that she should be sure, who feels guilty about the homophobic thoughts that pop into her mind and keeps telling herself "There's nothing wrong with it."  Until the episode is over, and she never has to see or talk about gay people again.

"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.

Laverne and Shirley

Laverne De Fazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) first appeared on an episode of Happy Days, when Fonzie hooks himself and Richie up with two "loose women" who are sure to "put out."

In 1976 (after Cindy Williams took time off to star in The First Nudie Musical), they spun-off into their own series, Laverne and Shirley (1976-83).  Theirr characters became more stable, friends and roommates who worked as bottle-cappers at Schotz Brewery in Milwaukee while waiting to "make all their dreams come true."  Those dreams involved snaring rich husbands.

It wasn't one of my top 10 programs, but everyone else in the family watched, so I saw it relatively often.  And, in spite of the heterosexist premise and standard 1970s obsession with sex, there was quite a lot of gay content.

1. In 1950s lesbian culture, you had to decide whether you were a butch or a femme, and date only the other type.  It was scandalous for two butches or two femmes to hook up.  Laverne was strong, aggressive, a good fighter and a hard drinker, into sports and home repairs, while Shirley was soft-spoken, polite, retiring, sexually repressed, and into frilly lacy things. I didn't know anything about 1950s lesbian culture in those days, but it wasn't hard to figure Laverne and Shirley out.

2. Shirley had a sort-of boyfriend, sort-of big brother in Carmine (Eddie Mekka), an aspiring actor-dancer-singer-boxer.  Carmine's main source of income was an older woman named Lucille, who giave him gifts and money in exchange for unspecified favors. Outside of work and friendship, Carmine didn't seem particularly interested in women. I didn't know much about hustlers in those days, but it wasn't hard to figure Carmine out.

Actor Eddie Mekka has been the subject of several celebrity hookup stories.

3. Carmine was amazingly hot, though rarely shirtless on the show (the photo is from Circus of the Stars).  And lots of other hunky guys paraded through Laverne and Shirley's apartment, as boyfriends or relatives,  including Christopher Guest, Ted Danson, Ed Begley Jr.,  and Ed Marinaro.

4. The annoying upstairs neighbors, Lenny (Michael McKean, middle) and Squiggy (David L. Lander, left), made the usual hand-biting gestures and kissing noises whenever they saw an attractive women (or in this case, an attractive man), but they rarely attempted to actually date anyone. They were  devoted to each other, permanent, exclusive, passionate partners.







In a 1996 episode of The Nanny, David L. Lander, swishing it up as Fran's gay-stereotype landlord, states that he has been with his partner "Leonard" for twenty years (that is, since Laverne and Shirley premiered).

See: Which Hookup with Eddie Mekka Actually Happened

"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

12 Beefcake Boys and Men of "The Fosters"

The Fosters (2013-2018) was a groundbreaking drama on ABC Family, now on Netflix, about a lesbian couple (Stef and Lena) with five children, biological, adopted, and foster (Brandon, Jesus, Jude, Callie, Mariana). Biological parents show up, and the kids have friends and romantic partners, so it gets a little crowded.

Episodes are pretty grim and angst-y.  There are drinking problems, psychological problems, incurable diseases, deaths, battles with bullies and homophobes.  But the remarkably open gay content makes it worth the gloom and doom.

Besides, there are endless teenage boys with their shirts off to draw in the gay boys and straight girls, plus a few shirtless adults thrown in for the adults in the room.

Here are the top 12 Fosters fav raves, plus one honorable mention:

1. David Lambert (left):  Brandon, the oldest son in the family. an aspiring pianist whose dreams are dashed when an injury paralyzes his hand.  He also becomes the victim of statutory rape by hooking up with his father's girlfriend.

2. Danny Nucci: Mike, Brandon's biological father, a cop who has a drinking problem, shot an unarmed suspect, and has a girlfriend who hooks up with Brandon.

3. Tom Williamson: AJ, Mike's foster son.  Where does he find the time to be a foster parent?

4. Jake T. Austin (left): Jesus, the second son, who has Attention-Deficit Disorder.

5. Brandon Quinn: Gabe, Jesus' biological father, who didn't tell Jesus because he didn't want the boy to know he's a registered sex offender.

6. Hadyn Byerly: Jude, the youngest son, who becomes mute in angst over coming out as gay (with lesbian parents?), but eventually learns to accept himself and starts dating, with probably the youngest same-sex kiss on television.

7. Gavin McIntosh (top photo): Connor, Jude's boyfriend, who has a homophobic father.

8. Tanner Buchanan (left): Jack, a shy boy with lots of angsty problems who Jude befriends.

More after the break.

"Bojack Horseman": Hetero-Romantic Aces, but No Gay Men

Bojack Horseman, the animated tv biz parody about the washed-up star of a 1980s TGIF sitcom, is back for Season 5, and heterosexist as ever.  Bojack is now starring in a bad detective series, Philbert, which surprisingly gets good ratings.  After he complains that a scene involving female nudity is too "male-gazey," his director, Flip (voiced by Rami Malik, left), orders a scene with male nudity "for the ladies."

You can't really blame him for forgetting that gay men exist.  The series itself does, frequently.  We're told frequently that all men desire women, and as proof, we're surrounded by heterosexual couplings.  Bojack is dating/having booty calls with Gina.  Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane get a divorce and start seeing other people.

This looks like two men, but in fact it's Mr. Peanutbutter and his new girlfriend, Pickles.

There are no gay men in Bojack's world.

Remember Todd (Aaron Paul), Bojack's not-gay slacker/housemate whose crazy antics provide the comic relief of the series?  Last season he came out as asexual, not sexually attracted to anyone.

But he's hetero-romantic, attracted to women as romantic partners.  So he  starts dating Yolanda (Natalie Morales), a female hetero-romantic axolotl.

Axolotls are Mexican salamanders.  Apparently "asexual axolotl" is a meme.

So they're a hetero-couple in everything but what they do in bed.

Nothing special about that.  Many of the hetero couples you see on the street are not sexually active.  They are waiting for marriage, or they have incompatible sexual interests, or one or both have low libidos.

Or one or both is gay.  There are plenty of reasons why a gay person would engage in a hetero marriage.

Or one or both is a hetero-romantic ace.

Except in those states where a marriage must be "consummated" to be legal, who's going to ask? Who's going to care?  Hetero-coupling is a social relationship, not a sexual relationship.

Turns out that Yolanda's family will.They are highly sex-positive.  Her father (John Leguizamo) writes erotic novels; her mother (Eva Longoria) is a former porn star; and her twin sister Mindy runs a sex advice column. Her grandmother has left them a family heirloom, a barrel of antique lube worth $100,000.

Yolanda hasn't come out to them as asexual -- would you?  So she asks Todd to pretend that they are sexually active, when the family asks.

They do ask.  They are thrilled that Yolanda has finally found someone to have sex with, and interrogate him on how often he puts his penis inside her.

 He draws some suspicion by his lack of familiarity with heterosexual sex -- he can't even get the phrase "hubba-hubba" right.

Then the family insists that Yolanda "honor them" by spending the night and having sex with Todd in her old room.

They can pretend to do that, right?

But then Yolanda's mother tries to seduce Todd, and when he fails to respond adequately to her naked body ("any normal man would have been aroused," she says, forgetting that gay men exist), she concludes that he is asexual.  That doesn't dissuade her -- she wants to Todd to show her what asexual sex is like.

Yolanda' sister tries to seduce him, too.

Her father doesn't, but when the antique barrel of lube bursts, he asks Todd to plug the hole with his erect penis, which he would have if he was a "normal man," having sex with Yolanda.

For people making their living through sex, they show a surprising lack of awareness of the existence of gay men.

In a later episode, Diane tells Bojack about media normalization, which is sometimes good, as in the case of LGBT people, and sometimes bad.

So no one on the show is homophobic.  They just omit the G from LGBT.

A later episode shows Bojack's therapist, Dr. Endira (Issa Rae) having dinner with her wife, Mary-Beth (Wanda Sykes).

I've forgotten how many lesbian couples there are on the show.  Lots.

But no gay men.

See also: Bojack Horseman: Anthropomorphic Angst.

The Only Penis Drawn by Willy Pogany

My first exposure to mythology came from some older books in the Denkmann library: The Adventures of Odysseus, The Children of Odin, and The King of Ireland's Son, all written by Padraic Colum and illustrated by the Hungarian-American artist Willy Pogany (1882-1955).


He liked his models big.

Later I found some other books illustrated by Pogany.  This is my first exposure to the Faust legend.  The diabolical figure Mephistophiles is rather muscular, and naked, but I was disappointed to see that he had no penis.

Ok, for some reason  the Devil never has a penis in Western art.

But there's no excuse for Pogany's depiction of  Amfortas in the German epic Parsifal without a penis.

One might expect the advertising layout for Mohawk Rugs to feature Native Americans, but no, it's a harem of Middle Eastern boys.

Pogany was also interested in the female form. His art instruction books all have naked women on the covers, and he illustrated Pierre Louys' Songs of Bilitis (1926), poems in praise of the lesbian poetess Sapho.  Del Martin borrowed its title for the first lesbian organization in the U.S., The Daughters of Bilitis.


Also some heterosexual erotic art -- but even there, his men lack penises.














In fact, I was able to find only one penis depicted in all of his oeuvre.  Sort of:

See also: Why the Devil Has No Penis

7 Halloween Movies for Gay Kids

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday -- no gifts of football equipment, no hanging out with boring relatives,  no Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  Instead, you got to do things that were usually forbidden: dress up, roam around the neighborhood late at night, and accept candy from strangers.

Halloween movies are as likely as Christmas movies to have heterosexist plotlines.  But here are 7 where the gay subtexts outweigh the boy meeting the girl:

1. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966).  Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and gets rocks instead of candy, and there's disappointment and heartbreak all around.

 2. Mad Monster Party? (1967).  Dr. Frankenstein invites all of the Universal monsters, plus his human nephew Felix, to a party to celebrate his discovery of "the secret of ultimate destruction": a nuclear bomb! Felix falls in love with the creature Francesca, and triggers the bomb, killing all the monsters and probably everybody else!  Oh, and he turns out to be mechanical too. But in spite of his strange hetero-romance and genocidal tendencies, Felix is "queer," an oddball outsider among both monsters and humans.

3. Hocus Pocus (1993). Teenage Max (Omri Katz, who would grow up to star in at least one gay-themed movie), fights three lesbian witches played by gay icons: Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Max gets a girlfriend, but the climax involves saving his little sister and two of his male classmates, a gay bully couple.  Plus "pocket gay" Jason Marsden as Binx, a boy transformed into a black cat.

4. Halloweentown (1999). Grand dame of campy movies Debbie Reynolds is the gay-vague grandmother of a teen witch who embraces her heritage in Halloweentown.  Plus Luke (Philip Van Dyke, top photo), a cute guy who was once a goblin, and the gay-vague brother Dylan (Joey Zimmerman, left).   The sequels are no good.

5. Underfist: Halloween Bash (2008).  The minor characters of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, including Fred Fredburger, General Skarr, Boomer the Giant Spider, Hoss Delgado, and Irwin, team up to fight giant candy monsters who eat trick-or-treaters.  Like the series itself, lots of gay subtexts: Boomer and Skarr are gay-coded, Hoss and Irwin have a thing going on, and there's a surprising amount of beefcake.  It's never been released on DVD, but you can see it on youtube.

6. Paranorman (2012).  It's not set on Halloween, but you've got zombies, ghosts, a witch, and a gay teenager.

7. Hotel Transylvania (2012).  Single Dad Dracula (Adam Sandler) and his teenage daughter Mavis run a hotel for monsters.  Lots of gay symbolism in the "we are a persecuted minority!" and "we can't reveal who we really are!" rhetoric.  The human Jonathan (gay-positive Andy Samberg, left) accidentally arrives and woos Mavis, but also shares a big gay subtext with the Dad. Check out the scene where he plops into Dracula's lap in the sauna.  And the PG-13 jokes about the Invisible Man's nudity.