The Top 10 Hunks of "Malcolm in the Middle"

We're in the midst of a Malcolm in the Middle marathon, and I must admit that the dysfunctional family sitcom (2000-2006) was not particularly gay-positive.  There were some gay references here and there; Francis, the bad boy sent to military school, pretends to be gay to get girls; Reese tells a girl "Sorry, I'm gay" to dissuade her.  But overall, this was an aggressively heterosexist world.

But what it lost in gay potential, it made up for in beefcake.

1. Over the course of the series, Reese (Justin Berfield, left) bulked up, becoming a veritable muscleman.

2. Gifted child Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) was a little scrawny, but a few years later, in Extreme Movie, he displayed biceps and a bulge while being tormented by a S&M dominatrix.

3. Francis (Christopher Masterson) had a respectable physique which he displayed a few times.

4. He was in military school, surrounded by muscular cadets, such as Eric (Eric Nenninger, top photo)

5. Drew (Drew Powell, left)

6. And Stanley (Karim Prince), who didn't own a shirt.

7. Dewey, the youngest boy, had a never-ending procession of weirdo boy friends, some of whom grew up to become teen hunks, like Chad (Cameron Monaghan), star of Shameless.

8. But the real revelation was in Frankie's gifted-student classmates, the Krelboynes.  According to Hollywood myth, high intelligence goes hand-in-hand with social phobia, lack of fashion sense, glasses, buck teeth, and multiple allergies, so they were drawn as unattractive as possible.  As if to make up for the stereotyping, they have blossomed.

Remember Lloyd, aka Evan Matthew Cohen?  Unfortunately, he's retired from acting, but not from modeling. (Be careful -- there's another Mathew Cohen wandering around the internet, and Google Image Search may have mixed them up.)

9. Eraserhead, aka Will Jennings, is now a tall, imposing ginger giant.

10. And Stevie, Malcolm's wheezing, wheelchair-bound bff?  Craig Lamar Traylor spent his childhood explaining to people that he wasn't really disabled.  His acting career hasn't been doing too well, but he certainly presents a striking figure.


See also: Christopher Masterson in the Middle; Frankie and Erik in the Middle: Justin Berfield's Very Special Episode.

Kowen Cadorath: Son of the three gay Krelboynes, a slasher Santa Claus, handsome orphan on the prairie. With some prairie hunks

Justin Berfield's Very Special Episode

I hate it when you watch a tv program for countless episodes under the impression that a character is gay, only to find out that he was straight all along -- or, more likely, the producers noticed the gay subtext and retconned the character to "correct" him.

On Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006), about a dysfunctional family, dimwitted hunk Reese (Justin Berfield) never expressed any interest in girls for five seasons, even though nearly every male teenager in mass media, including his brother Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), is scripted as indefatigably girl-crazy. 

 He was also over-emotional and interested in cooking, two gender-transgressive traits that could easily mark him as gay.  

To make matters worse, the scripts kept dropping unmistakable hints.  

Reese says “Sorry, I’m gay” to dissuade an amorous girl.

He “courts” an attractive male classmate.

He sells "his services” to neighborhood men and then blackmails them in an amazingly blatant parody of male prostitution (he even lounges at poolside in a swimsuit like a kept boy). 

Fans began to speculate that a special “coming out” episode was planned. Then, in the Season 5 finale in May 2004, Reese is distraught over a breakup with a never-before mentioned girlfriend. “You are mistaken!” the producers seemed to squeal. “Reese was straight all along!  There are no gay teenagers!”

Justin Berfield is the subject of gay rumors in real life, too, but he adamantly refuses to make any public statements.

See also: The Top 10 Hunks of Malcolm in the Middle

Frankie and Erik in the Middle

The heir of dysfunctional family sitcoms like Roseanne and Married...with Children, Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006) was about the middle boy (Frankie Muniz) in a family of miscreants, who happened to be an academic overachiever.

I've already posted on the rather explicit gay subtexts of Malcolm's older brother Reese (Justin Berfield), and the lesser but still substantial subtexts of his oldest brother, Francis (Christopher Masterson).  But how do the other two boys in the family fare?

Not good.  All of the show's heterosexism seems to distill onto them.

Malcolm spends the series hot for one girl after another, with no close male friends except Stevie (Craig Lamar Traylor), who uses a wheelchair and has a lung problem that allows him to say only a few words at a time.  Not a lot of buddy-bonding there.

When Malcolm joins the photography club, his mother believes that he joined only to meet girls -- that's the reason any boy does anything, isn't it?  "What's her name?" she asks, over and over.  Malcolm insists that there's no girl. . .but, in a plot twist, there really is one!  Boys play sports, join clubs, choose classes and careers, for one of two reasons: to meet girls, or to impress The Girl.  Period.

Not a lot of gay interest in Frankie Muniz' later career, either. The hetero-horny Extreme Movie (2008), with Ryan Pinkston.

Pizza Man (2011), who wins The Girl of His Dreams.

What about the youngest, Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan)?

No better.

When the boys get a hot female babysitter, they try various strategies to win her over, but Dewey has the best: he has a "bad dream."  She promptly invites him into her bed, and he grins with triumph as his brothers watch.

After Malcolm, Erik starred in Mo (2007), about a teen with Marfan Syndrome who "discovers girls."

At least he's rumored to be gay in real life.

See also: The Top 10 Hunks of "Malcolm in the Middle"

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."