Daniel Quinn Toye: The Scottish Boy Toye queerbaits "Heated Rivalry," plays gay-adjacent roles, post photos while...you know

 Link to the n*de photos

 I started watching Sterling Point due to an interview where Daniel Quinn Toye said that his Rory and Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie) have a Heated Rivalry-type relationship. Turns out that he was using the term as a cliché: the guys are both straight, competing for the affection of focus character Annie.  Was he deliberately queerbaiting, or so out of touch with queer culture that he had never heard of the gay hockey player show?  To find out, I checked the guy's social media, and found some interesting posts.

First his biography: The Boy Toye grew up near Glasgow, where he attended the Dance School of Scotland.  After graduation, he enrolled at LAMBDA (don't get excited -- it's not the gay symbol, it stands for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts).  

While at LAMBDA, he appeared in Alice (in Wonderland), The Angry Brigade, Measure for Measure, Three Sisters, A View from the Bridge, and The Trojan Women.

He received a B.A. (Honors) in 2024, and was immediately cast in a "minimalist, modern" version of Romeo and Juliet on the West End (May-August 2024), with Tom Holland as Romeo.  The Instagram page has a graphic with R&J superimposed on a Pride Flag, so there must be some queer content, maybe in the Romeo-Mercutio relationship.  But Daniel plays Paris, the wealthy nobleman betrothed to Juliet.  He and Romeo fight, and he is killed. Sounds like the straightest of the crew.

In 2026, Daniel got a photo shoot in the British Vogue, and three on-screen roles:

Sunny Dancer: Cancer survivor Ivy is sent to a chemo summer camp, with many of the actors cast because they have real-life experience with cancer. She falls in love with Jake (Daniel).

 James Norton (left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) and Neil Patrick Harris play counselors, and Ivy is played by Bella Ramsey from The Last of Us, who is nonbinary and "not 100% straight.  So there's some LGBTQ representation in the cast, even though the story is heteronormative.

Pressure, about the preparation for D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the Allies invaded Normandy, marking the beginning of the end of Nazi control of Europe.  No gay content.  Daniel plays Private Michael Gregory.

And Sterling Point, which has a lot of lesbian characters.

Two upcoming projects:

Cry to Heaven, based on the novel by Anne Rice. At age 15, Venetian nobleman Tonio Treschi (Nicholas Hoult, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is c*strated by his half-brother to ensure that he doesn't have any heirs.  He becomes a famous castrato, and seeks revenge.  In the original novel, he has romances with another boy, Domenico (not in the cast list), and his mentor, Guido (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).   So there's LGBT content in the original, even if they straighten him for the movie. 

Daniel's character is not mentioned in the cast list.

Voltron, about the robots who combine into a bigger robot.  Daniel plays Keith, who pilots the head and torso (voiced by Neill Ross in the 1980s and 1990s series and Giles Panton in 2011). He's got a crush on Princess Allura.  

So Daniel has only played straight guys, but four of his six projects have some sort of LGBTQ content, subtexts, cast, or source material. 

Better than most actors. 

The Heated Rivalry reference after the break.  

Sterling Point: Queerbaiting, dark secrets, a guy with changing ages, a lot of lesbians, "Heated Rivalry," and some Canadian c*cks.

  

Link to the n*de dudes

When Amazon Prime recommended the 2026 tv series Sterling Point, I searched on its name and "gay," and got an interview where the two male stars, Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie and Daniel Quinn Toye, said that they were having a Heated Rivalry-type romance.  That's enough for me: I'm in.  

Scene 1: A young woman awakens in her luxury apartment, vigorously scrubs herself while growling, and sits at the kitchen table with her laptop , looking angry.  Her roommate Connor (Keen Ruffalo) is in love again.  Could he be gay?  Nope, "what's her name?"  

She's stressed out because she's waiting to see if she got into the summer program at Wharton, the most prestigious business school in the world.  So you're a high schooler, and the dude is your brother?  I had you figured as a grown up.

"Forget college.  It's the summer before your senior year.  Spend it going buck wild."

Dad Steven pops in with bagels, and asks about Wharton.  She gets word: "No.  My dreams are shattered. It's the end of the life I've been imagining for myself."  Couldn't you, like, get into a good college even without the program? On TV they're always getting into Harvard.

We finally get the girl's name: Annie.

"Now you can have fun this summer," Brother Connor says.  "Why don't you go to Thailand with your 100% straight heterosexual boyfriend?"  

"I can't break up with him until he's ready to come out."  It's 2026.  Nobody comes out. Parents just say "Someday you'll meet the man or woman of your dreams."

Scene 2: Establishing shots of New York, and then Annie's Glee-era gay-stereotype boyfriend Oliver (Luke Avoleda) asks if she wants to watch Cynthia Erivo sing "Edelweiss" at the Kennedy Center.  You're super-femme, you live in New York, and you're not out?  Girl, everyone has known since you were in kindergarten.

"What am I going to do all summer, now that all of my dreams have been crushed?" Annie asks.

"I don't know.  Go on anti-depressants?"

She suggests going to Thailand with him, but he doesn't like that idea.  No getting his gay on with a beard hanging around.

Annie tries to get him to come out, yet again, when Brother Connor bursts into the room: "Grandpa died -- but not the one we like.  Gordon, Mom's Dad, the one who was shady as f*ck, and everybody hated him, so Mom and Dad cut him out of their life, and we've never met."

Scene 3:  Meeting with the lawyer.  Grandpa Gordon left Dad nothing.  The kids get a trust, which they can access when they turn 18, and property in Canada.  He also left them letters, but Dad snatches them up and won't let the kids read them.  Weird family history.  

Left: A professor from Toronto and his hookup, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Cut to Annie trying to sleep.  She looks at a photo of their Mom, who died when she was little (of course).  Why did she hate Grandpa?  Why is Dad so secretive?   

In the morning, she breaks into Dad's safe (never make your birthday your password), and finds dozens of letters -- Grandpa was writing to them all along.  

The one that came with his will: "I'm sorry I didn't fight harder to see you.  I shouldn't have agreed to the plan.  I hope Sterling Point will reveal the truth. Find her."  Obfuscation for its own sake.  Any normal person would reveal who she is.

Downstairs, Brother Connor is being fed and smooched by his girlfriend.  Gross -- I hate adults feeding each other, like they were babies.  She reveals the new intel.  "We have to go to Canada and investigate!"

"What for?  We're adopted, so he's not even our biological grandfather."  

"Ok, I'll go by myself, but cover for me.  Tell Dad I went to Thailand."  So Connor and the gay boyfriend won't be back?

Scene 4: On the plane, Annie pops an Ambien and asks for a blanket and a pillow, not realizing that the flight to Toronto is only 45 minutes long.  Didn't she look at a map?  

At the airport, drowzy, she meets Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie), who will be flying her to Muskoka, the island her grandpa owned.  He's the one in the Heated Rivalry romance.  She's afraid of the seaplane but the only other way to get there is by car, and it would take forever (the real Muskoka Lakes are just 2 1/2 hours from Toronto).

Scene 5:  Establishing shots of Muskoka Island.  Ellis notes that Grandpa Gordon, who owned the whole island, said that he would never rent this house, so it's weird to see Annie moving in.  Isn't she the new owner?

Next question: Nope, no stores on the island, so you have to take a boat to the mainland to get groceries. You could have stocked up before leaving Toronto.

Inside, the place is a mess.  Annie finds her mom's old room, and...a squatter! Nope, just squirrels bringing nuts in to store. 

Next stop: The Marina, where she has to rent a boat to get to the mainland.  She asks Joe the Boat Shop Guy (Negan from The Walking Dead) if he knew Gordon who owned the island.  "Yes.  He was great.  Everybody loved him."

"Did he have...um...family around?  A daughter maybe?"  Terrible sleuthing, girl.  

Problem: She doesn't have a driver's license (many New Yorkers don't bother, because why would you ever drive in the City?  It takes five times as long as walking).  Or a boater's license.  So she can't rent a boat, but his son will give her a lesson. How will that help?  She needs groceries now, and it will take a lot of lessons to get her license.

Wait -- the son isn't around, so the teenage Oona offers to teach her.  "Oona -- beautiful name for a beautiful girl!" Sounds like we got some lesbian representation. But Annie is straight.  Or was that why she was happy with a boyfriend who didn't want to do bedroom stuff -- she's not into guy parts. 

"But you're a terrible boat driver!"

"No, I'm not.  I can handle her," she counters, gazing at Annie.  I'll bet you can...

The lesson begins.  "You handle the tiller -- this thing that looks like a d*ck --  just like a (censored), except twist more."  Are you sure you're a lesbian, Oona?

She tries it, but they start spinning in circles, and she doesn't know how to stop.  Let go?

More after the break

Kampan Soni: Czech-Indian boy plays a ghost-chaser and a bartender, jokes about cats, doesn't mention girls. With potential n*de photos

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Ride or Die on Amazon Prime, features a professional assassin named Judith, being pushed out of the business due to her age, who discovers that baddies are targeting an MP (that's Member of Parliament, to Yanks) and his wife, Debbie.  Who happens to be her "ride or die" (best friend).

I reviewed the first episode.  Not a fan. 

Not much beefcake. We see Judith's hookup (Taylor Napier, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) shirtless, and her mark (Ed Skrein) coming out of the shower. 

No gay characters.  Calum Lynch (left) as Judith's handler gives off a gay vibe, but he flirts with a girl.

Even crowd scenes display endless arrays of male-female couples. 

And there's a nasty bit of queerbaiting.  In an antique warehouse, the PM's wife Debbie gets to a prized apothecary cabinet before celebrity antique dealer Drew Pritchard and his boyfriend.  They fume with envy.  Except the real-life guy is straight.  They just pretended he was gay to fool viewers. 

The only bright spot was Kampan Soni, the  cute bartender who Debbie complains to as she downs tequila after tequila.

Kampan grew up in Ahmendabad, in Gujarat State in western India, and graduated from St. Xavier High School in 2018.

He then moved to Prague, where he received a B.Sci. in Agriculture and Food Sciences in 2022.  He is currently a Global Mobility Specialist at   Amazon Prague, which means working in Human Resources.

There are two n*de photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Plus he does comedy povs: "Making you question things you never noticed: Facts, Psychology, Hidden History"

"Why does the ATM pin have only four digits?"

"What do cats really think about?" 

"Why do we like horror movies?"

"Why are popcorns so expensive?"

More after the break

Unprisoned, Season 2: Will Finn finally come out, or stay gay-vague forever? Plus a lot of search engine misdirections

 

Unprisoned, on Hulu, features an elderly man named Edwin, who spends 17 years in prison for cocaine dealing, is released, and has to reconnect with his estranged daughter and 16 year old grandson.  He spends the first season trying to avoid violating the terms of his parole and finding a girlfriend, while the estranged daughter does TED talks about relationships and has relationship problems with her boyfriend. It's heterosexist all the way down, except for the son, Finn, played by Faly Rakotohavana.

Through Season 1, he never expresses any interest in girls, nor do his mom and grandpa ever try to push him into meeting or dating girls.  The lack of expressed heterosexual interest codes him as gay, but it's a very fragile code: showrunners often go through an entire season, or more, with a character that all viewers think is gay, only to give him a girlfriend at the last moment and yell "Fooled you!  Gay people don't exist!" It already happened on Doogie Kamehameha, M.D..  

It could not be more obvious that actor Faly Rakotohavana is gay in real life, but I googled him and "gay" anyway, and got this result:

So the murderous doll has a talk show now? His interviewees are Zackary Arthur and Teo...., not Faly Rakotahavana.

By the way, it looks like he's interview his costars in the Chucky tv series, Zackary Arthur and Teo Briones. 

None of these people is Faly Rakotahavana, either.  The one on the left is Will Smith, and the one on the right, "Uis hth",  would go gay for him. What does that even mean?  Uis is only attracted to women now, but if ___ agrees to date him, he'll change to gay, and only be attracted to men for the rest of his life?

Found him: Louis Smith.  There aren't any shirtless photos of him, except behind paywalls.

Back to Finn: I was fearful of watching Season 2, due to the possibility that they would clobber us with a "Fooled you!" girlfriend.  Especially Episode 2, where "Finn tries to make a friend." 

I clench my teeth and brave through it after the break

OMG, some jaw-dropping queer codes on "Chad Powers." Russ and Danny are in love! With Zahn backside, Clayne d*ck, and some random Tennessee dudes

  

Link to the n*de dudes

This is huge.  This is Glenn and Zy holding hands on Solar Opposites,  Finn on a date with a boy in Unprisoned, Scotty telling Gideon "You knock me out" on The Righteous Gemstones. 

This is Kurt Russell smiling at Patrick Dawson on a dreary November night many years ago, the smile that gave me the first clue that two boys can fall in love. 

 A few weeks ago, I reviewed Episode 1.2 of the Hulu sports series Chad Powers: several years after he was cancelled for being an a-hole, footballer Russ (Glen Powell) tries to get into the game by pretending to be high school superstar Chad Powers and playing for  he South Georgia State College Catfish.  

He is assisted by Danny (Frankie Rodriguez), the team mascot, who gives him a place to stay, provides his prosthetic cheeks, and makes sure that the back story details he ad-libs are consistent.

They aren't at all consistent,  but Coach Hudson (Steve Zahn) is desperate for a winning season, so he doesn't dig too deeply.

Danny displays a few queer codes, but doesn't express any same-sex interest.  Frankie Rodriguez stated in an interview that it's nice to play a gay character where being gay is not the main thing about him, but I wasn't happy.  Most viewers won't notice, or will dismiss the queer codes with "Straight guys do that.  It doesn't make him gay."

Then came Episode 1.4.  I'll do a brief synopsis to get to the jaw-dropping part.

Scene 1: On the bus en route to an away game in Knoxville, the Coach presumes that Chad/Russ and Danny are boyfriends, even though they aren't sitting together.  He personally doesn't care, but they will in Tennessee, so keep it closeted.  

Chad/Russ claims that they're not boyfriends, they're brothers: Danny's family fostered him for a few years, and then Chad/Russ's family fostered Danny.  This makes no sense, and doesn't fit the established back story at all, but the Coach just shrugs.  Whatever, he's a good player.

Scene 2: At the hotel, Assistant Coach Dobbs (Clayne Crawford, right) cautions the players to not "spread any cheeks" tonight, so they'll be rested for the big game (while looking directly at Chad/Russ, also assuming that he and Danny are boyfriends). 

Bedtime is 11:00 pm.  If you're not in your room by bed check, you don't play tomorrow. 

Scene 3: Problem: someone left the cap off the glue, so there's no way to affix Russ's prosthetic cheeks.  The ones he is wearing will fall apart by morning.  What to do?

"There must be prosthetic glue somewhere in Knoxville," Russ suggests. 

The other players have invited some fans, including Mean Girl Sasha, to a pre-bedtime party in their room. Russ and Danny steal her car keys so they can drive to a Halloween store.

Noticing the messiness of Mean Girl Sasha's car, Russ exclaims "Girls are gross!" 

"But not Assistant Coach Ricky?  Don't you have a crush on her?"

"Heck, no.  She's just nice, that's all."  So you don't like girls, Russ?  I did notice that you brought a dude to the club in Episode 1.   "And she's being nice to Chad, not Russ."

"Yeah, she'd hate Russ.  She's not into f*kboys." A f*kboy is someone who treats his partners like objects.  So Danny doesn't think of Russ as a potential partner because he wants something more meaningful?

Scene 3: At the Halloween store, Russ notices his face on a Halloween costume: "A-Hole Quarterback."  He's depressed, but Danny tries to console him by suggesting that the model was another a-hole "with frosted tips and a cubic zirconia ear stud."  

A big guy bought the last bottle of glue, and is using it to apply a mask.  Russ wants Danny to ask him for the glue, but he refuses: "Bears are not my type."  What about A-hole quarterbacks?

So Russ approaches and starts a conversation.  It's a mask of the rival team; he's planning to wear it to the game tomorrow in honor of his dad.  

While they are talking, Danny steals the glue.  That's a lot of theft, buddy. Aren't you supposed to be encouraging Russ to become a better person?  

Scene 4: The Bear notices and chases them out of the store. 

Another problem: Someone broke into the car and stole their stuff, including Danny's $180 airpods and the prosthetic cheeks! 

They track down the guy,  but he starts shooting, so they run away.  And Russ cut his hand on the broken glass in the car! 

Scene 5: The wait at the ER is too long --bed check is in an hour -- so Russ orders Danny to find some bandages.  He'll take care of his injury himself.

Danny: "You can't order me around. Am I your employee?"

Russ: "I don't wanna litigate the nature of our...whatever this is...right now."  It's a friendship.  Why is it so hard to define?  Unless....

 Danny is incensed over his refusal to name their relationship "Our whatever? I save your *ss again and again and again..."

Russ:  "You're just hanging out with me because of Chad.  Chad makes you relevant." 

More arguing.  Each accuses the other of using him, not really loving...I mean caring about him, and finally Russ orders Danny to leave.  

"Ok, if you don't need anyone, get your own goddam glue."  He dumps the glue out onto the floor and storms out.

Russ sits there for awhile, upset over the breakup.  Back to his problem: they use medical adhesive in hospitals.  He steals some, bandages his hurt hand, and rushes back to the hotel.  

The jaw-dropping scene after the break.  

"Tracker," Episode 3.1: Tracker tracks a probably gay teenager. With Pride flags, Greek tavernas, a Canadian wrestler, and Bryant c*ck

 

 Link to the n*de photos

 Tracker (2023-) not to be confused with Duster (2025-6) and Reacher (2022-5), is about a guy who "tracks" missing people, usually in the square red states.  I went through the first season in search of gay characters awhile back, and didn't find much (Tracker's assistants are a lesbian couple, but the missing people seem to be all hetero).  

Tonight I have nothing to do while waiting for  my partner to get back from the gym (and bring food), so I'm going through Season 3.  Episodes about "Randy's close friend vanishes" and "a hidden relationship in a lawless desert town" have been disappointing, but Episode 3.11, "an 18 year old with a secret life" looks promising.   It stars Ben Krieger, a Broadway star who is obviously gay: he goes to Pride events, performed magic in a gay bar, and spent his 21st birthday with a male companion.

Scene 1:  Queens, New York. Stepho's Greek Taverna. Ben is cleaning up his parents' restaurant after closing.  A girl invites him to a party, but he refuses.  Your first sentence is rejecting a girl?  A nice queer code. 

He locks the back door, sets his bag of food aside, and walks over to the dumpster to throw out the trash.  Suddenly a car zooms up with its headlights glaring.

Scene 2:  The parents call for Tracker (Justin Hartley): Ben didn't come home last night, and because he's 18, the police won't do anything.  He also failed to deposit the day's receipts, several thousand dollars. In cash?  Doesn't everyone pay by card nowadays?

Tracker suggests that maybe he took the money and vanished, but the parents dismiss that idea.  He would never just leave.  But he didn't want to work in the restaurant forever.  He was interested in social justice issues.  Like LGBTQ rights, for instance?

 They open his locker, and find a taser cartridge.  Dude needed to protect himself for some reason.

Scene 3:  Next they check the back.  Notice the Pride Flag on the building next door.  It is visible in several scenes, certainly a deliberate background choice to hint that Ben is gay.

A homeless lady is eating the food that Ben dropped off.  She saw him arguing with a guy, and then being loaded into the car.

Next they find Ben's cell phone: he must have dropped it during the scuffle.  Tracker gets his associate, the Hacker, to hack into it.

Left: Google says that the Hacker is played by Eric Graise, a gay actor best known for the new Queer as Folk.  He may be disabled: some sources say that he's a bilateral amputee, and others, that it's his character.

The IMDB says that Eric left at the end of Season 2, replaced by "Cousin Randy" (Chris Lee), who is straight in real life.  

The new, straight Hacker tells Tracker that yesterday Ben called Ellis Brawner (Alex Barima from Daniel Spellbound, straight in real life) a dozen times.

The parents know him: he used to work at the restaurant, but was fired for stealing.  Could he have gotten revenge by kidnapping Ben?

Scene 4: The B-Plot, back at headquarters. A lady is buttering up another lady, who praises her work on previous cases.

Alex Barima (right), seen here in a non-romantic scene in The Exorcist, has no n*de or beefcake photos online.

The Hacker looks up Brawner's address, and Tracker breaks in.  A lot of fake passports and drivers' licenses.  No posters of bikini babes?  A good sign. When Brawner arrives and sees Tracker, he runs, but Tracker chases him down. 

He explains that he and Ben-Ben are partners in the fake id business. Ben-Ben?  Sounds like they're boyfriends.  

Last night Ben called and told him to get to the restaurant fast.  They were yelling because Brawner was angry over being awakened in the middle of the night.  It was just after a restaurant closed, and one of the staff was heading to a party.  Do you go to bed at 7:00 pm?

He needed some ids and a car right away, and paid for it with the money he took from the restaurant.

"Was it about the fake id business?"

"No, I think it was about a girl.  I heard him talking."  Ulp, heterosexual identity established at Minute 15.  

Ben left his laptop at Brower's place.  Tracker confiscates it.

More after the break.

Daniel DiMaggio: The queerbaiting son on "American Houswife" grows up to play Count Chocula and post selfies

 

Link to the NSFW version

You may be familiar with Daniel DiMaggio, no relation to Joe DiMaggio, as Oliver Otto on American Housewife (2016-21).  I never heard of it, but I wouldn't have watched anyway.  Who wants to watch a sicom about June Cleaver or Donna Reed?  

It starred Katy Mixon as Katie Otto, a housewife who, although not pretentious herself, is immersed in the ultra-pretentious world of ladies who lunch in Westport, Connecticut, along with her husband (Diedrich Bader), two daughters, and son Oliver (Daniel). 

She has a lesbian best friend, and there's a gay character (Jake Choi) in Season 5, so there's a bit of representation.  The main problem fans had was queerbaiting Oliver.  

He is presented as gay, with everything from pictures of muscular men on his bedroom wall to an interest in ballet to a boyfriend, the wealthy, femme Cooper (Logan Bell).  Everyone thinks they are boyfriends, including Cooper, who is upset every time Oliver claims that they are not dating.  But then he backs off and gets a girlfriend.  

Logan Bell (the femme one) is gay in real life, and states that he played Cooper as gay.  So why five seasons of "crumbs" that led nowhere?  Fans were irate when the showrunners were too cowardly to let Oliver come out.

Daniel already has two strikes against him (baseball metaphor, har har) for five years of queerbaiting.  Let's check on his other projects.

He was born in 2003 in Los Angeles, and began acting at age nine in the short Geisho (2010): a man (Horatio Sanz) wants to become the world's first male geisha.  Kind of gender-fluid.

Next, a 2013 episode of Burn Notice, which, I discovered today, is not about a hospital burn unit, in spite of the misleading title.  It's about a spy who was "burned" (fired). How the heck are potential viewers supposed to know that?   Daniel plays the young version of focus character Michael (Jeffrey Donovan). 

More after the break

The Top 14 Hunks of "The Bride," including Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, a gay guy, and a lot of queerbaiting

 

Link to the n*de dudes

This weekend we saw The Bride! (2026).  I assumed that it would be a sequel to Frankenstein (2025), but it is not.  The frenetic, lunatic ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, channeling Bellatrix LeStrange from Harry Potter, complains that she died before she had a chance to write anything meaningful (lady, you died at age 53, having published dozens of novels, short stories, essays, travel journals...)  So she possesses a 1930s floozy named Ida, who starts a lengthy diatribe and falls down a flight of stairs.  Frank the Monster (Christian Bale, left) convinces a mad scientist to revive her, and they go on a rampage, channeling the Joker and Harley Quinn, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Me, Too Movement.   

There are a few nods to 1930s gay culture: Ida kisses a lady in the first scene, and takes Frank to a nightclub frequented by a few LGBTQ couples.  But it is ruined by a monumental queerbaiting.  

Detective Jake Willis (Peter Saarsgaard) and his partner Myrna, who has to pretend to be his secretary because female detectives aren't allowed, investigate the murder of a railroad cop in rural Indiana.  After Jake gets intel from the small-town sheriff, Partner Myrna points out that she does all the detective work; all he has to do is seduce small town sheriffs to get intel.  

In the 1930s, all sheriffs were male.  She very clearly and unambiguously states that he has sex with men. 

But at the end of the movie, he admits that he keeps letting Ida get away because he is in love with her; they used to be romantic partners, before her accident.

WTF?  A real life person could be bisexual, of course, but in movies, a hetero-romance obliterates gay references.    Myrna's statement was an outright lie, a nasty joke played on the audience. 

This is not a review of the g*ddam monstrosity (it would get an F----).  I was so angry that I looked through the entire cast list, hoping to find a gay person to profile.  I finally found one, after researching a gaggle of straight hunks:

1. Christian Bale as Frank the Monster

2. Peter Sarsgaard as the queerbaiting Detective.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed, a Fred Astaire-like dancer.  Frank idolizes him, so they travel to all of the sites where his movies were filmed.

4. Zlatko Buric, left, as mob boss Lupino.  The Mafia is involved, too.

5. Will Dagger, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as a guy at a movie theater who is trying to get with his girlfriend in spite of her protests.  Frank and Ida intervene.

6. Louis Cancelmi,  on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as Officer Goodman, one of the cops that the couple kills.

7. Neil Vincent Smith as a patron in a restaurant that the two disrupt.  Sorry, I couldn't find a photo where he isn't hugging a lady.

8. Antony Abbato, left, as another restaurant patron.

The gay guy after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.7: The handsome man, misdirection, queerbaiting, tied-up guys, and me yelling at the screen a lot

 

Link to the n*de photos

In Episode 3.6, we saw the aftermath of the Judy/BJ and Kelvin/Keefe breakups, with failed reconciliation attempts, a fist fight, and both Kelvin and Judy quitting their jobs at the church.  In this episode, things get even worse.

Title: "Burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."  Exodus 21:25. Fans argued like mad about trying to connect the burn/wound/stripe to the personalities or kidnapping strategies of the Gemstone siblings, but it's a misdirection. The previous verse has the more familiar "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." It just means that the punishment should fit the crime.

Burn for burn and all that:  During the evening of the day of the Aimee-Leigh Hologram debacle, the BJ-Stephen penis fight, and probably the Kelvin-Keefe rocking chair fight, Judy goes to a drug store to buy pain medication for BJ.  On her way home, goons from Peter's militia crunch her car with the Redeemer and grab her. 

Misdirection alert: the trailer makes it look like she is the one crunching. 

Chuck Montgomery tries to trick Jesse, and when that doesn't work, the goons shoot him with a tranquilizer dart.  

Kelvin bangs on the door at Woodpecker's Carpentry, yelling: "Are there any woodworkers in there? I'm looking for Keefe Chambers!"  Now that he's no longer worried about his job at the church, he's free to reconcile with Keefe.    But it's long after hours; the building is dark and deserted. Why would anyone be inside?  Besides, Keefe told Kelvin where he was working; wouldn't he give him his new address and phone number, too?

Imagine if someone were inside: "See, my ex-boyfriend and I had this big fight, and he doesn't want me to have his new number, and I don't know where he's staying...I need to see him...no, I am not a stalker!"

Six militia men wearing scary masks surround Kelvin.  The trailer makes him look paralyzed with fear, but actually he is quite brave, trying to intimidate them and then defend himself.  They punch and hit him, and squirt a toxic liquid into his eyes -- which stings but has no long term effects.  Why does Kelvin need six guys to take him down?  Why does he get a more brutal kidnapping?  I don't know.

Screaming like a woman:  The three siblings are put in what everyone calls a chicken silo, although chickens are housed in coops.  They are tied to chairs, with pillowcases over their heads.  What for?  You don't need to be imprisoned and tied up both.

Fans uncomfortable with the idea of gay relationships noticed that Kelvin's pillowcase resembles the trans pride flag, thereby signaling that he is actually a transgender woman.  Doubtful: Jesse's depicts the cartoon character Maisie Mouse. 

Kelvin yells for help. Uncle Peter enters and asks if he is "screaming like a woman," maybe a dig at his gayness, but more likely because he considers any emotion "like a woman."   He explains that the militia is holding them for ransom.

The handsome man: When Keefe arrives for work the next morning, he sees Kelvin's car with the doors still open, checks the ground for signs of a struggle, and asks his coworkers, "Have you seen The Handsome Man?"  This makes no sense, as Kelvin only visited once, for a few minutes, and most of the carpenters weren't paying attention.

Cut to Amber and BJ noticing that their partners didn't come home last night. Next, Eli, at the office even though he's retired and should be fishing, receives a scary video of Kelvin crying and Judy and Jesse screaming in rage.  The gay one has a "sensitive" reaction. Peter gives the ransom demand.  

Eli goes home and confronts May-May: "Your sons have fucked me over."  She denies that she has anything to do with the kidnapping.

Back at the chicken silo, the siblings complain about the heat and the food, and bicker.  Shouldn't they be praying?  They're religious, right?

Cut to BJ, Amber, Gideon, and Eli discussing the kidnapping with Sheriff Brenda. They were kidnapped in town, so it should be the Rogers Police. 

Notice that Keefe is not there.  Why didn't Eli call him?  Because his number has changed, because they have broken up, or because he is just a friend, not a partner?

The Freemans arrive.  Tiffany has made dolls of the siblings --very quickly -- "for you to hug and kiss until they come home safe."  She gives the Kelvin doll to Eli.  Same question: Why doesn't she save it for Keefe? Because they have broken up, or because they were never partners to begin with? 

Geography problem: How did they get to Eli's house so fast?  Don't they live in Florida?  

The trailer made it seem like the militia sent the dolls, adding a hint of the paranormal that turned out to be a misdirection.  Still, they look like Gullah Island voodoo dolls: "You can hug and kiss them until your loved ones come home safe.  And if they ever stray, you can make their privates fall off." 

More queerbaiting after the break

Dylan Everett: The depressed Degrassi teen buddy-bonds with three gay guys, wears tight jeans, joins the army. With a lot of backsides and a Dylan d*ck

 

Link to the n*de Dylan

I'm not usually into backsides -- I prefer the side that with the chest, abs, and beneath the belt stuff  -- but the backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends is a thing of beauty.  It belongs  Dylan Everett, then 26, who you probably know as Campbell Saunders on the Canadian teen soap Degrassi: The Next Generation. 

 Cam appears in Season 12 (2012-13) as a "good-hearted, gentle, nice, shy, cool, and sweet" hockey player who rejects an offer of friendship from the gay kid Tristan, for fear of being assumed gay himself, but then apologizes.  They hang out, and he begins dating Tristan's friend Maya.  But anxiety and depression take their toll, and his plot arc ends with suicide.

Born in Toronto in 1995, Dylan began acting in commercials at age ten, and moved into television with The Doodlebops, "the ultimate rock n roll band for kids."   He first played the friend of a gay kid in Breakfast with Scott (2007): a "straight-acting" gay couple (Tom Cavanaugh, Ben Shenkman) become the guardians of a flamboyantly femme boy (Noah Benett).

A lot of teencoms and tv movies followed, notably How to Be Indie (2009-2011): the Indian-Canadian girl has two friends, a teencom standard: Abbie (a girl) and Marlon (Dylan), who according to the fan wiki is "always full of bright ideas," but sometimes annoying.  He wears pants that are so tight, he can't sit down, has a gay-subtext boyfriend, John Lu (Jason Jia), and displays no interest in girls -- obviously gay.  At least until the showrunners decided to queerbait by giving him a girlfriend in Episode 49.

Next the busy teenager simultaneously appeared on
Degrassi and starred in the teencom Wingin' It (2010-13): To earn his wings,  apprentice angel Porter (Demetrius Joyette) must help outcast high schooler Carl (Dylan) become popular.  I'm not sure how much of an outcast Carl is, since he has the standard teencom two friends, Jane and Alex (Brian Alexander White), but most episodes involve crushing on girls, competing with Porter for girls, asking girls out, and so on.  Apparently popularity means having a girlfriend.

Dylan played Mark-Paul Gosselaer in The Unauthorized "Saved by the Bell" Story (2014), himself in Dylan (2015), the young Dean Winchester in three episodes of Supernatural (2013-15), and a heterosexual teenager in Undercover Grandpa (2017).  

He has a n*de scene in All About Who You Know (2019): an aspiring screenwriter tries to meet his idol by arranging a romcom-style romance with the guy's daughter. Or you could just call him.

AusCaps has a scene where his friend Austin (Stephen Joffe) wakes up in bed with a guy, and looks surprised but does not recoil in homophobic horror, so maybe he has a gay plotline.

More after the break.  

"Superman" (2025): You'll believe a man can queerbait

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I don't usually review movies that are playing in theaters, but we just saw Superman (2025).  I went in with an internet full of complaints about "wokeness," so I expected a lot of LGBTQ representation.  Here's what I got:

The Wokeness: There are some nonwhite people around.  Big deal.

The Plot: The tyrannical leader of Boravia (mostly Russia, a little Israel) wants to invade neighboring Jarhanpur (mostly Palestine, a little Ukraine), and promises to make Lex Luthor  (Nicholas Hoult) king of half the country if he helps.  So he sells them $80 billion in arms for cheap. 

But Lex's main goal is to discredit and hopefully kill Superman (David Corenswet), because he doesn't like aliens, because he's envious of Supe's popularity, because...well, even he isn't sure. He's a movie villain, it's his job.  

Lex has a vast number of high-tech resources to help with the discrediting/murder:

1. The Engineer, who can fill your lungs with nanobots so you suffocate.

2. A prison in an unstable pocket universe, where he keeps political prisoners and people who criticized him on social media.

3. An interdimensional rift that can take down whole cities.

4. A lot of Superman clones.

5. Super-genius employees played by Terence Rosemore and Stephen Blackehart (left)

6. A monstrous kanju that grows to Godzilla-size and breathes fire.

7. The message that Jor-El and Lara sent along from Krypton. Supe always thought that they asked him to help the people of Earth, but they actually told him to rule Earth, and massacre anyone who resisted.  This is real, not fake, and when it gets into the media, people reject poor Supe.  Why do they care about the career his parents planned for him?  My parents wanted me to work in the factory.  

Supe has a number of allies this time around:

1. Food cart guy Malik Ali (Dinesh Thyagarajan), who jumps into a crater to help the injured superhero. Lex kidnaps him.

2. Krypto the Superdog.  Lex kidnaps him, too.  Spoiler alert: The dog doesn't die.

3.-5.  The bickering Justice Gang: Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi, left), Hawk Girl, and The Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion). In some of the comics and the tv series, Green Lantern is gay, but there's no indication here.

6. The superhero Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who can transmute into any element.  Lex imprisons him to turn into kryptonite and torture Supe.

More after the break