It's a "Different World" than where you come from. There are gay guys at Hillman College now, with muscular physiques and stuff

 

Link to the N*de Dudes

In 1987, daughter Denice (Lisa Bonet) of The Cosby Show spun off into college, "A Different World than where you come from."  It aired between Cosby and Cheers, so we had no choice but to watch.  But no problem: there was a lot of beefcake -- I especially liked Short Guy Ron (Darryl M. Bell) -- and some gay-subtext buddy bonding; the snobbish aristocrat Whitley stole the show; and the historically black Hillman College was interesting, "a different world" to many viewers.

It wasn't actually a comedy, at least not after the first season, when Denice left and Whitley was promoted to the focus character. The world became a cold, dark place, with episodes about s*xual assault, abusive relationships, AIDS, and a lot of racism. I especially disliked the constant victimization of math major Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), who for some inexplicable reason starts dating Whitley, his polar opposite. Eventually we stopped watching. No point in getting depressed every Thursday night.

Nearly 30 years later, a new generation of first-years has arrived at Hillman for a rebooted Different World on Netflix. The focus character is Deborah Wayne, the daughter of now-divorced Dwayne and Whitley.  Hillman is her safety school, even though her dad is provost or something --- all of the old gang have stuck around, and now have important jobs at the college.

A homophobic Redditer complained, "Why do they have to make 99% of the characters on every tv show gay? It's like straight people don't even exist anymore."  So let's look for the gay characters.  The character and episode descriptions on Netflix and Wikipedia offer some clues.

There are seven main male characters.  Five are identified as heteros*xual:

Superstar basketball player Shaquille Johnson (Cornel Young IV, left), son of Short Guy Ron, chose Hillman against his dad's advice that he go to a Big 10 School and then turn pro. He starts dating Deborah.

Jalen (Elijah J. Roberts, left) is a "s*xy point guard" on the basketball team, who starts dating Deborah's friend Hazel.

Ghanian-Nigerian fashion design major
Koji (Chbuikem Ujike, left, underwear on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is in college only to please his parents. He actualy wants to drop out and start his own fashion company.  Sounds promising, but Netflix says that his main pastime is "charming girls."

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: I went through the cast list, looking for n*de ptos of the male stars, and found Michael Vargas in an adult video.

More after the break

"Welcome to Derry": "It" prequel with interesting monsters, Cold War paranoia, 1960s racism, and "bury your gays."

 

I haven't actually seen the 1990 miniseries and the 2017/2019 movie adaptions of Stephen King's It, with Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard (left), respectively, playing the transdimensional "destroyer of worlds" who animates every 27 years to kill kids.  The original novel has a gay character (buried right away), and the 2017/2019 adaption has a gay-subtext guy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer and James Ransone, who sort of comes out in a blink-and-you-miss-it gesture. 

So I don't have high hopes for the tv series Welcome to Derry (2025).  The usual Stephen King heavily closeted and buried-right-away traditions will be compounded by the setting: 1962 (every 27 years, remember?).  But we'll give it a look.

Scene 1: The Music Man (1962) is playing on the big screen.  Young teenager Matty (Miles Eckhardt), sucking on a pacifier, watches.  Manager Cal yells at him for sneaking in without paying, and chases him into the lobby.  A girl covers for him (always kind, nurturing girls and blustering, bullying boys, innit?).  

Notice that it's Christmastime (actually January 4, 1962), and Matty has a black eye, signifying that he's a victim of abuse (obviously --what Stephen King kid hasn't been abused?)

Matty runs out into the snow, past a billboard reading "Welcome to Derry, Birthplace of Paul Bunyan."

Several towns claim to be the birthplace of the folk hero, including Ankely, Minnesota (where they hold Paul Bunyan days every summer), and Bangor, Maine.

Matty hitchhikes, and is picked up by a male-female couple, a Wednesday Addams-looking girl, and a young boy who spells out everythiing; "L-I-E-S,"  Not R-E-D-R-U-M? Asked where he's going, Matty says "Anywhere but Derry."

Weird family, bragging that the daughter is "our little harlot," and having the boy spell scary words like "necrosis," "kidnapping," "strangulation," and "cadaver."  "I want out!" Matty screams, and they repeat "Out! Out! Out!"  

Mom gives birth to a bloody bat-winged thing that flies around and attacks everyone before deciding to kill Matty.  

A very impressive scene. But what's with introducing a major character, then killing him off?

Scene 2: Four months later, April 1962.  A Femme Boy  is making a list of the fighter planes that fly by.  

The plane lands, and two soldiers get out: Russo and Hanlon (Jovan Adepo, seen here with his boyfriend in Watchmen). Russo complains about being stationed in small-town Derry, where nothing exciting ever happens, har har.  But the Big Boss notes that as the northernmost air force base in the U.S., it's essential to monitor Soviet air space and prep for Cold War era-nuclear war.  Wasn't Alaska a state in 1962?  

Hanlon has rented a house in town; he and the Missus are longing for "normal."

"Well, if normal is what you're looking for, you're going to love Derry."  Har-har.

Scene 3: Cut to the "idyllic" small town.  A year after Bay of Pigs led the world to the brink of nuclear war, everyone is on edge. At the high school, they practice "duck and cover."

A teen girl walks through the halls, getting stared at and pranked by jars of pickles.  Her friend consoles her.

Meanwhile, Femme Boy tells his boyfriend Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler), "We're not alone in the universe."  He doesn't mean gay people, seven years before Stonewall -- he means aliens.  Maybe they have one hidden in the Derry Air Base.  Boyfriend thinks he's crazy.  

"Teddy sucks balls" on his locker. Homophobic or all-purpose slur?

"Did you study for the test?"

"What's the point, when World War III is imminent?"

Femme Boy is played by Jack Molloy Legault, who fills his instagram with photos of his girlfriend.  But I assume that Mikkel Karim Fidler is gay in real life because, when his talent agency got him tickets to the advance screening of Karate Kid: Legends, his date was a boy. 

More after the break

"Pretty Dudes": Gay Asian erasure, spiderman, a car hookup, and hamburger sex. All in 11 minutes. With some pretty nude dudes

Link to pretty nude dudes

I wanted to know how Carlin James, who is apparently straight, got cast on  Pretty Dudes, a webseries about a group of  gay guys sharing a house in West Hollywood and negotiating life, love, sex, and race.  He appears as CJ in four episodes.

Now the craziness begins. Amazon Prime lists 21 episodes, the IMDB 29, and Wikipedia 39, with different numbering and chronological order. Some titles appear in just one list. Some have been repackaged into other projects. You'll need an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them all. 

But unless the titles have changed, only one of Carlin's episodes is streaming on Amazon Prime: 1.9, "All American Type."

Above photo: A show about gay guys, and the actors' nude photos are all stuck behind paywallss.  So I just googled "Gay Asian actor"

Scene 1:  Hustler Jay (Tae Song) and photographer Zario (Brian Michael Nunez) are playing video games when a shirtless Spiderman approaches, announcing that he has super powers now, and can protect the queens.  How special, girlfriend.

Scene 2: Flashback to the day before. We hear Elijah (Carlin James) saying: "This is going to taste so good in my mouth.  I can't wait to shove it in there."  Psych!  He's talking about a hamburger!  Not a hot dog? 

Gregory  (Leo Lam, left) enters from the kitchen and, annoyed, tells him to just eat it, but he continues making sexy sounds.  Wait --according to his page on the IMDB, Carlin plays CJ, but according to the tv series page...heck with it. 

Scene 3: Reality tv confessional room.  Model Sunji  (Yoshi Sudarno) confesses that he doesn't understand photographer Zario because he doesn't act gay.  But he'snot normal, so Sunji just tries to be a good friend.

Cut to photographer Zario getting ready for his first job "since the breakup," filming a podcast hosted by artist Kito (Chance Calloway). 

In 2024, Chance published Anatomical Iconography, featuring the Pretty Dudes paying homage to classic male nude art.  It sells for $43 on Amazon.  I had no idea the show as so popular.  How do fans figure out the episode confusion?

Scene 4: Model Sunji cooking shirtless.  He sees a spider and freaks out. 

More after the break

Get Out

African-American photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) reluctantly accepts his white girlfriend  Rose's invitation to visit her ultra-rich family for the weekend.  They're not at all racist!  she assures him.  They have black friends.  They voted for Obama -- twice!

Chris knows that white people often suffer from unconscious racism that allows them to congratulate themselves for just saying hello to a black person.  He expects to spend the weekend hearing about black friends and becoming a spokesperson for the black condition.  But he goes.

The family, passive-aggressive Mom and Dad and crazy-aggressive "let's wrestle!" Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones), are pleased as punch to meet Chris. They say all of the things that liberal white people say to prove they are not racist.  Jeremy compliments Chris on his genetics, but...ok.   Just the usual microaggressions.

The black servants, Georgina and Walter, act like zombies, like Stepford Servants.

That weekend, the Armitages invite a lot of their wealthy white friends to a party, where they all but drool over Chris. They obviously want him -- physically.  Is this a club for black fetishists?

There is only one other black man at the party, a young guy named Logan King (LaKeith Stanfield).  He has the same vacant zombie vibe as the servants.  Plus he dresses and acts elderly, and he has a much older wife. Gigolo?  Or hypnotized?

Turns out to be much worse.  Spoiler alert:

Rich white people are transferring their brains into young black bodies, so they can be younger, stronger, more talented, more athletic, more hung, better in bed, better at practically everything.

Aha!  Black people have always suspected that white racism is rooted in jealousy.

Afterwards the old personality is still there, but stuck inside, unable to act.  That's why all of the transferred people act like zombies.

Georgina and Walter actually have the brains of Grandma and Grandpa Armitage in them.

Wait -- they wanted black bodies just so they could become servants?

Sometimes they kidnap the bodies they need, and sometimes Rose procures them by dating them and inviting them up "for the weekend."

Chris is next!  Both Jeremy and Jim Hudson (Stephen Root),  a blind art dealer (rather a poor career choice) want him.  A desperate escape attempt follows, with everyone in hot pursuit, getting offed by Chris as he struggles to Get Out!

Beefcake:  Not much.

Gay references:

Rose's previous conquests include 14 men and a woman (if each wooing takes about six months, that's a lot of work for someone of her age).

Chris calls his comic-relief buddy, Rod (comedian Lil Rel Howery), who suspects that something nefarious is going on. Remember Jeffrey Dahmer?  Some black dudes went to his house, thinking "I'm just gonna suck some dick, maybe jiggle some balls," and they got decapitated.

Gay subtexts:  Where to begin?  Every white man in the movie is arguably gay, leering at Chris, commenting on his attractiveness.  One assumes that they desire Chris's body. Only later do we discover that they want to live in it. 

Plus Chris and Rod work together to solve the mystery.  In the last, scene, Rod saves Chris, and they drive off into the sunset together, subverting the trope of male-female fade-out kiss.

13 Diverse Hunks on Eastsiders (aka Silverlake Light)

I only got through 10 minutes and a few fast-forwards of Eastsiders, a Netflix drama about the self-involved, petty disputes of a group of post-twinks living in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.

First, one of the worst names in tv history, easily confused with the British Eastenders.  Plus one ever calls Silverlakers Eastsiders.  East Los Angeles is a whole other neighborhood.

Second, Silverlake is for aging leathermen, not post-twinks.  These people belong in West Hollywood.

Third, this is not 1995. A tv program is not "must see" just because it has some gay guys in it.  Especially gay guys who are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly middle class-artist-writer, self-absorbed, shrill, and obsessed with petty problems like cheating.  For God's sake, just share him!  Why the drama? But maybe it can be redeemed with beefcake.

The Friends are:

1. Post-twink Thom (Van Hansis, a name that is impossible to write down without hearing "Van Halen."   Try it!).

Thom is an aspiring writer who cheats on his boyfriend Cal with Jeremy, then breaks up with Cal and starts dating Jeremy, but decides that he prefers Cal, and....

2. Post-twink Cal (Kit William , top right photo), an aspiring photographer  who dates Jeremy after they break up.

3. Twink Jeremy (Matthew McKelligon, left ), the third member of the triangle.

4. Their wisecrack-spewing friend Kathy (Constance Wu), the token woman, and her boyfriend Ian (John Holback, top left photo), the token straight man.

5. Quincy (Stephen Quarino), who works as a party planner (well, we did have a lot of parties in West Hollywood), who ends up dating Gomorrah Ray (William Belli), the drag-queen-next-door.

That's it for the main cast, but going down the list of 6-episode or fewer guest cast members, maybe I can find some more hunks.  And maybe one person -- just one -- who is black?

6. Trevor (Adam Bucci), whom Thom and Cal have a three-way with. 6 episodes.  Must be a long three-way.

7. Satya Bhabha as Jared, a drag queen competing with Gomorrah Ray.  6 episodes.  A non-white person, anyway, but I'm still holding out for black.

8. David (David Blue), who dates Quincey after he is dumped by Gomorrah Ray.  4 episodes.  White.

9. Paul (Sean Maher), Cal's boss at the art gallery, married to a woman but on the downlow.  White

10. Matthew Wilkas (left, with boyfriend) as Kevin, a hunk du jour.

11.  Queer Eye host Jai Rodriguez as Door Guy Jimmy. 2 episodes.

12. Veteran gay actor Wilson Cruz as Jerry.  1 episode.

We're getting some Hispanic actors way,way down the list.

13. Derrick (Leith M. Burke), whom Jeremy dates in the wilds of Season 3.  Found one!

One black guy out of over 100 in the cast.  Talk about diversity!

The Top 10 Hunks of "Dear White People," Season 3

Dear White People (2014) was a drama with comedic elements about a radio show that points out microaggressions and white privilege at an elite Ivy League college.

The first season of the Netflix tv adaption (2017) continued the story, with the Winchester students dealing with unconscious (and conscious) racism, police targeting, cultural appropriation, and so on.  Still a drama with comedic elements.

The second season (2018) was more comedy than drama, with some attention to white supremacy, institutional racism, and a conservative "why do black people complain all the time" group.  Plus Lionel gets a boyfriend.  It bogs down in a ridiculous plotline about a secret society that controls the world leaving DaVinci Code clues around the campus.

In its third season (2019), Dear White People has become a comedy.  There doesn't seem to be an ongoing plot arc, just micro-plots about selecting a film studies mentor, unionizing, dating, embarrassing moms, and a sex club. Most of the time I have no idea what's going on, and I don't really care. I'm just watching for the Lionel plotlines.  And for the beefcake.

Here are the top 10 hunks of Season 3.  I'm omitting the ones covered (or rather, uncovered) in my previous review (Gabe, Lionel, Reggie, Kurt, Al, and Kordell).

1. Mason Trueblood (top photo) as Colin, a writer for the Pastiche humor magazine (aka Harvard Lampoon).  One of the main plotlines of Season 3 involves Pastiche writers trying to find their own voices, and a female writer being ignored.

2. Kobi Kumi-Diaka (left) as  Jimiyu, a Nigerian student with a crush on someone or other.

3. Jeremy Tardy as Rashid, a member of the Black Student Union, the more conservative black organization on campus.

4. Blair Underwood as Professor Moses Brown, who left after he became rich with an app he developed, but returned because...he wants to nurture young minds?

5. Erich Lane as Clifton, Reggie's roommate, who spends his time doing whatever it is that white people do.  I liked the scene where he changes clothes in front of Reggie, displaying his package and everything (nothing seen on camera).

6. Glenn McCuen as Chet Fuckboi.  I don't remember this character, in spite of the name.


















7.  Alex Alcheh as Milo, one of the graduate teaching assistants.


8. Ryan Alexander Holmes as Nicholas.  I don't know who this character is, but who cares? The actor is hot.

9. Wade F. Wilson as Michael, who insults Lionel at the sex party, and then asks him out.

10. Eugene Ko (left) as Jesse, one of the graduate teaching assistants.  It's about time the show added an Asian character.  Racism isn't all about black and white.

Now, if they can only get him to take his shirt off.

See also:Dear White People

Black Lightning is Back

Black Lightning is back.

That's the premise of the new Netflix series based on an obscure DC comics character from the 1970s.  The only problem is, Black Lightning has never appeared on screen before, so the constant references to past incidents and situations are all immensely confusing.  It's like coming in during the third act of a play, except there were no first two acts.

But apparently about ten years ago, mild-mannered school principal Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) became Black Lightning, lowering his voice and putting on an electricity-funneling suit, in order to kill a bad guy who killed his father. Being a superhero caused too much tension in his family (and family is everything), so he retired.  But now he's back, a superhero vigilante who literally does nothing but beat up bad guys and people he thinks are bad guys.

As principal, Jeff promotes a "respect yourself" and "make positive life decisions" philosophy to help his students overcome the drugs, crime, and racism of their society, especially police targeting of young black men (this is definitely the Black Lives Matter era).

But as Black Lightning, he's a throwback to the 1970s "violent thug" era:  all of these problems are caused by a gang, the 100, led by big bad Lala (William Katlett, seen here in the play Heat and Hostility, about two porn stars comparing endowments).

No, Lala has a boss, Tobias (Marvin "Krondon" Jones), the "albino" big bad who Black Lightning thought he had killed.  An albino in real life, Krondon tries to ensure that the show gives factual information about albinism, and doesn't suggest that it is responsible for Tobias being evil.

But it turns out that Tobias has a boss, Lady Eve (Jill Scott).

And Lady Eve has a boss, Martin Proctor (Greg Henry).

And there are probably a few more big bads in the hierarchy.  I haven't gotten to the end of the series yet, but who wants to bet that the Biggest Bad is the school lunch lady?

Anyone can see that Black Lighting is Jeff in a mask, yet he manages to keep his identity secret from all of his friends, allies, and family.    The only two people who know are:

1. Elderly tailor Peter Gambi (James Remar; photo from a few years ago), who designed the suit and has a secret connection to the hierarchy of evil;

2. Ex-wife Christine (Lynn Stewart), who divorced him a few years ago for no apparent reason other than to reconcile now.

Other characters include:

1. Anissa (Natessa Williams), Jeff's daughter, a medical student and high school science teacher, a lesbian, and a superhero named Thunder.  She's out to her parents as a lesbian but not as a superhero, which leads to her father thinking she's a villain and beating her up.

2. Jennifer (China Anne McClain), Jeff's other daughter, a high school student and party girl, who has superpowers of her own but hasn't settled on a superhero identity yet.

3. Jennifer's ex-boyfriend Khalil Payne, who is paralyzed by a bullet meant for Black Lightning and becomes a cyborg super-villain named Painkiller.

Well, basically everyone is wandering around with superpowers, except for Billy (Damon Gupton), Jeff's friend on the police force, and I'm sure he'll get some soon.

The Gay Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

When I was in high school in the 1970s, a series of paperbacks appeared at Readmore Book World with weird, evocative titles: The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath; The Doom that Came to Sarnath; At the Mountains of Madness.

They weren't actually heroic fantasy, they were "weird tales," dark fantasies by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) originally published in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly about slithering, tentacled things that lurk just beneath the surface of idyllic small towns.

Such as Azazoth, "who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes."

That's the way he wrote.

And "unspeakable knowledge" uncovered in long-forgotten grimoires: De Vermis Mysteriis, the Book of Eibon, Unaussprechlichen Kulten.... and, of course, the Necronomicon, written by the "mad Arab Abdul Alhazred."

I loved that sort of thing.  Especially because there was:

No heterosexual romance anywhere.
Lots of descriptions of masculine beauty.
Lots of male bonding.
Lots of muscular men discovering the horror behind the  heteronormative job-wife-house trajectory.

In "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (1919), the narrator hears a disembodied voice speaking from a sleeping man: "I am your brother of light, and have floated with you in the effulgent valleys.  You have been my friend in the cosmos  We shall meet again -- perhaps in the shining mists of Orion's Sword, perhaps in some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away."

Talk about soul mates!

In “The Quest of Iranon”(1921), a man wanders a stern, unfriendly world in search of the city of Aira, where there are “men to whom songs and dreams. . .bring pleasure.”  He meets “a young boy with sad eyes” who also dreams of escape.    They travel together, happy in a way yet always longing.  They grow old together and finally die, never finding their true home.

Might I suggest West Hollywood?

Randolph Carter, Lovecraft's most famous hero, has been played on screen by Mark Kinsey Stephenson, Art Kitching, Toren Atkinson, Adam Fozard, and Conor Timmis.

In real life, Lovecraft was rather a jerk.  He was even more racist than most in his era, loudly criticizing the "decadent, half-ape" immigrants who were "overrunning" New England.  He particularly disliked Jews, although he married a Jewish woman (his frequent anti-Semitic ranting was the cause of their breakup).

And he was even more homophobic than most, loudly criticizing gay people as "effeminate" and a danger to civilization.  Yet he had many gay friends, such as Hart Crane (author of The Bridge), Samuel Loveman (author of Hermaphrodite and Other Poems), and Robert Hayward Barlow (who became executor of his estate).

In fact, one might say that he found his strongest emotional bonds among gay men.

Beefcake and Gay Characters in "Dear White People"

Dear White People (2014) was a comedy-drama about black students at an elite Ivy League school facing microaggressions, institutional racism, and "There's no racism here!"  Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) broadcasts a Dear White People program, which is lambasted for "reverse racism" by Kurt (Kyle Gallner), the president's son and head of the most prestigious fraternity on campus. In retaliation, Kurt hosts a Halloween party where the guests dress as black stereotypes.

The comedy-drama tv series Dear White People (2017), currently airing on Netflix, deals with the aftermath of the party.  There's an ongoing plot arc, but every episode centers on a different character.

Troy (Brandon P. Bell, left) finds his chances for becoming student body president jeopardized when Kurt films evidence of his affair with African-American Studies professor Neika.

Sam (Logan Browning) is incensed when her white boyfriend Gabe (John Patrick Amedori) reveals their relationship on Instagram.

Lionel (DeRon Horton), a nerdy journalism student, comes out and negotiates a crush on his roommate, Troy, and the unrequited attraction of fruity newspaper editor Silvio (D. J. Blickenstaff).

At a party, Reggie (Marque Richardson) is held at gunpoint by a police officer for being black.

The gay content is not done very well: there are two bisexual characters, both horndogs who grab at everything in sight, and three gay characters, Lionel and two flamboyant stereotypes.

And I'm not sure about Troy -- is the guy stupid, or deliberately leading Lionel on with statements like "I need something, and you're the only one who can give it to me" and "I want you to do something for me in the bathroom."

But tv series most often present the myth that racism doesn't exist, or exists only among alt-right bigots, so it's interesting to see institutional racism being played out.

And there's a tremendous amount of beefcake.

Kurt (Wyatt Nash), who happens to be Troy's childhood best friend.

Al (Jemar Michael, who posted this underwear pic in real life.  Interesting that his right nipple sits below his pec).

Kordell (Brandon Black)

See also: The Top 10 Hunks of Dear White People