"You're the Worst": A homophobic rapper hooks up with a swhshy gay stereotype. Plus Zac Efron and some bare butts

  

While I was researching something else, I came across this clip on youtube: 

A blond guy and a woman are standing at an apartment.  He asks "He never gave you the key?"  She says no, so he bangs.  

A very muscular black guy in his underwear answers. Shocked, he says "Oh...shit.  Hey guys."

Blondie: "What the hell are you doing?"   

Muscle Guy: "Sorry.  We needed a place."

Woman: "For what?"

A swishy guy appears with a flourish, also in his underwear.  They stare in shock.  

Woman (Disgusted): "You're GAY????"

Muscle Guy (Upset): "No!!!!!  But this n-word's son sucks really good dick."  So the gay guy has a black parent?

The whole exchange -- the looks of shock and disgust, the need to defend yourself against the horrifying accusation, the gay guy's pronounced swishiness --- displays just the sort of jaw-dropping homophobia that I hate running into at 4:00 am.

The caption reads: You're the Worst - Brandon Mychal Smith.  So let's look it up. 

You're the Worst is a tv series that lasted for five years on FX (2014-2019), but was so under-exposed that I don't recall seeing a single commercial.  Most episodes drew between .2 and .5 million viewers.  It featured a romance between two horrible people, writer Jimmy (Chris Geere, the Blond Guy in the clip) and public relations person Gretchen.  

The homophobic scene is from Episode 1.3, "Keys Open Doors."  To put it in context, I watched the whole episode. 

Link to NSFW version.

Scene 1: Morning.  After a night of carousing, Jimmy and Gretchen are lying naked, asleep, on the ground outside his house.

Cut to Jimmy pooping (butt shot) while Gretchen uses the hand nozzle of the shower to masturbate.  Jimmy notes that he uses it too, in his butt.

They've spent six or seven nights together, so Gretchen wants a key to his apartment.  He refuses, so she rushes out in passive-aggressive rage. 

Scene 2: Edgar (Desmin Borges, left and below), Jimmy's horrible roommate, cooks breakfast.  They discuss the key request as a symbol of banality and predictability, leading to "shopping for sconces at Williams-Sonoma."

Scene 3: At the coffee shop, Gretchen and her friend Lindsay discuss the key request,  Lindsay's husband cheating, and "snorting in her vag."  So she's bisexual?  

Her assistant rushes in with a crisis: Sam the Rapper gave an interview to a college newspaper, and used "gay" and "faggot" 37 times!   And the interviewer was the president of the gay student association!  So, if he said all that to a straight person, it would be fine?

Scene 4: Gretchen left her cell phone at Jimmy's house.  He snoops, and finds a text from Ty (Stephen Schneider, left), saying "Can't wait to see you tonight."  "Who the hell is Ty?" he bellows.

Cut to Gretchen at work, confronting Sam the Rapper. He explains that he and his crew were trying to pick up college girls, when this dude asked for an interview.  

"Didn't you notice that he was gay?" Yeah, like gay men are all instantly recognizable due to their fruitiness.

"He was hella fruity, but so what?"

\

"No more interviews without me being there!"

Scene 5:  Jimmy goes to Gretchen's office to return her cell phone.  On the way out, he runs into Sam the Rapper, who liked his book: "It was boring as hell, and clearly you jacked off to Hemingway in high school, but the prose was good."  

Then they discuss how great Gretchen is.  Jimmy decides that she should get the key to his house after all, and gives it to Sam the Rapper to give to her.

Scene 6: At a gay bar (you can tell by the rainbow flags everywhere), Darren (Trey Gerrald), the guy who interviewed Sam the Rapper, is having a swishy comversation about hair-weaves.  The 1960s stereotype even has a limp wrist!   Gretchen asks him to not mention the slurs "gay" and "faggot" in his article, but he refuses: "We're at the start of a revolution.  You won't say the n-word, but people feel free to say 'faggot' whenever you want."  Um..that was Stonewall, 54 years ago, and saying "faggot" will get you called out, and maybe fired.  What year do they think this is?

She tries flirting with him, but it doesn't work.  Um...did you think that 'gay' means 'fruity heterosexual'?  What about $2000 hush money?  Ok, that works. 

Scene 7: Night.  Jimmy tails Gretchen, hoping to find her screwing this Ty guy. Wait -- did they agree to be monogamous?  He follows her to a bar, where she's having drinks with her friends (including Jimmy's roommate!).  Why wasn't he invited?  She explains that some people he hates are there, including his ex-girlfriend.

As they are arguing, Ty arrives with his date.  So they're just friends?  Jimmy is relieved -- until Ty whispers in Gretchen's ear "I need to see you soon."  I'll bet it's something innocent, like he wants to hire Gretchen to do his pr.

Scene 8: After the party, Jimmy and Gretchen head back to his house.  Remember that Jimmy gave Sam the Rapper a key to give to her?  She never got it.  But that was Jimmy's only key!  They bang on the door, and we get Sam the Rapper and Darren's "you're gay????" scene.

Now I understand their shock -- they thought that Sam the Rapper was homophobic -- and his need to defend himself -- he is homophobic.  But I still don't like the old-fashioned, pre-Stonewall depiction of gay men.

As far as I can tell, Sam's same-sex interests are never mentioned again, but Jimmy has sex with two guys to mess with Gretchen.  Actual gay people appear in only two episodes.

I thought Brandon Mychal Smith was gay real life, but when you google his name and "gay," all you get is  Zac Efron in Dirty Grandpa.  

There are several bare butts on the NSFW version of this review

See also: Stephen Schneider's Extensive Nude Scene

Stephen Schneider: Heterosexual love interest, heterosexual bottom, hung sleazoid

The Homophobic 1980s of the Beastie Boys

I barely heard of The Beastie Boys until last January, when their song "Shake Your Rump" was performed on The Goldbergs.   All I knew was that they were a boy band from the 1980s, probably British (since Americans don't use the adjective "beastly"), and they sang "You got to fight for your right to party."

But the Goldberg homage group,  The Tasty Boys (Sam Lerner, Troy Gentile, Sean Giambrone), was rather tasty, and the song was catchy, so I looked up the Beastie Boys.












I found this photo of the group on the beach at Coney Island: Mike D (Mike Diamond, born in 1965), MCA (Adam Yauch, 1964-2012), and Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz (born in 1966)

Not bad.  Why were they under my radar in the late 1980s?

Then I found a 1999 letter by Ad-Rock, published in Time Out: 

“I would like to formally apologize to the entire gay and lesbian community for the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record."

That would be License to Ill, released in 1986.

Wait -- something homophobic happened in 1986, and I didn't know about it?

So I looked up the album and scanned the lyrics of every song for homophobia.

Like most rap artists they brag a lot about how much sex with women they have.  Every woman on Earth wants to sleep with them, due partly to their enormous penises and partly to their orgasm-inducing music:

Taxing all females from coast to coast
And when I get my fill I'm chilly most

We rag-tag girlies back at the hotel

Met this girl at the party and she started to flirt
I told her some rhymes and she pulled up her skirt

Although they like women for other reasons than just sex:

Girls -- to do the dishes.
Girls -- to clean up my room.
Girls -- to do the laundry.
Girls -- in the bathroom

Men other than their homeboys are woefully unable to get girls (for laundry or sex), and therefore jealous.  Sometimes they have to be killed, but the Beastie Boys are stone-cold killas, more than up to the challenge.

Twin sisters in my bed, their father had envy so I shot him in the head

Saw the kid that dissed my homey and shot him in the back.

I keep a pistol in my pocket so you better be cautious.

They also brag about how great their music is.  Other musicians are woefully inadequate, not proficient enough to make rhymes, not manly enough to get girls:

You tried to steal my fresh and you got cold busted
Because your crew's all soft and I'm disgusted

In general, the Beastie Boys are the most wondrous beings on the planet, desired by every girl, envied by every boy.

And I got more juice than Picasso got paint
Got rhymes that are rough and rhymes that are slick
I'm not surprised you're on my dick

The lyrics were very, very annoying.  Did the Beatles announce how great they were in every song?  But I didn't see anything specifically homophobic.

The only lyrics that come close are disapproving of sophisticated guys:

You got a dry Martini thinking you're cool
I'll take your place at the bar, I'll smack you off your stool
I'll down a '40 dog in a single gulp
And if you got beef you'll get beat to a pulp

 There's one line suggesting that the competing musicians are gay:

You drippy nose knuckle-head - you're wet behind the ears
You like men - and we like beer.

And the few girls who refuse sex:

I should have probably guessed they're gay.

Altogether, rather mild.

Of course, in real life they were as homophobic as just about every group of lower-class New York teenagers in the 1980s.  They wanted to call their album Don't Be a Faggot.  In a 1987 interview entitled "Yo, Homo," Ad-Rock clarified: "I hate faggots...I really do.  I've got lots of gay friends, but..."

MCA stepped in to explain further: Ad-Rock hates gay people, but he has a good reason.  When he was five years old, he was constantly being propositioned by "disgusting faggots who aren't just like gay people -- normal gay people."

Um, I believe the term for that is pedophile.

Over the years, the Beastie Boys moved beyond their boyhood bigotry, far beyond the glorified violence and sexism of their early work.  They became feminists and Tibetan Buddhists, spoke out in favor of human rights, opposed Islamophobia.

And became gay-inclusive, sort of.

In 2004 they were singing:

We gotta keep the party going on 
All lifestyles, sizes, shapes, and form 

See also: The Goldbergs

The New Boyz: Shirtless Instagram Pics and a Gay Tweet

You have to be very careful in reviewing rap artists.  Homophobia is ubiquitous. For every gay-positive rapper, like Romeo, you find a dozen who bellow against gays with the raw hate of a fundamentalist preacher.

This photo of rapper Legacy, formerly part of the New Boyz,  offered enough beefcake to warrant further investigation.  But I proceeded with caution.

New Boyz consisted of Ben J (Earl Benjamin) and Legacy (Dominic Thomas), two California teens from the same high school who were originally antagonists, but bonded through their love of music.  They began performing as the Swagger Boys in 2008, then as the New Boyz.

Theire single "You're a Jerk," released in the summer of 2009, popularized the "jerkin'" style of dance and reached #24 on U.S. charts (#4 on rap charts).

They released two albums, Skinny Jeans and a Mic (2009) and Too Cool to Care (2011) before breaking up to pursue solo careers.

Their lyrics are extremely heterosexist -- every other word is "girl! girl! girl!"  Or, more likely "hoe!"  They're extremely sexist, too,

But I didn't notice any homophobia, except maybe in an exchange in "Cashmere," where they compete over a girl:

Legacy: I was wonderin' if you could be my first date here
Ben J: Excuse my friend, he's kinda new to meeting girls cause he's used to men.
Legacy: Used to men!
Ben J: Girl, this dude is stupid huh?
Legacy: Yo, I ain't gay.
Ben J: Man, why don't you tell the truth for once?
Legacy: She want me.
Ben J: You don't even got a mustache yet.

Even that seems very mild.

Two more things you should know about the New Boyz:

1. Legacy is fond of shirtless instagram pics, some considerably more explicit than the top photo.

2. Ben J apparently came out in a tweet:

I am admitting to being gay, can't be fake with y'all no more.  Take it or leave it. Thanks for all the support though!!