Next Friday: Homophobes Create an Interracial Gay Romance

So I'm channel surfing, when I see a white slacker, carrying an enormous dog, an enormous grin on his face, about to leave a house.  Inside, a black slacker coyly says "Call me!"  He replies "You know it!"

Did I just see a gay romance in bloom?

I quickly check the TV Guide for the movie -- Next Friday (2000), and get a copy from Netflix.  It stars Ice Cube as Craig Jones, who is fleeing from a gangster and hides out with his uncle in the suburbs. The slackers are Cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) and his friend Roach (Justin Pierce), who work in Pinky's Record Store.  Day-Day is being harassed by an ex-girlfriend, but otherwise the two display no heterosexual interest.  They don't even discuss girls at work.

But they can't keep their hands off each other.

The dog belongs to the neighborhood drug dealers, but Roach makes friends with it by feeding it bologna.

The drug dealers kidnap them -- Day-Day puts his arm around a freaking-out Roach to comfort him -- and tie them together, planning to shoot them later. But Craig and his friends come to the rescue.

Later, when the various crises are resolved, we get the "Call me!" scene.

It seems odd to find such a remarkable gay romance, with physicality, emotional connection, and the promise of permanence, in the heart of a stoner comedy written by Ice Cube, who was quite homophobic at the time (he's softened his antigay position since), and starring Mike Epps, known for his homophobic outbursts in airports.  Justin Pierce, who committed suicide in 2000, starred in the homophobic Kids.

Maybe we can attribute the gay subtext to director Steve Carr?

Or maybe it was purely unconscious.

Matt Bush: The Gay Best Friend

I like guys who are on the shorter side --  5'5, 5'4, shorter if I can find them.  So the main appeal of Glory Daze (2010-2011), about fratboys parading around in their underwear in the 1980s, was not the protagonist Joel (Kelly Blatz), or the jock Brian (Hartley Sawyer), but the Jewish operator Eli, played by 5'3 Matt Bush.

 And of course, I had to find his other project, to see if there were gay subtexts, or at least some more shirtless or underwear scenes (he certainly had plenty in Glory Daze).

He broke into film in One Last Thing..(2005), about the dying Dylan Jamieson (Michael Angarano), whose last wish is sex with a supermodel.  Sounds quite heterosexist on paper, but his best friends Ricky (Matt) and Slap (Gideon Glick) are devoted to each other, a gay-subtext couple.

After a few tv appearances, Matt starred in Adventureland (2009), about James, a young slacker (Jesse Eisenberg) in the 1980s, who takes a job at a decrepit amusement park and meets The Girl.  His childood friend Tommy Frigo (Matt) gets him the job, but then bullies him, hits him repeatedly in the crotch, and embarrasses him at a party by loudly pointing out that he has "a boner."  Tommy seems rather interested in James' endowment.

In High School (2010), stick-in-the-mud valedictorian Henry (Matt) is talked into smoking pot by his stoner buddy Travis (Sean Marquette), just as the principal institutes a drug test.  They decide to fight the drug test by getting the whole school high.  There's The Girl, of course, but she is a minor player in this homoerotic buddy-bonding comedy.

Nice Guy Johnny (2010) is gay-subtext free.

Piranha 3DD (2012) is advertised by a close-up shot of a woman's breasts. 3DD is apparently a bra size.

The Kitchen (2012): Jennifer (Laura Prepon) is turning 30, and her bff Stan (Matt) throws her a party, but doesn't fall in love with her.

Not a bad gay-subtext oeuvre.  No word on whether he is gay or gay-positive in real life.