The Amazing Digital Circus: Gay, trans, ace, and nonbinary humans trapped in a sinister video game.

 

The Amazing Digital Circus is an adult animated series where humans are zapped into a virtual reality pocket universe that looks like a 1990s circus-themed video game.  They forget their names and their human lives, except for a few random details.  Every day a crazy AI named Caine sends them out on "adventures," some frightening (explore a haunted mansion), some just soul-destroying (work a shift in a fast-food restaurant).  

Showrunner Gooseworx notes a debt to the Harlan Ellison story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,"where a sentient computer kills almost all humans, leaving a few alive to torture forever.  But here Caine does not intend to torture the "players," unless he gets angry: most of the time he is honestly trying to provide them with fun and excitement, but he has no idea what humans like. 

The result is terror, pain, and a lot of existential angst.  What are we doing here?  How can you find meaning when you are "just a sort of thing in a dream," or in this case a video game?  

When the angst becomes too great for the characters to maintain consciousness, lucidity, or body shape, they are "abstracted," reduced to a monstrous formation of eyes and spikes, and sent to the Cellar. 

The main players are:

Focus character Pomni, a court jester, a supermarket accountant in her old life. She tries to keep the others coherent while searching for an escape.

Pomni is voiced by Lizzie Freeman (cishet).

Jax, a tall, purple anthropomorphic bunny.  As a human, he was 22 years old, living with his abusive mother.  One day she insulted him for 40 minutes, then tried to hug him; he pushed her away and ran, and ended up at the Circus.  He is condescending, sarcastic, sometimes cruel, and claims to not care about anyone or anything -- except for his abstracted chum that the others are not supposed to ever mention.  Their human form came out as transgender and began using she/her pronouns.

Jax is voiced by Michael Kovach, left (ace, heteroromantic).  In the live action shows, he is played by actor/model Izatillo Ishonov (gay), who also goes by Nizatillo and Izat (top photo).

Ragatha, a Raggedy Ann doll with a missing eye.  In her human life, she had a wealthy farming family and an abusive mother.  She tries to be optimistic and friendly to everyone.

Ratha is voiced by Amanda Huffman (nonbinary).

Kinger, a chess piece with a purple robe and wobbly eyes.  A computer programmer in his old life, he was the first to enter the Circus, and is now unstable and prone to amnesia.  He spends most of his time hiding in a pillow fort.

Kinger is voiced by Sean Chiplock (cishet).  In the live shows, he is voiced by Ben Bishop (gay, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Gangle, four red ribbons arranged in a humanoid form, with a tragedy or comedy mask (but the comedy keeps breaking). As a human, she was shift supervisor at a fast-food restaurant.  One night she was hit by a truck, and awoke in the Circus. She is timid and self-conscious.

Gangle is voiced by Marisa Lenti (agender, ace).

Zooble, a constantly changing assemblage of random parts resembling a ZoLo toy. As a human, they were a nonbinary tattoo artist, and worked at a LGBTQ-friendly bar.  They often rebel against the AI Caine, and refuse to go on adventures, causing him to send them to therapy (with Caine playing the psychiatrist).

Zooble is voiced by Ashley Nichols (nonbinary).

More after the break.  

"The Hollow": Adam is Gay

Last year I reviewed the first season of The Hollow, the Netflix animated series about three kids working their way through the various worlds of a giant video game.

1. Strong leader Adam (Adrian Petriw)
2. Cut-up Kai (Connor Parnall)
3. Sensitive, intuitive Mira (Ashleigh Ball)

 I liked the animation, and the complex plotlines, and found a gay subtext between Kai and Adam.  I didn't like how Kai kept crushing on every girl in sight.

Season 2 just dropped. In the first episode, they all awaken back home. Or what they think is back home.

While Mira and her brother have breakfast, two men are discussing changing around their work schedues to go on vacation....wait...she has two Dads!  Not just in the background, like on Ducktales, but talking, addressing her as their daughter, hugging. 

No way to de-gay them as friends, roommates, or brothers.  Let the Million Mom screeching begin.

But that's not all.

Adam has a giant rainbow flag on his bedroom wall!  Not a little one.  Not just in a blink-and-you-miss it shot.  It's obviously hanging there throughout the entire scene.

Adam is gay!

He says the word in the second episode, explaining to Kai that he's not interested in Mira. Then Mira apologizes for trying to kiss him last season -- she wouldn't have, except for the amnesia they were all suffering from.

So  Mira knew, but Kai didn't.  They were together in the video game world for weeks, maybe months, and it never came up?

I'm not happy that the writers waited until Season 2 to out Adam, and it doesn't seem to be referenced again, except maybe in a bickering subtext with new character Reeve.  (Fans suspect that they're ex-boyfriends.) 

But those are minor quibbles.

There's a gay kid in The Hollow!

In other news, actor Connor Parnell, who plays Kai, is 26 years old, a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, and gay.  Or does everyone already know that? 





See: The Hollow

Wreck-It Ralph and the Loss of Gay History

I read an article written by a gay guy who was totally traumatized by the homophobia of Wreck-It Ralph (2012).  

The limp-wristed, lisping Candy King, who lives in a hot-pink castle (("it's salmon!", is beat up by the macho, all-man hero, and  called a "nelly wafer."

So of course I had to watch the movie.

The premise: Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in an antiquated video game, wrecking an apartment building so Fix-It Felix Junior can "fix it." He wants to become a good guy, so he leaves his game, and eventually ends up in a candy themed video game.  He helps a young girl win a candy-themed race, while the sinister Candy King tries to thwart them.  There are a lot of plot twists, some scary scenes, and a bit of Disney treacle.

It wasn't great.  I would have preferred a grand tour of other video games (we see three), and some greater exploration of the video-game characters' world. But...I kept waiting and waiting for the "nelly wafer."

Sigh.

1. The Candy King is not a gay stereotype.  He looks and talks like famous comedian Ed Wynn, specifically his performance as the Mad Hatter in the Disney Alice in Wonderland.  Wynn's distinctive delivery was endlessly imitated; anybody over age 40 will recognize it instantly.

2. Ralph is no macho he-man.  He is a dimwitted ogre, an anti-hero, a bad guy who wants to be good.

3. The Candy King's palace is pink for a very important plot point that has nothing to do with him being effeminate: it's not his palace!  He's a usurper.  The true ruler of the Candy Kingdom is...well, watch the movie.

4. Ralph does not best the Candy King in a fight until the end of the movie, when he has transformed into a giant spider-creature, and even then, it takes a lot of people working together,

5. Among many other candy-themed insults, Ralph calls Candy King " a vanilly wafer."  It is conceivable that Ralph said "vanilly" instead of "vanilla" to make it sound like "nelly," an old term for gay men, but rather a stretch.  He doesn't say anything else to imply that Candy King is gay.

Earlier, Ralph appears to call Pac Man a "cock gobbler," but actually in the video game Pac Man eats dots, so the slur is probably "dot gobbler."

Sheesh.

Has the author seen any other Disney movie?  They're loaded down with sleeky,sophisticated, gay-stereotype villains.  How about Jabar? Shere Khan?  Captain Hook?

Or any movie from the 1980s?  "Fags" and "homos" litter the dialogue. Just a sample:

Teen Wolf: "I'm not a fag, I'm a werewolf."
Adventures in Babysitting; "Thor is a homo."
An American Werewolf in London:"Prince Charles is a fag."
The Breakfast Club: "Stay out of my locker, fag."

 A single misheard line that could be a gay slur is nothing.  Grow a pair!

By the way, Ralph displays no heterosexual interest, ever.  He hangs out with other male villains, changes clothes with an army guy in a patently homoerotic scene, and buddy-bonds with Fix-It Felix.  Gay subtext is rather obvious.

When you don't remember your own history, you are doomed to repeat it.