Jimmy Bennett: No Ordinary Teen Idol

Jimmy Bennett is only 18 years old, but already a favorite of gay kids, and not just because of his preference for appearing shirtless or semi-nude.  He has already produced a substantial body of work that articulates and validates same-sex romance.

In Alabama Moon (2009), gay-vague 11-year old Moon Blake (Jimmy) is sent to a juvenile facility in Alabama, where he bonds with Kit (Uriah Shelton).  They plot an escape together, and end up finding a home.

In Bones (2010), Bones White (Jimmy) and Anthony (Andrew Lawrence) buddy-bond in 1989 New York.

No Ordinary Family (2010-2011) was a "my secret" comedy-drama about a family with supernatural powers.  14-year old J.J. (Jimmy) was super-intelligent, able to learn new languages instantly and read technical manuals in a few seconds.  He fell in love with girls, but his powers marked him as different, as queer (besides, he buddy-bonded with Billy Unger).

He's a talented singer also, performing the soundtracks to Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Party, as well as "Summer Never Ends," from Shorts.  Most of his songs are not heterosexist.  In "Over Again," for instance, his lover could be male or female:
Why does it feel so distant, when you're standing next to me.
Why does it feel so cold, when we're sharing body heat.

Word is that Jimmy is heterosexual in real life, but warm and welcoming to his gay fans.

Andrew Lawrence

Andy Lawrence was born in 1988, when his older brothers, Joey and Matthew (ages 12 and 8, respectively) were already well-established child actors.

Growing up with two extremely successful, amazingly muscular, and aggressively gay-friendly older brothers gave Andy some advantages.

1.He began acting at age 2, on his brother's sitcom Blossom.  He had a starring role in Tom (1994) at age seven, and then moved on to a long string of tv series: Brotherly Love, Recess, CSI, Bones, and Castle.

2. He began working out at an early age, developing a physique equal to or surpassing that of his brothers by the time they all starred together in Jumping Ship (2001). Since then, he has often played athletes in skimpy uniforms.

And, since he turned 18, in 2006, he has often been asked to do shirtless and semi-nude scenes.    

3.  He became gay-friendly at an early age.  His movies and television appearances regularly involve homoromantic friendships.

In The Other Me (2000), Will Browning (Andy) accidentally clones himself.  The rest of the movie involves Will and his clone, Twoie/Gill, bonding, rescuing each other, and using their identical looks to become popular among the girls and guys at his middle school.

In Going to the Mat (2004), blind high schooler Jace (Andy) joins the wrestling team.  His buddy Fly (Khleo Thomas), although not interested in sports, joins in order to help him fit in.  They are an amazingly physical pair; of course, sighted friends often take the blind person's arm or hand to help them negotiate unfamiliar terrain, but what about casually reclining against each other on a couch, or full body hugs every five seconds?
 

On the sitcom The United States of Tara (2009), about a woman with multiple personalities, high school wrestler Jason (Andy, left) starts a relationship with Marshall (Keir Gilcrist, right), but then kisses T (Tara's teenage girl alter ego).  Does his attraction to Marshall mean that he is gay?  Does his attraction to T mean that he is straight?  Maybe he's bisexual.  He's not sure himself, his confusion mirroring that of many teenagers negotiating feelings that the adults tell them cannot exist.

Not to mention Oliver Beane (another character was gay-vague), Recess (gay-positive character), Chasing a Dream (high schooler becomes a track star to honor his dead friend's memory), The Least of These (haven't seen it, but I think he plays a gay character), and Bones (teenager not interested in girls who buddy bonds with the hunky Jimmy Bennett).

Andrew is rumored to be gay in real life; how could a heterosexual be so extremely gay-positive?

Ask his brothers.

Jamie Bell: Not Wearing a Sign

Born in 1986, Jamie Bell first gained the attention of gay viewers with Billy Elliot (2000), about a boy who wants to become a ballet dancer in spite of the disapproval of his working-class British family, friends, and entire community.  They think dancing is for poofs (only his gay friend supports him). (Later it was made into Billy Elliot: The Musical).

Nicholas Nickleby (2002) upped the homoeroticism of the original Dickens novel, giving Nicholas (Charlie Hunnan) and abused classmate Smike (Jamie) an overtly romantic bond.

Undertow (2004) was a change of pace, transporting Jamie from Britain to rural Georgia.  But he got to keep the thin, sickly look to play Chris Munn, who has to flee into the woods with his younger brother (Devon Allen) to escape a murderous uncle (Josh Lucas).  The buddy-bonding here is between brothers, but at least Jamie hangs out in his underwear.

I haven't seen Dear Wendy (2004), but it seems to be a dark fable about boys, guns, and friendship.  Or The Chumscrubber (2005), but it seems to be the same, except with drugs instead of guns, and with nudity.

But I did see Tintin (2011), the animated version of the famous comic strip, which doesn't skimp on the homoromance between Tintin and Captain Haddock.

More recently, Jamie has bulked up so he can display a muscular physique in actioners like The Eagle (2011), in which Roman soldier Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) and his boyfriend/slave Esca (Jamie) wander barbarian Europe in search of a lost golden emblem.

With all the gay-friendly content, you'd expect Jamie to be used to gay rumors.  But he finds them surprising and "weird," since none of his characters is actually Wearing a Sign. Still, he got t a familial connection to the LGBT community when he married the bisexual Rachel Evan Wood.

Fall 1987: Heterosexualizing My Childhood Hero

My friends and I at Denkmann Elementary School in the 1960s liked Disney comics -- Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Junior Woodchucks -- but they were hard to find.  Schneider's Drug Store didn't stock them. We had to depend on that one kid who had a subscription, or in the stacks of comics that went on sale every summer at the Denkmann School Carnival.

When we left Denkmann, no more carnival, no more Disney comics.  By the late 1970s, they weren't available anywhere, so I assumed that they were no longer being published.

But I read and reread the few adventures that I owned, with Uncle Scrooge, and his nephews and grand-nephews traveling the world to seek out lost civilizations and ancient treasures: the Philosopher's Stone; the Golden Fleece; the Seven Cities of Cibola; the Mines of King Solomon; the Treasure of Genghis Khan.

There were a few science fiction and humor stories.  Occasionally a character from Greek or Norse mythology showed up.  But mostly it was boys' adventure, like Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, and the books in the Green Library.

There were no women in this macho world.  Donald Duck never mentioned that Daisy was waiting back home, Huey Dewey, and Louie treated girls as nuisances, and Uncle Scrooge?  During his many careers as cowboy, prospector, explorer, salesman, and financial tycoon, he had never even been on a date.

During college, I bought a massive tome, Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times (1981), which reprinted some of the best Uncle Scrooge stories, and found a woman mentioned: in "Back to the Klondike" (1953), Scrooge recounts how, when he was a young prospector, a devious dance hall girl named Glittering Goldie drugged him and stole his solid gold nugget.  He tracked her down, got the nugget back, and forced her to work at his claim for a month, to teach her the value of "honest work."

That's all.  No romantic entanglement suggested.

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1980s, Gladstone began reprinting some of the old Uncle Scrooge comics, plus new stories by cartoonist Don Rosa.  He sent Scrooge back to the Klondike in "Last Sled to Dawson" (1987).  And made Glittering Goldie his old girlfriend!

Goldie appeared in several more of Don Rosa's stores during the late 1980s and 1990s, and played a major role in the faux biography of Uncle Scrooge published in 1997.  We find out what really happened during the month they spent alone in Scrooge's cabin on White Agony Creek.  There's even a dirty joke:

En route to the claim, they encounter a giant mastodon partially frozen in the ice.  "Ok, let's get a move on," Scrooge commands.  "Between the legs!"

"I beg your pardon!" Goldie stammers, thinking that he means....

Realizing his faux pas, Scrooge reddens.  "Um...er...the way to my cabin is between the legs of the mastodon."

What can we make of this incessant heterosexualization of one of my childhood heroes?

Don Rosa's comic book stories weren't for kids, but for adults who had grown up with the Uncle Scrooge books. Adults who were old enough for "mature" themes, like girlfriends and "between the legs" jokes.

But children's media was quick to follow suit.  The Ducktales tv series (1987-1990) cast Glittering Goldie as Scrooge's love interest in four episodes. Plus Scrooge flirted with an ongoing series of female reporters, heiresses, and gold-diggers, before, after, or during the adventure.  He was heterosexual.

See also: Donald Duck's Double Life.