Swiss Family Robinson

When I was a kid in the 1960s, most books were gender-coded, but both boys and girls received copies of Gulliver's Travels and the Johann David Wyss classic Swiss Family Robinson (1812) for their bookshelves.  Boys were expected to read it for the shipwreck and savages, and girls for the family setting up housekeeping on the desert island.

I didn't like it much. I had bad memories of The Book of Cute Boys that my father threw out the window.

 At least there was no heterosexual fade-out kiss -- the family encounters another shipwreck survivor, an "American cousin" whom no one bothers to fall in love with.  But there was little homoromance, either, with no one on the island but family.

But the tropical setting provided some beefcake potential, so I kept a close watch on the various film and tv versions.  Unfortunately, many of them upped the role of The Girl to create a heterosexual romance.

1. Swiss Family Robinson (1975-76). The  tv version with Adam-12 hunk Martin Milner and up-and-coming bodybuilder Willie Aames. No girl-craziness, but everyone was fully clothed throughout.


2. Swiss Family Robinson (1960).  The Disney version with James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk (left), and Kevin Corcorran.  Muscular physiques everywhere, but both Fritz and Ernst swoon over a girl.

3. The New Swiss Family Robinson (1998) is set in the modern era and adds a French-speaking jungle girl (Yumi Iwama), who kidnaps older brother Shane (John Asher of Weird Science).  They dive Tarzan-and-Jane style into the lagoon, kiss, and plan a wedding.

But at least younger brother Todd (Blake Bashoff expresses no interest.

4. Stranded (2002), with Jesse Spencer as Fritz.  Nuff said.

Kyle XY

In the spring of 2006, ABC Family started showing ads about a new series, with a teenage boy raising his shirt to display his abs.

Oh, wait, is he supposed to be showing us that he lacks a belly button?  I missed that.

But there's a midriff-bare girl gazing longingly at him, and I suppose he's named XY to accentuate gender polarization -- guys are guys, and guys like girls!  Heterosexist garbage.  So I didn't watch.

But upon hearing that star Matt Dallas is gay (here showing his real-life navel, along with Tahj Mowry, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, and Derek Thaler) I thought I'd check to see if there were any subtexts.

The online episode guide suggests that Kyle XY (2006-2009) was indeed about Kyle and the Girl of His Dreams working together to investigate the mystery of his origin  (I'm guessing he's a clone).  There are also some teenage allies, who fall in love and break up in staid heterosexual pairs.  Season 2 ends with Prom Night.

There were a lot of characters, and most of the girls had boys' names and boys had girls' names, making it difficult to ascertain homoerotic liaisons without a score card, but I think I came up with three possibilities:

1. A security guard, Foss (Nicholas Lea), takes a paternal interest in Kyle: "Everything I did was to protect you, to keep you safe.  You've got to trust me."  He doesn't have a girlfriend.

2. High school ally Declan (Chris Olivero) sleeps with lots of girls, but becomes Kyle's best friend, and they team up to solve this week's mystery.

3. Kyle's foster brother, Josh (Jean-Luc Bilodeau), sleeps with a girl named Andy, but he helps Kyle meet with a grounded girlfriend by hiding in her bed in a blond wig, thus fooling her mother and moving into drag.

I thought Jean-Luc Bilodeau was either Popeye's antagonist or a French crooner from the 1930s, but surprise, he's only 23.

And then there's the implicit homoeroticism of the nudity.

A lot of nudity.

The Thirteenth Year

Every now and then the Disney Channel airs a movie over-brimming with teenage and young adult beefcake, only to hide it in a vault and refuse to release it on DVD, as if the network bigwigs find it embarrassing: Jumping Ship, Luck of the Irish, Johnny Tsunami, Full-Court Miracle.  But the most egregious is The Thirteenth Year (1999), which seems little more than an excuse to display 17-year old Chez Starbuck and his friends in swimsuits.

Chez plays Cody Griffin, a "normal" 13-year old whose main problems are: 1) the swim team, where he competes with star athlete Sean (Tim Redwine, left), and 2) his marine biology project, where he is partnered with the uncool science nerd Jess (Justin Jon Ross).  Oh, and his body is changing, and not just the expected changes of puberty: he's developing gills and scales.

Jess performs some tests, and concludes that Cody is turning into a mermaid -- or rather, a merman.  Turns out that his mother is a mermaid, and he will eventually transform altogether.

In spite of the "keeping my secret" hilarity, the movie is rather disturbing.  The transformation is painful and traumatic, and when it is complete, Cody will no longer be human.  He must abandon his human friends and seek out "his own kind" in the ocean.

But there's substantial gay content, and not just the endless swimsuit shots.

1. Although Cody has a girlfriend -- this is Disney, after all -- he ends up buddy-bonding with Jess.  The climactic rescue comes when he saves Jess from drowning, and then uses his mermaid electrical power to revive him.

2. None of the main characters other than Cody express any heterosexual interest.  They all seemed extraordinarily focused on him.

3. The "fish out of water" looking for a place where he can be himself.  Ok, gay symbolism.

Chez Starbuck hasn't done much acting since The Thirteenth Year.  He played a jock in Time Share (2000) and got undressed in the MTV series Undressed.  He appeared as himself in the reality series The Real L-Word (2011), about real lesbians, and for some reason made a plaster cast of his penis.

Charlton Comics: More Gay Subtexts than Casper

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my staple was Harvey comics: gay-vague pacifist Casper the Friendly Ghost saving the world from science-fiction threats.  I liked the Gold Key jungle comics, Little Lulu, Archie, and occasionally a Marvel or DC title, but I hated the bottom-of-the-barrel Charlton comics: cheaply printed on bad paper, amateurish illustrations, horrible dialogue, stupid stories.

Until one day my boyfriend Bill suggested that I take another look: "They're all full of best men."

That was our word for gay romantic partners.

I wasn't convinced.  "No way.  Harveys are lots better."  I picked up the first on the pile.  "Abbot and Costello?  My Grandma talked about them -- they were on tv like a thousand years ago."

"The big guy has to rescue the little guy all the time."

A same-sex rescue was our main test of whether two guys were friends or "best men."

"What about Timmy the Timid Ghost? It's stupid!"

It was a blatant knock-off of Harvey's Casper the Friendly Ghost.  There was even a tough derby-wearing ghost, Manny, a blatant knock-off of Harvey's Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost

"Do Casper and Spooky live together?" Bill asked pointedly.

No.  Casper lived with his uncles, and Spooky lived alone.  Their paths rarely crossed in the vast Enchanted Forest.

Domesticity -- male characters living together -- was our second test of best men!

The only original characters made no sense, like Surf n' Wheels: good surfers vs. evil motorcyclists in one issue, then crime fighting surfer-motorcyclists in the next.

But Bill pointed out that they had their shirts off for about half of every issue, more than you ever got with Harveys.

Beefcake -- guys taking their shirts off, or even better, wearing only underwear or swimsuits -- was our third test!

Bill pointed out that some Charlton titles, like Hercules, Jungle Jim, and Robin Hood, were even more beefcake-heavy than the Gold Keys.

Beefcake, same-sex rescues, and domesticity.  What else could you ask for in a comic book?

Competent stories, interesting artwork, and dialogue that made sense.  I still didn't like Charlton.