The Top 10 Hunks of "Dear White People," Season 3

Dear White People (2014) was a drama with comedic elements about a radio show that points out microaggressions and white privilege at an elite Ivy League college.

The first season of the Netflix tv adaption (2017) continued the story, with the Winchester students dealing with unconscious (and conscious) racism, police targeting, cultural appropriation, and so on.  Still a drama with comedic elements.

The second season (2018) was more comedy than drama, with some attention to white supremacy, institutional racism, and a conservative "why do black people complain all the time" group.  Plus Lionel gets a boyfriend.  It bogs down in a ridiculous plotline about a secret society that controls the world leaving DaVinci Code clues around the campus.

In its third season (2019), Dear White People has become a comedy.  There doesn't seem to be an ongoing plot arc, just micro-plots about selecting a film studies mentor, unionizing, dating, embarrassing moms, and a sex club. Most of the time I have no idea what's going on, and I don't really care. I'm just watching for the Lionel plotlines.  And for the beefcake.

Here are the top 10 hunks of Season 3.  I'm omitting the ones covered (or rather, uncovered) in my previous review (Gabe, Lionel, Reggie, Kurt, Al, and Kordell).

1. Mason Trueblood (top photo) as Colin, a writer for the Pastiche humor magazine (aka Harvard Lampoon).  One of the main plotlines of Season 3 involves Pastiche writers trying to find their own voices, and a female writer being ignored.

2. Kobi Kumi-Diaka (left) as  Jimiyu, a Nigerian student with a crush on someone or other.

3. Jeremy Tardy as Rashid, a member of the Black Student Union, the more conservative black organization on campus.

4. Blair Underwood as Professor Moses Brown, who left after he became rich with an app he developed, but returned because...he wants to nurture young minds?

5. Erich Lane as Clifton, Reggie's roommate, who spends his time doing whatever it is that white people do.  I liked the scene where he changes clothes in front of Reggie, displaying his package and everything (nothing seen on camera).

6. Glenn McCuen as Chet Fuckboi.  I don't remember this character, in spite of the name.


















7.  Alex Alcheh as Milo, one of the graduate teaching assistants.


8. Ryan Alexander Holmes as Nicholas.  I don't know who this character is, but who cares? The actor is hot.

9. Wade F. Wilson as Michael, who insults Lionel at the sex party, and then asks him out.

10. Eugene Ko (left) as Jesse, one of the graduate teaching assistants.  It's about time the show added an Asian character.  Racism isn't all about black and white.

Now, if they can only get him to take his shirt off.

See also:Dear White People

The 13 Hunks of "13 Reasons Why"

I'm not actually planning to watch 13 Reasons Why, the teen drama now starting its third year on Netflix.  I never understood the point of depressing "entertainment," and 13 Reasons is overwhelmingly dark and brutal, a cloud of gloom hanging over the hours between dinner and bedtime.

But if you don't mind "gloom, despair, and agony on end," there is also abundant beefcake, dozens of hunkoids (13 to be exact) who work out constantly, hoping that physical activity will alleviate some of their pain.

The premise: Hannah (Katherine Langford) commits suicide, and leaves behind a box of tapes at her friend's house, each a shrieking "J'accuse!" at one of the students and faculty responsible for her decision.  Flashbacks reveal all the details.  Meanwhile, Hannah's parents are suing the school for negligence.

Spoiler alert: the 13 reasons why are listed below:

1. Justin ( Brandon Flynn ) gives Hannah her first kiss, then uploads a sexy photo of her to the internet, and claims that they had sex.  She gets a "slut" reputation.

2. Next Hannah befriends the couple  Jessica and Alex (Miles Heiser).  When the two break up, Jessica blames Hannah, and spreads the rumor that she is a boyfriend-stealer.

3. Alex distributes a list of the best/worst in the school, and says that Hannah has the best butt, thus humiliating her.  There's no new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Clay (Dylan Minnette), who gets the box of tapes and is investigating the various culprits.














4. School photographer Tyler (Devin Druid) stalks Hannah, hoping to catch her in the act.  When he sees her kissing a girl named Courtney, he publishes the photograph, thus ending their friendship and giving Hannah the reputation of being a lesbian.

A lesbian slut boyfriend stealer with a nice butt.

5. Afraid of being outed (even though she has two dads), Courtney spreads a rumor about Hannah and another girl, thus...um, I guess adding to the lesbian rumor.

No new hunk in this reason, so I'll add Christian Navarro as Tony Padilla, Clay's gay best friend and co-investigator.

6. Hannah accepts a Valentine's Day date with Marcus (Steven Silver). Believing that she is a lesbian slut with a nice butt, he assumes that she will be up for sex, and tries to sexually assault her.

Steven Silver is a little stingy with beefcake photos, so instead I'll add Timothy Granaderos as Montgomery de la Cruz, a school bully.












7.  Zach (Ross Butler, top photo), one of Marcus' friends, asks Hannah for a date, no doubt assuming that sex will be included.  When she refuses, he gets revenge by removing the "positive notes" from her in-box about a writing project, leaving only negative ones and squashing her self-image.

A lesbian slut boyfriend-stealer who is no good at writing, but has a nice butt.

8. When Hannah submits some extremely personal poetry to Poetry Club  (why submit it if it's so personal?), club president Ryan (Tommy Dorfman) publishes it without her consent in the school newspaper, humiliating her and doubling the attack on her writing ability.

9. Remember Hannah's on-off friend Jessica?  She is sexually assaulted by Bryce (Justin Prentice) at a party.  Hannah sees the whole thing, but doesn't intervene.  The culprit in this reason is Jessica's boyfriend Alex, for allowing it to happen.

Not Hannah herself?  She was watching, and didn't do anything?

10. On the way home from the party, Hannah  and her friend Sherri accidentally knock over a stop sign. Hannah wants to call the police, but Sherri won't let her.  Later Jeff (Brandon Larracuente), not seeing the downed sign, goes through the intersection and is hit and killed.

The culprit this time?  You guessed it -- Sherri.

11. Clay the investigator, who has an unrequited crush on Hannah, tried to help her at the party, but she rejected him, thus leading to the downed stop sign and Jeff's death. 

He's the culprit for not trying hard enough?  This girl is doing a lot of blaming.

No new hunks in this reason, so I'll add Henry Zaga as Brad, the boyfriend of Tony (Clay's best friend).









12.  Hannah goes to another party at Bryce's house, and he rapes her.  Whoa.

Bryce was already mentioned, so let's go on to Season 2, which is mostly about the trial.  R. J. Brown plays Caleb, whom Tony (the best friend) dates.

13. Hannah tells guidance counselor Mr. Porter (Derek Luke) about being raped, but he does nothing.  J'accuse!

Derek Luke is beefcake-shy, so let's include Bryce Cass as Cyrus, who, in Season 2, starts an anti-bullying campaign with Tyler (Reason #4)

There are several gay characters, and ample beefcake, but I'm still not watching.  It sounds awful.

The Top 3 Hunks of "Star Trek: Voyager"

I'm being forced to watch Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001):  the aptly-named starship goes off in search of Maquis rebels, when both are zapped to the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light years from home.  The crews are quickly integrated, and they sent out on the 40 year long journey back.  En route, they encounter various species that are depressingly identical to us.  Some of the murder-mystery episodes  could be sent in modern day Los Angeles with almost no changes in dialogue.

No gay characters or references to same-sex desire, or even many gay subtext.  When fans suggested one, the actors vehemently denied it.  I still remember a TV Guide article in which Jeri Ryan, who played the ex-cyborg Seven of Nine being humanized by Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), yelled that "Middle America" wasn't ready for gay characters.  This some 20 years after a gay character starred on Soap.

Heterosexist "when a man and a woman fall in love" rhetoric occurs with depressing regularity, and one of the male characters is an annoying horndog who actually dates twins, "The Delany Sisters."  Remember when Fonzie used to date the Del Rubio Triplets?

Well, what about beefcake?  One of their favorite hangouts is a Caribbean resort holodeck program, where the speedo-clad men are hidden in the background, behind the bikini babes.  And the main cast:

1. Robert Beltran (top photo, although he looks more buffed in his Starfleet uniform) as Chakotay, one of the Maquis rebels who becomes second in command on Voyager.  A Native American, he is always talking about ancestral wisdom and going on vision quests.  He's got a thing for Captain Janeway.

2. Robert Duncan McNeill (second photo) as Tom Paris, a young pilot who was sprung from a New Zealand prison to serve on Voyager (I'm not sure what his crime was).  When he's not piloting, he's having sex. He states that he fought to get a gay-themed episode, and when he directed an episode, he hired gay actor Scott Thompson, but was forbidden from making the character gay.

3. Tim Russ (left) as Tuvok, Star Trek's first black Vulcan character, who is always talking about his wife and kids back home, and getting hit on by alien babes ("I've never met anyone like you before.  So...logical.").''

That's all the shirtless photos I could find.  But the 1990s was before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and selfies, so we can't expect a lot.

Here's the rest of the main cast.  See if you think any of them are cute:

4. Garrett Wang as Harry Kim, an ensign just starting his first job when he's zapped across the galaxy.  Tom Paris big-brothers him and tries to get him laid.  This might suggest a gay subtext, but they're too girl-crazy.

In 1993, Wang played a gay Chinese teenager who shoots his lover in the stage play Porcelain: he notes that playing a gay character "was controversial" at the time.

5. Ethan Phillips under a ton of makeup as Neelix, the ship's morale officer, cook, and comic relief.

6. Robert Picardo (older, chunkier, and balder) as an emergency medical hologram who has to transcend his programming to become the ship's full time doctor.  He also learns about human relationships and hooks up with any number of hologram and alien babes (apparently male holograms have penises).

7.  Manu Intiraymi as Icheb, a Borg  boy adopted by the Voyager crew later in the series.  He hangs out with the son of the omnipotent alien Q, and in a 2015 interview states that it would have been cool to have a gay romance blossom.  But gay teenagers?  In 2000?  No way!

8. Alexander Enberg as Ensign Vorick, a Vulcan crewman who appears in 9 episodes, mostly to get a crush on chief engineer B'Elanna Torres.  Who knew that Vulcans got crushes?

Enberg, who ranks at 51,510 on the website Man Crush Monday, played a gay character in the stage play Big Love (no connection to the tv series).





9.  We're getting down to the 3-, 2-, and 1-episode appearances now, with characters named German S. S. Officer and Leonardo Da Vinci, and lots of aliens with k in their names: Brok'Tan, Donik, Korok,  Kejal, Kelis, Rettik.  Does K make someone sound alien?

I've been working on this for 1 1/2 hours, and it's time for breakfast.  So let's finish up with singer and voice artist Hamilton Camp, who played a Ferengi.  I'd date him.

Dave Draper Doesn't Get the Girl

Dave Draper, "The Blond Bomber," was the go-to guy for movie bodybuilders during the 1960s, when most of the bulkers had moved to Italy to do sword-and-sandal flicks.

He never appeared in the gay-vague Physique Pictorial or similar physique magazines; in fact, some of his magazine covers are rather heterosexist, sandwiching him between two women, who are lusting after his biceps.  Inside, however, we see some homoerotic subtexts, as when fellow bodybuilder William Smith gazes at Dave's biceps.

After a minor role as a guy who takes his shirt off in Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed (1963), he capitalized on the sword-and-sandal crazy anyway, showing old Steve Reeve movies as Dave the Gladiator on local L.A. TV (1964-65).

In 1966 he landed a starring role in Lord Love a Duck, a comedy about a gay-vague Mephistophiles, Alan Musgrave (gay actor Roddy McDowall), who concocts wild schemes, including murder, to grant the wishes of his friend Barbara (Tuesday Weld).  Dave was one of her wishes, but not the man she married. Alan is supposed to find him intimidating, but instead approaches him with barely-restrained eye-bulging desire.

After more minor roles as guys who take their shirts off and scare people in Three on a Couch and Walk Don't Run, Dave starred in Don't Make Waves (1967), about New Yorker Carlo Cofield (Tony Curtis), who moves to Southern California to "Turn on!  Stay loose!  Make out!"  and romance a skydiving model named Malibu (Sharon Tate).  Dave played her boyfriend, Harry Holland, who also befriends Carlo.  There's a significant gay subtext, as in most of Tony Curtis's movies.

In 1967, Dave appeared as musclemen on episodes of The Monkees and The Beverly Hillbillies.  No significant gay subtexts, though it is interesting to watch the lesbian actress Nancy Kulp pretend that she is swooning over his physique.

Disillusioned at always been cast as bullies, objects of derision, and guys who don't get the girl, as if the bodybuilder was somehow inadequately masculine, Dave retired from acting to concentrate on bodybuilding and writing, and on managing World's Gym in Santa Cruz.  His personal website features many interesting articles on the history of bodybuilding, but doesn't mention gay people.