"The Summer I Turned Pretty": Glittery, Marshmallowy Teen Romcom with Lots of Gay Potential

 

A girl named Belly, approaching her sixteenth birthday, her Mom, and her hunky brother Steven (Sean Kaufman) spend the summer at their dear friend's Katherine's beach house, where she draws the attention of Katherine's two hunky sons.  While she decides between them, there are beach parties, yacht parties, afternoon teas, shopping for dresses, visiting friends, various charity events at the country club. and the biggest event of the season, the Debutante Ball.  It's The Summer I Turned Pretty, "a story about first love, first heartbreak, and the magic of that one perfect summer."

Sounds glittery and marshmallowy, an ultra-escapist fantasy, Love Boat for tweens.  And there's an actual, honest-to-goodness Debutante Ball.  I'm in!  

Prologue: Establishing shot of the elegant New England resort town of Cousins, where Belly has been coming with her family every summer since she was a baby: "I count the days until I'm in that house."  I would, too: it's a mega-mansion.  Flashback to three boys and a girl frolicking at various ages.  "It's always the same.  That's what I love about it."

Scene 1: Belly and her friend Taylor in her room, packing for the summer.  "You should pack clothes that show off your new boobs."  "It doesn't matter -- I always buy a lot of new stuff when I get there."  I imagine it's buying clothes during the day, charity events at night.

"Which of the two brothers are you going to kiss this summer?" Taylor asks. If they've spent every summer together, wouldn't they be like cousins, a familial bond that erases erotic interest?  

Scene 2: On the way to the house, Mom cautions Belly and hunky brother Steven (Sean Kaufman, left) to be good houseguests: "Put your dishes in the dishwasher; don't leave them in the sink."  "But Katherine has people to do that."  

Arriving in town, they stop at a gas station.  A hunky guy says "hello" to Belly.  She's shocked: "guys never talked to me before."  Must be the new boobs.  He invites her to the bonfire tonight.

Scene 3: They arrive at the beach house, where Katherine is arranging flowers. Of course. Her son Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno, top photo) rushes out to hug Steven and comment on how much Belly has grown.  

Her other son, Conrad (Christopher Briney), stares at Belly with jaw-dropping, hormone-sloshing, Girl-of-His-Dreams paralysis.  But he sees her every year. Must be the new boobs.  

Left: a photo from Christopher's instagram, with the caption: "Find out why I'm fighting with Isabel (Belly) and kissing Danny."  

The Danny in the cast list is the bookstore manager in Scene 5, played by Adam Plant, who also does podcasts and youtube videos as a "trans man of faith."   He just appears in two episodes, so I doubt that Danny and Conrad have an on-screen romance.  Off screen, well....

Scene 4: Inside the house, Katherine is shocked at the many boxes of groceries that Mom Laurel brought: there are grocery stores in Cousins, you know.  Belly comes in, and Katherine stares with jaw-dropping, hormone-sloshing, Girl-of-Her-Dreams paralysis.  "My God, she's gorgeous!  You have always been pretty, but...my God, what happened?"  I guess that's what "the summer I turned pretty" means.  Belly has become so breathtakingly spectacular that everybody, even her "aunt," wants to have sex with her. 

Laurel gives us a plot dump: "As you know, Belly, your father and I are divorced, and Katherine's husband is working in London, but they'll both come to visit for the 4th of July."  Laurel and Katherine are obviously ex-lovers.  Or current lovers.

Scene 5: Mom Laurel, a famous writer (of course), has a book signing this afternoon, and wants Belly to go with her, to drum up some buyers. Come in to see the most beautiful girl in the world and buy a book.  But she goes swimming with Jeremiah instead.  

Katherine offers to go to the book signing, but first she needs to drop by the country club.  Laurel disapproves: all those mega-wealthy, elitist snobs!  But you don't mind having a mega-wealthy best friend?

Scene 6: While Belly and Jeremiah frolick at the beach, Laurel and Katherine head to the country club and then to the bookstore, where the manager, Danny (Adam Plant, above) asks how Laurel's book tour went.  Katherine yells at him for not ordering enough copies for the signing.  (There's also a book party tomorrow night.)

Laurel picks up a Western novel and insults its author, Cleveland (Alfredo Narciso): "ooh, I'm masculine yet intellectual!  I read Hemingway!  I wear horn-rimmed glasses!"  And of course he's standing right there!  Romance coming up.

Scene 7:  At dinner, everyone discusses how sexy Jeremiah is, now that he's started working out.  Conrad mopes around, being surly.  Katherine invites Belly to become a debutante: hang out with other wealthy girls all summer, and finally "come out" at the annual Debutante Ball.  "The daughters of the wealthiest families in New England do it."

Conrad calls it "bullshit," and Mom calls it archaic, but Katherine claims that nowadays it's all about business: networking, marketing yourself, leadership skills.

Scene 8:  Night. Jeremiah brushing his teeth while Steven showers.  They sing together. They have some major erotic chemistry going on.  Meanwhile Belly runs into Conrad moping by the pool.  They gaze at each other with stultifying horniness, and then discuss whether Belly should become a debutante.

Scene 9:  Jeremiah and Steven set out for the bonfire party mentioned in Scene 2.  Mom and Katherine are making brownies and preparing to watch their first-night-together movie, It Happened One Night.  Belly claims that she's tired and just wants to go to bed, but she sneaks out to the bonfire instead.  Wait -- if Jeremiah and Steven can go, why can't Belly?  

Scene 10:  Belly got talked into wearing an expensive evening gown -- to the beach!  So she covers by claiming that she has come from another party.  The gas station guy from Scene 2 flirts with her, but backs off when he discovers that she is only 15. She is upset to discover that both Conrad and Jeremiah have girlfriends.  They were supposed to wait around for her?

Scene 11: Back home, Laurel and Katherine are smoking pot and discussing whether to tell the husbands.  Yep, they're lovers.  Then they discuss getting Laurel a Tinder account so she can get laid.  Maybe not.

Meanwhile, at the bonfire, Belly is sitting around being morose when Cam (David Iocono, left), who she met in 7th Grade Latin Class, shows up.  He's interning on a whale-watching boat; would she like to go? They're interrupted by Conrad getting into a fight. Then the police arrive.  Everyone runs away.  

Steven and the brothers won't let Cam give Belly a ride home, since he's a near-stranger, but she agrees to go on the whale-watching trip, and kisses him!  Her first kiss!  Conrad glares at her.  Dude, you were kissing another girl five minutes ago. 

Before they have a chance to drive off, the police stop them for underaged drinking.  And no, being rich won't take care of it.

Scene 12:  Maybe it will.  The police just take them home, and remind Katherine that they have a golf date set up with her husband.  "Underaged drinking!" Lauren yells.  "What if you weren't rich?  You would have gone to jail!"  No, they would still be returned to their parents. Well, unless they were black. "What's gotten into you?  What's wrong?"  

Montage of Steven brushing his teeth, Conrad staring morosely into space, Jeremiah grinning, Lauren texting, and Belly deciding to accept the invitation to become a debutante.  In the morning, she talks to the morose Conrad for a few minutes, then rushes off to go whale-watching. The end.

Beefcake:  Only Jeremiah and Steven, so far.  There will be others.

Gay Characters:  I assume that Katherine and Lauren are lovers.  Steven and Jeremiah seem quite into each other. 

Conflict: Lauren resisting the lifestyle of the rich and famous, while spending the summer at the elegant beach-mansion.  Steven and Conrad have problems that they haven't revealed yet.  And, of course, Belly will have to choose between two boys (or maybe 35,000, now that she's become Pretty).

My Grade: A if some of these people turn out to be LGBT, otherwise B.

Julie and the Phantoms: Gay Teen Romance from Beyond the Grave

Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix, about an aspiring singer who starts a band with three ghosts, has the look and the feel of a Disney Channel teencom.  Aren't they all about aspiring singers?   But it's Netflix, so there is gay representation.

15-year old Julie (Madison Reyes) has the standard teencom overprotective single parent, bratty little brother, It-Girl nemesis, and dreamy-boy crush named Nick (why aere they always named Nick?).  Her life changes when she accidentally releases three members of a boy band who died after eating bad hot dugs in 1995  (a fourth didn't eat the hot dogs, and lived):  They are:

1. Calm lead guitarist Luke (Charlie Gillespie, left)

2. Goofball Reggie (Jeremy Shada).  Unfortunately, this is a teencom, so no beefcake.

3. Skateboarder Alex (Owen Joyner, below), who came out as gay shortly before they died.  Not to worry, the other guys are totally cool with it.  .  In fact,  they are so completely nonchalant about gay subtexts, hanging all over each other all the time, singing love songs to each other, that they seem like a post-gay anachronism.  Were any teens really so nonchalant about gayness in 1995?

The guys adapt quickly to being dead and 25 years in the future.  True to sitcom logic, only Julie can see or hear them -- except when they are singing.  So why not start the band up again?  Julie explains that they vanish at the end of each number because they are in Sweden, performing through holograms.

Yes, we hear the songs.

Teencom complications ensue for Julie, mostly about keeping the secret, pursuing dreamy Nick, and gaining the confidence to sing on her own (she hasn't been able to sing since her mother died).  The boys must deal rather poignantly with the faact that their parents, their surviving band mate, everyone they loved has moved on and lived without them for 25 years.

Alex begins dating a Native American ghost named Willie (Booboo Stewart).  Their physical contact is limited to holding hands and hugging, but since this is a teencom, that's all the heterosexuals get, too.  

Willie accidentally becomes the conduit of the season's major plot arc:  He is enslaved by an evil ghost named Caleb (Cheyenne Jackson).  When Caleb finds out about the guys, he wants their souls, too.  If they fail to comply, he will destroy them; they will cease to exist.

 The only way to escape is to go on to the afterlife by finishing the "unfinished business" that is keeping them earthbound.   But what is it?

Spoiler alert: They finish the unfinished business in the season finale, but they don't go on to the afterlife.  Instead, the evil Caleb takes over Nick's body.  So there will no doubt be a Season 2.

My grade: B.

Groom #1 or Groom #2: A Kelvin/Keefe/___ Story

 Keefe tried to gulp down the butterflies in his stomach.  It was now or never.  They were watching a true crime documentary on Netflix, just wearing pajama bottoms, cans of grape soda on the coffee table.  Kelvin's tongue was blue.  The least romantic moment imaginable, unless you counted the time he got food poisoning and was throwing up all night.  They weren't even cuddling.  But the lack of romance was the only thing that kept him from losing his nerve.

When the show ended, his boyfriend Kelvin, a youth minister at the famous megachurch run by his family, the world-famous Gemstones, turned off the tv.  He noticed at him.    "Oh, sorry, did you want to watch something else?"  

"No. Just leave it off.  I need to talk to you for a minute."

Kelvin turned to face him.  "What's up ?"

I decided to move this story.  There's not a lot of sexual content, but more than I like on"Boomer's Beefcake and Bonding."

The rest of the story, with explicit photos, is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

Gay American Renaissance

During my junior year in college, I took  Modern American Literature, Modern British Literature, Introduction to German Literature, and several other heterosexist courses.  But Dr. Ames, who taught American Renaissance, occasionally hinted that same-sex desire exists.

It was about the first great American literary movement, roughly 1840-1860, when the great books that everyone still reads sprang up out of nowhere: Moby-Dick, Walden, The Scarlet Letter, Leaves of Grass, The House of the Seven Gables.  There were five main writers.

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Dr. Ames: "He kept ignoring his wife to go on speaking tours."  During his junior year at Harvard, Emerson fell in love with a man named Martin Gay, and spent the rest of his life writing him homoerotic poetry. 

2. Henry David Thoreau.  Dr. Ames: "He was sexually repressed, too shy to talk to women." And he filled his journals with reflections on the strong, noble love between men.




3. Herman Melville.  Dr Ames: "He was a little light in the loafers.  Check out the scene where the two guys are in bed together, and Ishmael grabs Queequeg's tomahawk!"  

Moby-Dick is invariably heterosexualized on screen (such as the version starring Henry Thomas, left), but Billy Budd is too homoerotic to "straighten out."

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Dr. Ames: "He was friends with Melville, but then things got a little weird, and they split up."  Nevertheless, Hawthorne wrote about strong same-sex coupling in The Blythedale Romance, and "Young Goodman Brown," about a man discovering that all of his friends and neighbors are Satan-worshippers, can be read as a parable for a homophobe discovering the gay underground.

The Scarlet Letter gets many movie adaptions, including Easy A (2010), with Penn Badgley (top photo) and Dan Byrd as a gay high schooler.

5. Walt Whitman.  Dr. Ames: "He scattered illegitimate children up and down the Eastern seaboard, but he also had a bit of the fruit in him."  Actually, Whitman filled his journals with detailed accounts of his nightly cruising for men.

Dr. Ames didn't mention Edgar Allan Poe at all.

S