"The Summer I Turned Pretty," Season 2: As God is my witness, I heard Spike say he was dating a boy

 

I reviewed The Summer I Turned Pretty last summer, and said it had a lot of gay potential.  The second season just dropped on Amazon Prime, so I'll see if any of that potential was realized.  The premise: a poor girl (actually upper-upper middle classt and her famous-writer mother spend the summer with Mom's ultra-rich ex-girlfriend and her two hot teenage sons, both of whom are in love with her.  

Season One Recap: Not promising.  I lost track of the number of boy-girl smooches.  It looks like both brothers and a third guy are in love with her.  For a girl named "Belly," she gets a lot of action. The only other plot point appears to be either Mom or her ex-girlfriend dying of cancer.  

Scene 1: It's the second summer that Belly's been pretty.  She lounges by the pool, the two brothers.  Psych!  It was a daydream!  She's actually in class, she's broken up with Conrad, and the lady with cancer has died.  "Escaping to your dreams is easier than living with your memories," she muses. But not to worry, Corey (Louis Tomeo, left), the hot guy who sits in front of her picked this moment to flirt. Except we never see him again.  He's just there to signify that everyone is intensely attracted to Belly.

Switch to Belly smooching with Conrad (Christopher Briney, top photo), the first of the brothers  "This almost doesn't seem real."  Psych!  This one isn't a dream -- it's a memory from last summer.  

The memory continues:  Conrad tells her how much he loves her, Belly drops a bombshell: "Your brother and I have been dating, too.  He's got a bigger cock than you, but you are better looking.  I don't know which to choose."  Ok, I may have edited the dialogue slightly. 

Conrad talks her into breaking up with Cock Boy.  They sneak into the house and talk to Cancer Mom, who is delighted to see that her son is heterosexual.  They grin and giggle for a long time, enjoying their shared heterosexual privilege. 

Scene 2: Back in the present, the teacher dismisses the class for the summer.  Despondent, Belly starts unloading her locker.  A clump of girls tries to talk  her into volleyball camp, and Steven (Sean Kaufman, left) whoops and hollers about going to Princeton in the fall.  He just found out now?  

His friend, a long-haired boy named Spike (Colby Burton),  rushes up, exuberant about the upcoming graduation party: "I'm dating the singer."  One of the girls complains that his boyfriend is a  "Machine Gun Kelly wannabe." 

Since when do 1930s gangsters sing?  Oh, he's actually an alternative rock/hip hop singer. So unless I misunderstood the dialogue, Spike is dating a boy.

Next Belly's counselor tells her that  her grades took a nosedive, and she dropped out of volleyball, so her chances of getting into a good college are nil.  That's not true.  I got a D in chemistry and still got into a...um...college.  "Have you thought of Finch Blockhead Academy?  They let in anyone with money."

More Cock Boy after the break

"Soap": The First Gay Human on TV

During the 1970s, gay characters were rare on tv. Maybe three or four times a year, there would be a killer transvestite on a drama or a "visiting friend comes out"on a sitcom.  But even those three or four would be invisible, described in TV Guide as "a shocking killer" or "a visiting friend has a secret."

That all changed on September 13, 1977, a Tuesday night, at 8:30 pm, the end of a night of blockbuster must-see tv: Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company.  Then, while sprightly music played, an announcer said:  ""This is the story of two sisters—Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell".

Later episodes would give a brief plot synopsis, followed by "Confused? You won't be after this episode of...Soap."

You needed the plot synopsis!  Soap was a soap opera spoof, with plotlines as over-the-top as anything General Hospital or One Life to Live could throw at you.

The two families were:

The wealthy Tates

1. Ditzy, horny Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond,  later known as the ditzy, horny Mona on Who's the Boss).  She has affairs, goes on trial for murder, and ends up in a coma in South America (but still butting in).

2. Stick-in-the mud husband Chester (Robert Mandan), who mostly just has affairs and goes to prison

3. Teenage Billy (Jimmy Baio, left), who joins a cult and is seduced by his teacher (then, when he dumps her, she keeps trying to kill him).

4.  Twenty-something Corinne (Diana Canova), who has various boyfriends, including the priest Father Tim (Sal Viscuso) and the criminal Dutch (Donnelly Rhodes).

5. The sarcastic butler (Robert Guillaume).

The working-class Campbells

1. Stable, sane Mary (Cathryn Damon), Jessica's sister.

2. Her dopey husband Burt (Richard Mulligan), who accidentally killed some people, thinks he's invisible, and gets abducted by aliens and replaced by a clone.

3. Their "sons," Chuck and Bob (Jay Johnson, right).  Chuck is the living one, Bob the ventriloquist's dummy...um, I mean assistant, who everyone treats as real.

4. Danny (Ted Wass, top photo), another son, a gangster who has a variety of girlfriends who die or get kidnapped or reject him.

5. Jodie (Billy Crystal), who is gay.

You heard me.

The first gay regular character on network television!

The writers didn't quite know what "gay" meant.  Jodie starts off planning a sex-change operation so he can be with his closeted boyfriend.  Then he's gay.  Then he falls in love with a lesbian, so I guess he's bi?  Then he's gay again.

But he has no swishy mannerisms.

And his family is completely supportive, even if they don't understand (which gives him an opportunity for several Gay 101 lessons):

Jessica:  You know, Jodie, in my day there were no such thing as homosexuals.
Jodie:  Aunt Jessica, there have been homosexuals since ancient times.
Jessica: Who?
Jodie:  Aristotle, Plato.
Jessica: Plato????  Mickey Mouse's dog was gay?

Plus Jodie was a full participant in plotlines that weren't about him.  He wasn't there just for the Gay 101 lessons.  He lived an everyday life (as everyday as the Tates and Campbells got, anyway), discussing the day's crisis along with everyone else.  An equal.

For the first time in television history, we could tune in every week to watch a gay person being human.

"Big CIty Greens": Disney Channel Cartoon with Gay Characters (If You Freeze Frame and Use a Magnifying Glass)

 

Big City Greens is a Disney Channel animated series about a family of hillbillies -- Dad Bill, tween son Cricket, preteen daughter Tilly, Grandma -- who move to the big city (named Big City), where they start a farm.  Sounds like the Beverly Hillbillies so far.  It's reputed to have a gay character, so I watched the season 1 episode "Valentine Dance."

Scene 1: Cricket complains as the family (plus Bill's lady friend) go to a "mushy Valentine's Dance."  Tilly supports "love in its many forms," but Grandma disapproves: "in my day, you didn't dance until you were married."

Inside -- two male-female couples dancing -- Tilly vows to be like Cupid and "make someone fall in love tonight."  Cricket meets his friends, who ask if he's going to "ask a girl to dance."  He says no, since "dancing with a girl is the gateway to falling in love.  Love takes away your freedom. Better to just do dude stuff, like those two guys."  

We see a blue-purple gay couple dancing together.  So there are gay people in Big City, but Cricket, being from the country, is unaware that they exist.

Scene 2:  The adults get their assignments: Dad Bill mans the snack table, and Lady Friend and Grandma will work as a chaperones.  Wait -- is this a kids' dance?  Looks like mostly adults on the dance floor.

Meanwhile, Cricket and his friends are reveling in their freedom from girls, yelling: "Boys! Boys! Boys!"  That's my motto, too.   Suddenly a girl interrupts to ask Cricket to dance.  Gasp!  It's the Girl of His Dreams, all glittery in slow motion!  Heterosexist cliche, but I guess if you're five years old, it's new to you.  

Uh-oh, now Cricket is torn between loyalty to his friends and his libido.  He runs away, only to bump into the teenage Gloria. He reveals his conflicting emotion, and she diagnoses: "You have a crush on this girl!"  

Scene 3:  Tilly has taken the bow and arrow from a statue of Cupid, and is shooting people at random: Gloria, plus the male half of three male-female couples.  But no one is falling in love, so she prays to Cupid for guidance.  

She shoots her last arrow at the blue half of the gay couple, saying "You poor pitiful creature, you're about to fall in love!" (he has a boyfriend!  But I guess that doesn't count).  He bends over at the last moment, and the arrow boomerangs and hits Tilly.  She falls in love with a statue of a muscular man.

Meanwhile, Cricket is horrified by flashes of visions about marrying The Girl, feeding her grapes, kissing her, and so on.  He rushes into the gym and climbs into the swimming pool, hoping that the water will keep his heterosexual feelings at bay.  But The Girl is there, for some reason, so he runs back to the dance. 

Scene 4: If he can just surround himself with guys, Cricket won't fall in love (that never worked for me).   But all of his guy friends are now dancing with girls!  His last defense has fallen!  Wait -- maybe if he turns on the sprinklers, he can dampen the boys' ardour and save them.

Lady Friend stops him before he can dampen the party, and wants to know why he's so averse to falling in love.  "Because love creates nothing but pain."  She says that love creates joy, too, so Cricket decides to face his destiny.  He finds the Girl of His Dreams and tells her that he's ready to embrace his love.  But he was acting so weird that she asked another boy to dance instead.  

Scene 4: Cricket ends up dancing with the teenage girl (whose boyfriend never showed up), Dad dances with Lady Friend (actually his ex-wife, Nancy), Tilly dances with the statue.  We pan out to a dance floor occupied by eight boy-girl couples, and if you freeze frame and look carefully, the bottom halves of the gay couple from Scene 1.  

By the way, the gay couple is Alexander (the blue one) and Terry (the purple one, who never speaks).  They appear in six episodes.  According to series creator Chris Houghton, they are intended to be a gay couple, but no one ever identifies them as such, to provide deniability: "They could just be best friends." Just in case Mom and Dad don't want Junior to know that gay people exist until he turns 21. If then.

But that tiny bit of representation is drowned out by incessant heteronormative "love means boys and girls!"  

"Asteroid City": Bleak 1950s play within a play within a play, with one tiny gay kiss and some bonus butts and dicks

Movie night was Asteroid City (2023), which I thought would be about atomic testing in Nevada in the 1950s.  Instead, I was watching the Theater of the Absurd.  Maybe Ionesco, where your mother turns into a giraffe and offers you brownies,  or a Monte Python episode where one sketch bleeds into another, so Vikings are suddenly talking to the Minister of Finance about the hippodrome tariff. 

Link to NSFW version

As far as I can tell, there are two plays with plays.

1. In an old-fashioned black and white tv studio, a narrator tells us that what we are witnessing is a story, not real. The curtain opens to reveal:

2. The Playwright (Edward Norton, top) auditioning an actor for the lead in his play (Jason Schwartzman), who brings him ice cream, changes into a different costume, and delivers a nonsequiter monologue.  They kiss.  But don't get excited: it's in the distance, and never referenced again, while there are three or four heterosexual romances coming up. We cut to the main story:

A lot of people arrive for the Junior Stargazers' Convention in Asteroid City, Nevada, where an asteroid crashed a long time ago (they mean a meteor).  During the opening speeches, an alien descends from a spaceship and grabs the asteroid.  Everyone is put under quarantine, while the government tries to convince them that nothing happened.  After a week, the government is about to lift the quarantine, but the alien returns and gives the asteroid back.  The quarantine is on again, but everyone riots, and the next day they are gone.  Maybe it was all a dream.

While all this is going on, there are several soap opera stories.  Steinbeck (Jason Schwartzman again, I think) arrives with his son and three young daughters.  He was going to leave the son and go on to his wealthy father-in-law's house to bury his wife's ashes, but his car broke down.  During the quarantine his three daughters, who are witches, bury the ashes in the desert and perform a spell to resurrect her.  She isn't actually resurrected, but she apparently appears in a flashback or flash-sideways scene.

Left: This is Jason Schwartzman's penis.  It is not Jason Schwartzman's penis, it is a salami.  It is not a salami, it is the diary of a 17th century French poet who wrote about salamis.

I figured that Steinbeck must be the famous novelist and nude model, who was active in Hollywood at the time, so I went scurrying to wikipedia for his biography.  It doesn't match.

Matt Dillon plays a mechanic who is examining Steinbeck's car, when a part he has never seen before falls out and starts sputtering. He never appears again. 

More nonsequiters after the break.