The Bravest Knight: Sir Cedric and his husband, Prince Andrew, give their daughter life lessons, with "when I was your age" stories

 

The Bravest Knight (2019) is advertised as the first children's animation to have an "openly gay main character."  Actually, that would be Paranorman (2012).   I wanted to see how "open" the gay main character was, so I watched the first two episodes.    

Episode 1, Scene 1: In a fairy tale world, Sir Cedric (T.R. Knight, left) is giving his daughter, Nia, lessons in how to become a knight. Today's lesson: how to save someone trapped in a tower.  His husband, Prince Andrew (Wilson Cruz, below), has volunteered to be rescued.  First, build a ladder -- or the prisoner could just lower a rope.  Prince Andrew has to be somewhere, so could we speed things up?  No,Siir Cedric has to tell a story.  The consort of a royal is always a rank down, so Prince Andrew and Sir Cedric. 

Scene 2: Flashback.  The preteen Cedric (Chance Hurstfield) is in his second year as a knight in training. He sees a flyer: all of the villains have broken out of Fairy Jail!  So he sets out to,,,um...arrest them?  But first he encounters a troll named Grunt (Bobby Moynihan), who tells his story.

Scene 3: Grunt used to have a bridge, like most trolls.  But Sturk, one of the villains who broke out of Fairy Jail, took it away from him.  Wait -- the notice just went up, but Grunt says that he's been bridge-less for weeks.  This timeline is convoluted.

Scene 4: Cedric abandons his original quest to help Grunt get his bridge back.  Problem: Grunt doesn't remember where it is.  While searching, they hear a woman screaming from a tower, and set off to rescue her.   She obligingly lowers her long hair for them to climb.

But it's a trap!  A witch who recently escaped from Fairy Jail  grabs them and throws them into a pit, where they meet several other would-be rescuers.  What is her end game?  Is she going to eat them, or what?  

Scene 5:  Their escape plan: they cover themselves in mud, so the witch will think they have escaped.  When she comes down to investigate, they incapacitate her with mud and climb out on the hair-rope.  Then they call the adults for assistance, and the witch is returned to Fairy Jail.

Scene 6:  Moral: Don't grab a rope unless you are sure what's on the other end.  Presumably this generalizes to: don't begin a course of action unless you are fairly certain how it will turn out.  

Episode 2, Scene 1:  Today's lesson is about jousting.  Nia is upset that her opponent will be the troll Grunt, who can't even control his horse.   "Never underestimate your opponent," Sir Cedric cautions.  And so the story..

Scene 2:  Preteen Cedric and Grunt, searching for the lost bridge, eome across a children's jousting tournament.  Another troll, Susie, is scrounging for coins under the bleachers.  

Scene 3: Cedric signs up to compete, but he doesn't have any armor, so he and his troll friends fashion a helmet from a pumpkin.  His opponent is a very small boy in a green helmet.  "Look how tiny he is!" Grunt exclaims.  "You'll win easily."  But his opponent trounces him.

Surprise -- it's a girl!  At this point one would expect Cedric to dissolve into a pool of hormones, except that we already know that he's gay.  They just shake hands.

Why is "It's a girl!" a big reveal?  We've already established that girls commonly train as knights, so why wouldn't they joust?

Scene 4:  Eliminated from the competition, Cedric and the trolls watch from the stands as the girl -- Eyame -- bests three more opponents and wins the tournament.  She is modest -- "I was fortunate today," but Cedric is effusive in his praise: "I learned more from watching you than in all my years of practicing back on the pumpkin farm!"  

Scene 5:  Susie the Troll suggests that they go to the abandoned, scary Dark Castle, which has maps of the kingdom.  Maybe it will show the bridge.  

Scene 6: Back in the present, Sir Cedric repeats the moral: Never underestimate your opponent. 

Story Arc: The flashbacks for the first season are about Cedric and grunt looking for the lost bridge, and meeting people who will apparently be important in their lives later.  But we don't get any later.    I want to know about life in the kingdom today.  Or how Cedric and Prince Andrew met.  I don't want to know about some dumb bridge.

Didacticism:   This show is obviously for young children, not adults, but still, is it really necessary to hit us over the head with a moral, twice per episode?  It seems old-fashioned and contrived.  

How Open is Cedric:  His husband appears only briefly in the first scene of the first episode, and then is never mentioned again.  The child Cedric doesn't display any romantic interest in anyone, boy, girl, or troll.  I'd say "not very open": you could easily miss it. 

To be fair, Prince Andrew appears in the first scene of several later episodes, often trying to get Cedric to settle down to official business, which is interrupted by a story.

My Grade: A-   I was bored stiff, but young children might not be, and having a gay character in a starring role in a program aimed at the kindergarten-set is amazing, even if his husband doesn't appear often.  

See also: "Craig of the Creek": Silver Fist gets a sidekick, and the gay kid gets a boyfriend

Searching for gay-subtext buddy-bonds on "The Really Loud House." With gay Dads and a heck of a lot of backsides

Fangbone!: 3rd Grade Barbarian and Boyfriend Fight Monsters

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Farther Toward Gay Inclusivity than Any Other Cartoon

"Danger Force" Episode 1.3: Gay dads, a hot supervillain, Captain Man's muscles, and a boy in a tiara

 Danger Force (2020-24) on Nickelodeon is Henry Danger Part 2: instead of one teen apprentice, bumbling superhero Captain Man gets a whole crew.   I reviewed Episode 1.2, "Say My Name," which reputedly has gay characters.

Scene 1: KLVY Studio. Captain Man (Cooper Barnes) is doing damage control after accidentally releasing hundreds of criminals from prison, including super-villains The Toddler, Arson Boy, Dr. Minyak, and Dr. Guilty.  Ok, those guys might be dangerous, but most incarcerated persons are being punished for minor drug possession and property crimes.  He's sent his Danger Force team out into the streets of Swellville to apprehend them.  But at that moment, the team arrives with pizza and wings!

Trying to save face, Captain Man argues that they at least caught The Toddler.  But there's a real toddler in his bag.  And they don't remember where they got him.  He's pre-verbal, so he can't tell them. This is a teencom, so I'm sure the parents realize that their kid is not in danger, just misplaced.

Introduction: There are four kids in Danger Force, two girls (one who looks more like a boy, and may be nonbinary), the "dreamy" Bose (Luca Luhan, left), and a "comic relief" Miles (Terence Little Gardenhigh, below). They apparently have superpowers of their own; I thought that the original Henry Danger was a non-powered teen sidekick.

Also in the cast: Captain Man's assistant Schwoz, whom I know from research to be played by trans actor Michael D. Cohen.

Scene 2: The kids practicing boxing while Captain Man snacks.  Whoa, look at those biceps! Could I just watch Cooper Barnes flexing for 23 minutes?  He's angry because they embarrassed him on tv, ao he insults their superpowers.  They do seem to be rather rudimentary.

An alarm rings -- "Stranger approaching!"  -- so the headquarters remodels into a classroom (rather a cool transformation).  It's a delivery guy named Guy (Josh George, center), who turns out to be Assistant Swoz, checking the security system.

More after the break

The Shards: Rich kid in 1980s L.A., a Primal Urge Boy, two downlow boyfriends, a serial killer, and Tom Blythe's d*ck. Plus Wes Bentley when he was cute

 

Link to the n*de dudes

When I was researching my profile of soap opera kid Redding Munsell, I discovered that nihilistic author Brett Easton Ellis is gay!  I did a conference presentation on some of his novels awhile ago, when I was at USC, and had him pegged as heterosexual -- and homophobic.  Now I'm interested in The Shards on Hulu, a tv series about Brett's years as an alienated, nihilistic teenager facing a serial killer.  Plus it's set in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, so maybe it has nostalgia value. 

Warning: It's produced by Ryan Murphy, who usually presents his gay characters as amoral monsters.

Scene 1: Brett (Igby Rigney, left) tells us that The Shining opened on May 23rd, 1980, and he wanted to see it as soon as possible, because the original novel made him want to become a writer. In fact, he had already started Less than Zero.  So he had to go without the gang.  

Igby is nearly n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Smoking a cigarette, he drives his dad's Mercedes down the streets of Westwood (near UCLA). He parks right outside the theater (tv cliche), buys his Junior Mints, and sits down to see a tall, tan "stunningly handsome" boy who aroused "some primal urge."  After some lingering glances, the boy walks out.  Wrong screen, buddy?

After the movie, Brett can't find the boy. That's because he left the theater.  "His name was Robert Mallory (Homer Gere, left the son of Richard Gere. n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), and his arrival at my high school will coincide with a season of horror and murder that will destroy us all."  Don't give away the story!

Scene 2: Brett tells us that kids today have it easy, with no problems (except for global warming, fascism, racism, homophobia, transphobia...) His generation fought serial killers, including the most sadistic of them all.  Brett, stop giving away the story!  It's annoying!   

A girl arrives at her gigantic palace, and can't find her dog, the fish tank is half empty, and everything in the medicine chest is turned upside-down.  

Later, she goes to the supermarket to put her lost dog flier up amid the dozens of others, and sees the one for her dog, up already!  As she gets into her car, she is grabbed, knocked out, and shoved in a van.

Scene 3: Brett and his girlfriend zoom down the Pacific Coast Highway, exuberant about being sixteen and able to drive, so they have infinite freedom!   Cut to the group having patty melts at the Hamburger Habit (I remember that place): a guy, a boy-girl couple, and a girl on each side of Brett moving in to kiss him.  Geez. at least let him finish his burger.

The group shrinks to four as they have dinner at the Galleria before playing at the video arcade, browsing at Tower Records or buying books at "any of the large bookstores that dotted the streets" in those days before Amazon took over.   I'm all for nostalgia, but this is getting egregious.  Tell me more about how everything was perfect in the Good Old Days, Grandpa.  Besides, I was there, and he's exaggerating the number of bookstores. 

I think the flashbacks have stopped.  They're at Girlfriend Debbie's place, and she's warning them not to spook her $1,000,000 Arabian horse.  Girl of His Dreams Susan and her boyfriend Thom (Graham Campbell) start making out.  Brett looks on longingly.  Adult Brett explains that Susan was the most beautiful girl in the world, and he still considers her the Love of His Life, although they never dated.  Debbie just started making out with him one day, so what are you going to do?  Are you sure you're gay, buddy?

Cut to a montage of Brett diving into his pool, getting dinner from the housekeeper, working on his writing, and doing under-the-covers stuff. 

Scene 4: Brett asks Girl of His Dreams Susan and her boyfriend if  they're coming to the last party of the summer at Debbie's house.  Thom says they'll be there, but Debbie's dad makes him uncomfortable: "He's so goddam gay!"  Got a problem with gay people, Thom?  Good thing your buddy Brett is straight.

"Yeah, he's pretty gay," Brett agrees, "But he's won two Oscars. Maybe he can help get my book made into a movie.  Ok, I checked the producers of "Less Than Zero."  Google AI insists that they're all "not gay" and make "family films."  

More after the break

The N*ked Thugs: Danny McBride thinks we won't like these dudes. Is that even possible? With chubby guy bonus.

Go directly to the d*cks

Commenting on the frequent male n*dity in the first season of The Righteous Gemstones, Edie Patterson said "We're not gay baiting" (using the term wrong), and Danny McBride (Jesse) claimed that gay men "won't like these d*cks."

Nonsense.  All danglers are beautiful. Big, small, thick, thin, micro, they all draw us toward the power and promise of the male body.  

And the rest of these guys ain't bad, either

They are a group of thugs hired in Episode 1.3 to take down megachurch pastor Eli Gemstone by destroying his satellite church, set up in a shopping mall.  He gets the upper hand and humiliates them by forcing them to run n*ked through mall.  

1. Casey Hendershot (top photo), who has played a variety of mobsters, bouncers, rednecks, serial killers, and miscellaneous miscreants.  He didn't show us his junk, but his physique more than makes up for it.

2. Zach Osterman is a Savannah, Georgia-based actor who appeared on Danny McBride's previous show Vice Principals. He's an avid cosplayer, gamer, comic book fan, ghost-tour guide, and pizza expert.  Some people with his physique get fat-shamed and size-shamed, so it took a very positive self image for him to agree to bare it all for Gemstones viewers.  

It was worth it.  He's easily the cutest of the trio.

3. Justin Matthew Smith  has 29 acting credits on the IMDB, plus a special thanks for the short The Runner.  Nothing wrong with his junk.

The Running of the Boys: The guys and some extras are forced to run through the mall n*de, as the shoppers all laugh at them.

Why is male n*dity  assumed humorous for the viewer and humiliating for the subject?  If I saw one of these guys running through the mall, I would not be laughing.

Bonus chubby guys after the break