Laying it Bare in Key West

This is an interesting post from 2012, one of the first I posted to this blog.  What's interesting are the comments.  Back then I was much more forgiving of comments like "He can't be gay!  He's not wearing a sign!"  and "He can't be gay!  He's only 12."

The implications, of course, are odious:  everyone must be taken as heterosexual unless the authors explicitly that they are gay. 

There are no gay children; we are all straight until we decide to "turn gay" sometime in adulthood.

Today I would just delete them automatically, but back in 2012, a newbie, I let them stand.

So here's the post:

I have 3 questions about CrissCross (1992), the downbeat but very brightly-lit movie starring David Arnott as a 12-year old boy whose mom works as a topless dancer.  And that's the least of his problems.  His biggest: his name is actually Criss Cross.

1. Who decided to cast decidedly homophobic Goldie Hawn as the mother of a gay kid?

Ok, maybe the producers weren't expecting a gay reading.  But it's hard to miss: as Criss (David Arnott) rides his bike down the mean streets of Key West, searching for a way to make money so Mom won't have to strip anymore (he hits on a plan to steal drugs being smuggled in on a fishing boat, with tragic results), he tries again and again to establish a same-sex bond.

First a male peer, Buggs (Damian Vantriglia); then the grizzled Emmett (James Gammon), who advises him that "The only thing worse than being lonely with yourself is being lonely with someone."

If you're trying to make gay mecca Key West gay-free, shouldn't you patrol for same-sex friendships, and give the kid a girlfriend (he does have a girl who's a friend)?

2.  Why the nudity?

I know it's hot in Florida,  and it's nice that all the male actors are barechested all the time.  It's understandable, I guess, that the kid rides around shirtless, in Daisy Duke short-shorts. But why the nude butt, when the movie is R-rated, so gay kids can't even get in to see it?

50 years ago, preteens were commonly filmed nude in movies to signify their innocence.  But this kid is anything but innocent.

3. What happened to David Arnott?

He gives a good, understated performance, reminiscent of Chris Makepeace in Meatballs (although that's a completely different genre).  He handles the gay-vague subtext with panache.  One one expects him to have a long career as a serious actor, or at least some ecstatic "fave rave" articles in Tiger Beat.  But this was his first movie -- he beat out 3,000 hopefuls in open auditions -- and his last.  Maybe he didn't like acting.

Update:  I found a David Arnott from San Diego, of about the right age. He graduated from San Diego Christian College with a degree in aviation flight technology (2003), but went into the ministry instead, getting a M.Div. from George Fox College (2012).  After clergy positions at Mission Christ Church, Kaleo Covenant Church (Oregon), and Grace Harbor Covenant Church (Washington), he attended Navy Chaplain school and became a chaplain in San Diego in 2016. 

George Fox is run by the Society of Friends (the Quakers), who are welcoming, so he could be a gay ally. You never know.

Jason Dolley in the House

22-year old Jason Dolley has spent most of his career at the Disney Channel, where heterosexist boy-obsessed-with-girl is the order of the day, so he hasn't had many opportunities for gay projects.  But he's had his share of gay subtexts.  And shirtless, semi-nude and underwear shots.

Saving Shiloh (2006): Teenage Marty (Jason) and his dog Shiloh must team up to save Shiloh's evil ex-owner, Judd (Scott Wilson), when he is accused of killing a man.  They both end up befriending the reformed nogoodnik, because, "When you open your heart, anything is possible."

Minutemen (2008): Virgil (Jason) and the nerdish genius Charlie (Luke Benward) have an intense, passionate buddy-bond that leaks through in spite of the scripted girl-craziness.

Cory in the House (2007-2008).  Cory Baxter (Kyle Massey), the son of the head chef at the White House, goes to an exclusive private school, where he crushes on an ambassador's daughter and becomes best friends with Newt (Jason), son of a Supreme Court Justice. Jake Thomas played their snippy antagonist.

Though both boys were scripted as standard Disney girl-crazy, subtexts abounded.  Cory thinks that another boy is asking him out, and says "Sorry, you're not my type."  Newt sees Cory at the mall with another boy, and accuses him of "cheating.




Even Cory's Dad, Victor, gets into the act.  After a comedy of errors, he ends up in bed in the Lincoln Bedroom with the President, just as a tour group approaches.  "We can't let them see us!" Victor cries.  "They'll think we're...." Long pause while the studio audience howls at the awareness of what two men in bed signifies.  "They'll think we're. . .lazy, sleeping during the day!"

Good Luck, Charlie (2010-): A rare Disney Channel nuclear comedy sitcom. Jason plays the oldest son, PJ, who has another black best friend, the nerdish Emmett (Micah Williams).

Bradley Steven Perry (right) plays his younger brother, the preteen operator Gabe.

Lots of rumors about Jason being gay in real life, but so far in print and video interviews he's only talked about girls.

Steve Burton: Out of This World

During the 1960s, there was a fad of tv programs about adults who were "different" and had to keep their secret lives hidden from the world.  During the 1980s, there was a fad of tv programs about teens with secret lives that they had to keep hidden from the world: My Secret Identity, Harry and the Hendersons, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, Alf, Small Wonder, Teen Angel.

On Out of This World (1987-91), the teenage Evie (Maureen Flannigan) discovers that she is half-alien.  She lives with her human mother, and her father, Troy from the planet Antares (voiced by Burt Reynolds), communicates with her through a cube. Aliens have all sorts of magical powers, from freezing time to controlling the weather, and disastrous misuse or accidental use of powers fuels the plots.





Along with Evie's attempts to live a "normal" life and her ongoing fear of discovery.

Gay kids could always relate to tv programs about being different and having secrets, but there was more.

A lot more.

Evie's on-off boyfriend, Chris, was played by Steve Burton, age 17 when the show began, blond, buffed, with six-pack abs and biceps that seemed to get bigger every episode.

And when the plotlines didn't call for his shirt to come off, the teen magazines obligingly plastered his shirtless and swimsuit-clad body over almost every page.

After Out of This World, Steve landed the role of mob enforcer turned body guard turned coffee importer Jason Morgan on the soap General Hospital.  But he still had time for beefcake photos, including the cover of Playgirl.

















From 2013 to 2017, he played Dylan McAvoy on The Young and the Restless.  He also moved into voice work, performing the character Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy video games.

In 2018, Steve left General Hospital to work on other projects.  Hopefully involving beefcake photos.

Which of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was Gay?

I'll bet you never thought you'd be reading about the ancient Greek drama Alcestis and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the same blog, on the same day.  But my search for beefcake and bonding takes me everywhere.

During the late 1980s, pundits often pointed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when they needed a quick, easy example of tv being a "vast wasteland" responsible for turning kids into brain-dead zombies.  They probably never watched the cartoon series or read the comic books: the title was enough for them.

TMNT began as a comic book in 1984, and moved into cartoons and extensive marketing tie-ins by 1987.  By 1990, everyone, even pundits, had heard of the four slacker-talking, pizza-obsessed ninja turtles named after Renaissance artists (two of whom, by the way, were gay in real life).
1. Leonardo, the leader.
2. Michelangelo, the fun-loving trickster whose catchphrase is "Cowabunga!"
3. Donatello, the technological genius and computer whiz.
4. The brooding Raphael, who has a Brooklyn accident.

They live in the sewers of New York with their beset-upon sensei, the mutant rat Splinter, emerging only to pick up the pizzas they ordered and to fight crime.  They have two human allies, tv reporter April O'Neil and hockey-mask wearing vigilante Casey Jones.


The cartoon series lasted for 10 years, and new versions are in the works.  A series of films began in 1990, with sequels in 1991, 1993, and 2007.  I've seen the first two.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) gives us the turtles' origin story, and introduces them to April (Judith Hoag), Casey (Elias Koteas), and their arch-nemesis, Shredder, an evil Darth Vader clone who heads the evil Foot gang, comprised entirely of teenage boys.





April's boss happens to have a sullen teenage son, Danny (Michael Turney), who is secretly working for the Foot gang, and eventually gets big-brothered and rehabilitated by the turtles.

Surprisingly for a movie about turtles, there is significant beefcake, in the older members of the Foot gang, and in Casey Jones, who displays biceps and a prominent bulge.

Casey and April embark on a bickering "I hate you!" hetero-romance, like that of Sam and Diane on Cheers, David and Maddie on Moonlighting, and practically everybody else in the 1980s.  But otherwise hetero-romance is limited.  Of the turtles, only Michelangelo expresses heterosexual interest.  The others enjoy surprisingly open physicality, touching, hugging, grabbing each other at will, and Raphael obviously prefers the company of men: he spends most of the movie buddy-bonding with Casey.




Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) casts a new April, and eliminates Danny, Casey, and every hint of hetero-romance.  There is none.

Instead, the turtles face a restored Foot gang and discover the secret of their origin, with the help of a befuddled scientist (David Warner, who had a romance with Gregory Peck in The Omen).  This time Raphael buddy bonds with and rescues a new teenager, pizza delivery boy/martial arts expert Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr., who played another hardbodied martial artist in Surf Ninjas).

What are we to make of this pleasant lack of hetero-horniness?  The fact that the dudes are turtles in a human world is irrelevant; anthropomorphic animals from Bugs Bunny to Howard the Duck have often been portrayed as overwhelmed with desire for human women.
The intended audience of preteens is also irrelevant: movies during the 1990s often promoted gushing prepubescent hetero-romances.

For whatever reason, the Turtles were spared.  Cowabunga, dudes.

See also: The Omen; Surf Ninjas