15 gay facts about "White Christmas": gay actors, beefcake dancers, drag, Spartacus, and the source of your holiday depression

I'm not a big fan of the Holiday Season -- too big, bright, and noisy, with forced exuberance, and way too much melancholy.  I try to stay away from Christmas songs, movies, trees, holly, mistletoe, parties, and depression.  But I'll make an exception for White Christmas (1954).

1. It's not a Christmas movie.  It's a backstage musical that just happens to end at Christmastime.  Backstage movies were well-known for gay subtexts.

2. The song "White Christmas," by Irving Berlin (who was Jewish), first appeared in the backstage musical Holiday Inn, with Big Crosby and Fred Astaire. 

3. It's been covered by everyone, including gay favorites Bett Midler and Lady Gaga.

4. White Christmas is about two showbiz partners, Bob and Phil (Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye), who find their relationship threatened by women.

5. A musical based on the movie, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, opened in St. Louis in 2000. Lara Teeter (a guy with a girl's name) played Bob, and gay actor Lee Roy Reams played Phil Davis.

6. Phil has also been performed by Tony Yazbeck (top photo) and David Elder, who Google Images thinks is cowboy star Clint Walker (left).

7. The women in the movie, Judy and Betty (Vera-Ellen, Rosemary Clooney), are sisters.  At least, they perform as sisters, although their numbers would work well in a drag act.

God help the mister who comes between me and my sister
And God help the sister who comes between me and my man!

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.5: Yep, Kelvin is gay. But there's embezzlement and murder, too, and some accountant c ocks

  

Link to the c ocks

Episode 2.5 is a flashback to Christmas 1993.  Since two of the season's big questions are "Did Eli kill Glendon Marsh?" and "Is Junior trying to kill to get revenge?" we get some Eli-Glendon back story.

Knives or nunchuks? As the family is photographed at the Gemstone Christmas tree, Judy torments 4-year old Kelvin.  Jesse says that he's going to give him a weapon for Christmas, so he can defend himself: "Knives, or nunchuks."  Eli forbids him from giving his brother weapons.  Jesse complains that he's going to grow up to be "a pussy."  He explains that a pussy is someone who doesn't like to do things and is afraid of everything.  Sounds sort of like a gay stereotype.

You have to think of the optics: Eli is planning to move the Salvation Center to a giant coliseum.  The church board complains that he can't afford it: he's already spent church money on a private zoo and amusement park.  Hey, that's embezzlement!  They also advise that "the rich pastor is not a good look."  

But Eli won't listen: "I cannot imagine a more ridiculous comment.  Big means success. People want to see something bigger than life." Well, this is during the tail-end of the Reagan-Bush "wealth is virtue" era, with "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," "Dynasty," and "Dallas."

"But we're spending more than we have!" accountant Terry (Mike Ostroski) complains. Gulp: Eli fires him!

Get that boy some mousse: Baby Billy shows up unexpectedly, having abandoned his wife Gloria and son (he claims that they abandoned him, but Aimee-Leigh calls her and discovers the truth).  

Kelvin: "Dang, Baby Billy is thirsty."  But Billy isn't drinking anything.  Does he mean "thirst trap'?  That expression won't be common until the 2010s, but apparently it is used here to indicate that he thinks his uncle is hot.  Remember that in Season 1, the adult Kelvin and Judy comment on the attractiveness of their grown-up nephew Gideon.  

Baby Billy tells Kelvin that his estranged wife said:  "You have the most boring haircut in the world.  Get that boy some mousse."  Kelvin is upset (concerned with his appearance, a gay stereotype). Remember that the adult Kelvin uses mousse to create that upward wave.

Later, Kelvin demonstrates that he can play the harpsichord blindfolded (um..big deal?  Nobody looks down at the keys while playing).  Baby Billy calls him a prodigy and hugs and kisses him, obviously looking for a brainy replacement for his special-needs son.  The siblings scoff.  This musical talent is never referenced again.

The Return of Glendon Marsh:  As Eli walks through the office, everyone smiles and says "Good morning, Dr. Gemstone."  Everybody.  It looks creepy rather than friendly. "Be nice, or he'll turn you into a toad." 

His new accountant, Martin, starts off on the wrong foot by sitting in his chair!  

 Glendon Marsh, his boss when he was wrestling and breaking thumbs back in Memphis, shows up unexpectedly and asks Eli to take care of $3,000,000 that he doesn't want the government to know about, and he can keep $1,000,000 for his trouble.  Hey, that's money laundering!  But Eli has already been embezzling, so what's the difference?  Aimee-Leigh and Martin disapprove, and Eli finally refuses. 

More after the break

Iain Armitage: Young Sheldon grows up, hugs guys, celebrates Pride. With n*de Galecki, Fisher, and Simon Rex

Link to the n*de dudes

I didn't like The Big Bang Theory (2007-19), featuring Johnny Galecki as the (relatively) stable center of a group of wacky nerd scientists who can't get any  "big bangs."  The hetero-horniness was incessant, and there were so many homophobic statements -- mostly asserting that all gay men wear dresses and prance  --- that I was more amazed than offended  Wasn't Jim Parsons, who played the neurotic physics savant Sheldon Cooper, gay?  Why didn't he protest?  (Apparently he was closeted until around the fifth season.) 

But I liked Young Sheldon (2017-24), about Sheldon Cooper's childhood, growing up in East Texas in the 1990s with a conservative Baptist Mom, a macho football-coach Dad, a macho muscle-building brother, and...you get the idea.

I grew up in the Nazarene Church, which taught that Baptists were much too liberal.  I could relate.

Plus there were lots of cute guys.  Sheldon's older brother Georgie (Montana Jordan) had musclebuilding plotlines before they switched to a "getting a girl pregnant" story arc.

If you're into chubs (and who isn't?), Dad Lance Barber had it all.

Next door neighbor Billy (Wyatt McClure) was too young to be hot, of course, but he had that puppy-dog cuteness that makes you say "Aww, how adorable!"  I figured that he would eventually come out, but instead the writers decided to give him a crush on Sheldon's sister.

And how about Rex Linn as Tom Peters, the longsuffering principal at Sheldon's high school. Wait, this is Simon Rex (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

There were no gay characters -- with or without Jim Parsons as executive producer, this was still a "family friendly" (non gay) show.  But also no casual homophobia.  Just a few references suggesting homophobia, as when someone asks if Sheldon is...you know, and Dad angrily yells "NO!"

And in Season 5, Sheldon tells his roommate Evan (Motoki Maxten) that he doesn't want to date girls because they are a distraction. 

"So you're into guys?" Evan asks nonchalantly.

"No, they're a distraction, too."

Actually, he turns out to be asexual hetero-romantic, although this is never specified on The Big Bang Theory.

But I'm pretty sure that Iain Armitage (Young Sheldon) is gay.

More after the break

"Happiest Season": Christmas romcom with a lesbian couple, pansexual Patrick, Jake's junk, and Candy Cane Lane

Link to the n*de photos

Happiest Season, on Hulu, is advertised as "A Holiday romcom about being true to yourself and trying not to ruin Christmas."  The icon shows three heterosexual couples, an unattached woman, and what looks like a lesbian couple, but ten to one they're bickering sisters.  

But the husband on the left is Dan Levy, pansexual Patrick of Schitt's Creek, and the hunky Jake McDorman, top photo, is at the top of the cast list, so I'll give it a try.

Opening:  They're a lesbian couple!  The opening consists of watercolor-type pictures of two women, a blond and a brunette, meeting, falling in love, going to a family Christmas, celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving, exchanging gifts, and moving in together.  They kiss twice, so it's unlikely that viewers will identify them as "just close friends."

Scene 1: A residential neighborhood decked out for Christmas, called Candy Cane Lane.  A tour guide gives its history: it was started by Herb Flack, with his nephew Otis playing Santa Claus "until he was arrested for child endangerment."  A pedophilia joke?   The ladies are taking the tour.  The brunette asks the blonde, if she hates it.  No, but she's just not a Christmas person. 

 The rich brunette is named Abby, and the poor blonde is Harper.  Somebody goofed --  Harper absolutely has to be the rich one.  It's impossible to keep their names straight, so I'll call them Rich Brunette and Blondie. 

Blondie doesn't like Christmas?  A major crime in these movies, and in real life during the month of December. Rush her to a re-education center, stat!  Girlfriend argues that it's impossible to not love Christmas -- I've heard that argument a lot -- but Abby stands firm.

Next Brunette drags her to a house that's not on the tour and up to the roof, so they can look down on the lights.  "Now you love it, right?"  Sure, trespassing makes any holiday more festive.

They complain about being separated for the holidays, kiss and...uh-oh, the homeowner hears them.  They slide off the roof, destroying an inflatable snowman, and run away.  The homeowner is a Santa Claus dominatrix and her reindeer-costume sub, har har.

Brunette has an idea: she asks Blondie to come to her parents' house for the holidays.  Wait -- the water-color intro already showed them with the parents at Christmas.   She agrees.  They kiss for like five minutes. 

What happened to Herb Flack and Otis?  You can't name characters and then have them not appear.  We don't even see Candy Cane Lane again.

Scene 2:  The ladies' elegant brick house in downtown Pittsburgh.  Blondie works as a pet sitter?  Girlfriend must be an heiress. An old-fashioned phonograph playing a new song, "Jingle Bells" by Bayli, as Blondie says "We need to talk."  Uh-oh.  

It's nothing bad.  She just wanted to say that she got a substitute pet-sitter, John, so she can go.  Um...the first rule of fiction, even in frothy gay-positive fiction: there has to be conflict.

Cut to a coffee shop, where Blondie is giving John (Dan Levy) pet-sitting instructions.  Wait -- in the intro, he's celebrating Christmas  with the ladies and the parents.  I thought he was Brunette's brother-in-law, married to the scary-looking sister.   

John is distracted because he left last night's hookup alone in the apartment, so he has to keep tracking him to make sure he leaves.  

Takeaway: he tracks all of his friends.  This will become important later.

In other news, Blondie is planning to ask Brunette to marry her.  John is against it: they're a perfect couple right now, so why spoil things with an archaic assimilationist ritual, trapping her girlfriend in "the iron box of heteronormativity"?

Also: she wants to ask Brunette's dad for his blessing first. You've been reading too many Jane Austen novels, girlfriend.

Scene 3:  Establishing shots of their trek out of the city into the deep, dark wilderness.  You know Pittsburgh is just an hour's drive from West Virginia, right?

Big reveal: When Brunette said that she was out to her parents, she was lying.  They think she is straight, and Blondie is her "roommate."  So, you're about 30, you haven't mentioned a boy in 15 years, and you're  living with a woman. Girl, they know.

And they can't come out now, because Dad is running for mayor, and he's trying to impress this important, homophobic doner.  Sounds like the plot of La Cage aux Folles.

Besides, he has made it very clear over the years that he will only love his children if they are perfect, and being gay is by definition imperfect.

When they arrive, it turns out that there are three sisters and a scheming ex-girlfriend, all with long black hair, so I can't tell them apart.  But apparently they all have imperfections that they're keeping secret so Dad won't stop loving them:

Eldest sister and her husband are separated and divorcing, but pretending to be together.  The husband is played by Burl Mosely, seen here on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where he sings "Don't Be a Lawyer."

Brunette is an imperfect lesbian.

Youngest daughter is writing a Harry Potter-like young adult fantasy novel in secret. 

 Pop Quiz: What happens next?

1. T/F: Brunette dumps Blondie for her ex-boyfriend.

2. T/F: John agrees with Brunette's decision to stay in the closet.

3. T/F: John gets a romantic partner

4. T/F: There are several other LGBT characters.

5.T/F: When Brunette comes out, her parents are fine with it.

Answers after the break.