The Top 10 Hunks of "Dear White People," Season 3

Dear White People (2014) was a drama with comedic elements about a radio show that points out microaggressions and white privilege at an elite Ivy League college.

The first season of the Netflix tv adaption (2017) continued the story, with the Winchester students dealing with unconscious (and conscious) racism, police targeting, cultural appropriation, and so on.  Still a drama with comedic elements.

The second season (2018) was more comedy than drama, with some attention to white supremacy, institutional racism, and a conservative "why do black people complain all the time" group.  Plus Lionel gets a boyfriend.  It bogs down in a ridiculous plotline about a secret society that controls the world leaving DaVinci Code clues around the campus.

In its third season (2019), Dear White People has become a comedy.  There doesn't seem to be an ongoing plot arc, just micro-plots about selecting a film studies mentor, unionizing, dating, embarrassing moms, and a sex club. Most of the time I have no idea what's going on, and I don't really care. I'm just watching for the Lionel plotlines.  And for the beefcake.

Here are the top 10 hunks of Season 3.  I'm omitting the ones covered (or rather, uncovered) in my previous review (Gabe, Lionel, Reggie, Kurt, Al, and Kordell).

1. Mason Trueblood (top photo) as Colin, a writer for the Pastiche humor magazine (aka Harvard Lampoon).  One of the main plotlines of Season 3 involves Pastiche writers trying to find their own voices, and a female writer being ignored.

2. Kobi Kumi-Diaka (left) as  Jimiyu, a Nigerian student with a crush on someone or other.

3. Jeremy Tardy as Rashid, a member of the Black Student Union, the more conservative black organization on campus.

4. Blair Underwood as Professor Moses Brown, who left after he became rich with an app he developed, but returned because...he wants to nurture young minds?

5. Erich Lane as Clifton, Reggie's roommate, who spends his time doing whatever it is that white people do.  I liked the scene where he changes clothes in front of Reggie, displaying his package and everything (nothing seen on camera).

6. Glenn McCuen as Chet Fuckboi.  I don't remember this character, in spite of the name.


















7.  Alex Alcheh as Milo, one of the graduate teaching assistants.


8. Ryan Alexander Holmes as Nicholas.  I don't know who this character is, but who cares? The actor is hot.

9. Wade F. Wilson as Michael, who insults Lionel at the sex party, and then asks him out.

10. Eugene Ko (left) as Jesse, one of the graduate teaching assistants.  It's about time the show added an Asian character.  Racism isn't all about black and white.

Now, if they can only get him to take his shirt off.

See also:Dear White People

Mickey Rooney: Gay-Vague Teen Hunk of the 1940s

Mickey Rooney, who died in 2014 at the age of 93, played elderly men for so long that it's hard to remember that once upon a time he was the biggest teen hunk  in Hollywood.

Born Joe Yule in 1920, Mickey got his start as "Mickey McGuire," a preteen rapscallion in a popular series of silent movie shorts. In the mid-1930s, he moved on to teenage dramas, many with the strong gay subtext common in the era.

In  Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), his rough street kid Dick falls in love -- quite literally -- with the upper-crust Ceddie (Freddie Barthlomew).

In The Devil is a Sissy (1936), his rough street kid Gig is torn between regular guy Buck (Jackie Cooper) and upper-crust Claude (Freddie Bartholomew).

In Captains Courageous (1937), his rough ship mate Dan falls in love wih upper crust Harvey (Freddie Bartholomew).

Audiences never tired of two teenage boys gazing into each other's eyes.

But Mickey -- and MGM -- hit paydirt with the Andy Hardy series, 16 movies (1937-1946) about a rambunctious small town teenager.  Who was girl-crazy, a new and bizarre characteristic for teens in mass media of the day (previously boys were expected to become interested in girls at the end of adolescence, not at the beginning).

At first parents and peers -- and audiences -- disapproved of Andy's interest in girls, thinking it made him effeminate (see my post What Kind of Flower Are You?) 

The producers countered by displaying Andy's muscles as much as possible.  He strips down for bed; he bounces down the stairs shirtless; he goes swimming, even in winter, and in a revealing Speedo-style swimsuit.  As much as 30% of each Andy Hardy movie is devoted to beefcake shots of Mickey's body and bulge.

Here Jackie Cooper (left) is a little more obviously bulgeworthy.

The strategy worked.  The Andy Hardy movies hit the top of the box office, and Mickey Rooney was named the most popular star in Hollywood three years in a row.

He also starred with Judy Garland in three popular movie musicals about kids winning or saving things by putting on a show. 

Plus he continued the male-bonding romances in Huckleberry Finn, Boystown, A Yank at Oxford and Men of Boystown.

Mickey Rooney was always nonchalant about gay people, even in the 1940s, perhaps because his own heterosexual interests were so very obvious, with nine wives and innumerable affairs. 

In the 1950s, when gay beefcake hunk Rock Hudson hit on him, he was bemused but not offended: "I like girls," he said.  "I thought everybody knew that."



Mickey Rooney kept working into his 90s, with starring roles in such movies as Wreck the Halls (2008) and The Empire State Building Murders (2008), and small but memorable roles in The Muppets (2011), Driving Me Crazy (2012), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2014).

Boomerang: Queer Inclusivity and Tequan's Pecs

Eddie Murphy is a major homophobe, so I haven't seen many of his movies, and I never heard of Boomerang (1992). It sounds dreadful: a player gets his comeuppance when he falls for a female version of himself.

But the tv version on BET (available on Vudu and Amazon Prime) stars Tequan Richmond, the dreamy teen idol from Everybody Hates Chris, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to run through a few episodes on fast-forward, just in case he takes his shirt off.


He plays Bryson, son of the female player, a successful music executive (at age 26?) into hooking up.  Except this is 2019, and hooking up is no longer considered a character flaw; in fact, it's a common pastime among his cohort of coworkers/buddies:




1. Simone  (Tetona Jackson), daughter of  Eddie Murphy character, co-owner the company, and Bryson's on-off girlfriend.

2. Ari (Leland B. Martin, left), his best friend

3. Tia (Lala Milan), a singer.

4. David (RJ Walker), who runs a storefront church.

5. Crystal (Brittany Inge), his ex-wife

Plots involve helping each other out of the crisis du jour rather than punishing players.

And guess what?  In the nearly thirty years since the original movie, times have changed.  Homophobia is no longer considered funny (except in movies aimed at teenage boys), and inclusivity is in.  Tia is a lesbian  dating a woman named Rocky, and Ari is bisexual.  Not just "bisexual but only dating women at this moment," actually kissing guys.

In the episode PRIDE, they all attend the Atlanta Black Pride Festival (which for some reason takes place in the wintertime) to film Tia's new music video, and Ari gets schooled by an ex-girlfriend "You like both?  That means you gay!"  But he keeps his bi flag unfurled.  Meanwhile David shows up as a street preacher, but instead of the usual "Y'all going to hell!' screaming, he says "Y'all are all beautiful!"

You're probably wondering if Tequan shows his physique.

Not often.  But after all that queer inclusivity, who cares?

See also: Everybody Hates Chris