Revisiting Brideshead Revisited: Does the groundbreaking portrayal of (temporary) gay love hold up after 40 years? WIth bonus d*cks

January 18th, 1982, a Monday night.  I'm lying on the bed in the attic room my brother and I share, reading a book for my Advanced Spanish class.  Significantly it's Ciro Alegria's El mundo es ancho y ajeno: Broad and Alien is the World.  

Link to NSFW version

I always watch tv while studying.  Tonight the only options are two boring movies, MASH (doctors during the Korean War), and something called Brideshead Revisited on PBS.  It turns out to be an adaption of the Evelyn Waugh novel about 1920s Oxford undergrad Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) falling in love with the flamboyant, decadent, teddy bear-toting, alcoholic Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews).

 

They run away to Venice together. They go slumming in Soho, along with Sebastian's sister Julia.  Then Ryder begins a romantic entanglement with Julia, and the outraged Sebastian dumps him and runs off to Morocco. 

 Later Sebastian hooks up with a sleazy German guy named Kurt, and later still he dies.  Ryder can't marry Julia because she's Catholic and he's an atheist, so they just live together.  Later he becomes Catholic.

I'm mesmerized.  In 1982, surrounded by the hetero-horniness of workplace sitcoms, my parents demanding "What girl do you like?", and the preacher at church bellowing about homa-sekshuls, just seeing two men involved in a romance is a revelation.  Sure, no one says "gay," Ryder turns straight, and Sebastian dies, but they walk arm in arm, cuddle, even go nude sunbathing!  And everyone around knows! Even Sebastian's mother.  Even Julia, who tells Ryder that "all our loves are hints and signals," leading us to God.  A same-sex romance leads us to God?  Hear that, Preacher?

40 years have passed.  I've studied a lot of LGBT history and literature, and watched a lot of gay movies, published a lot of books and articles on queering fictional texts, and recently I decided to revisit Brideshead Revisted.

You can't go home again.  Rewatching today,  I strongly dislike Brideshead.  Sebastian is a decadent, flamboyant stereotype who ends up dead.  Ryder may fall in love with him, but then he moves on to Julia.  Evelyn Waugh, like Freud, believed that gayness is a phase -- adolescents, newly potent but forbidden access to the opposite sex, turn to each other.  Their brief period of quasi-romance ends when they move on to "mature" heterosexual love.


In 2008, the BBC aired a new version of Brideshead, with Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder and Ben Whishaw as Sebastian.  This time there's no subtext: Sebastian is gay.  But there's also no romance: Ryder is heterosexual but pretending to be interested in Sebastian to gain access to his vast wealth.

 

It's more honest -- and there's a lot more nudity -- but nothing can match the joy of seeing same-sex romance on screen for the very first time.

See also: Angus De Kirkby: Posh femme boy with long legs, a boyfriend, and a lot of furs. But is he a royal, a model, a fashionista, or just rich?

"Saltburn": Brideshead Revisted for the post-gay generation, with kink and p*nises

 Matt Smith: Who doesn't want to see the p*nis of Doctor Who, Christopher Isherwood, Charles Manson, Superworm, and Prince Philip?

Fisk: Melbourne probate office with wacky problems, gay dads, a gay barista, a p*nis-painter, and the extraordinarily cute Aaron Chen

Link to the n*de photos.

The Australian comedy Fisk (2024-26) just dropped on Netflix, with comedian Kitty Flanigan as a rather unpleasant solicitor (lawyer handling contracts and wills).   I started research because of the extraordinarily cute George, played by Aaron Chen (a lot of photos below), but there are also a surprisingly large number of gay and gay-friendly cast members, like Max Brown (top photo), who starred in  Homo (2026), and the nonbinary Rhys Nicholson, best known as a judge in Drag Race Down Under. 

So we'll give it a try. Episode 1.1, "A Portrait of a Lady."

Scene 1: At a lawyer employment agency, Helen explains that she moved to Sydney with her husband, but he ran off with an older man, so she's back in Melbourne, looking for work.  But she has no references, so all the agent has is Gruber & Gruber, a small suburban firm handling wills and probate.  And don't wear that all-brown outfit -- you blend in with the furniture.  Sure enough, an associate (Rhys Nicholson) comes in and accidentally sits on her

Scene 2: Dressed all in yellow, Helen arrives at Gruber & Gruber for her interview .  Extraordinarily Cute Aaron offers her a glass of water, and compliments her outfit.  If you ask nicely, maybe she'll let you try it on.  Could we watch you changing?

Then it's Boss Ray (Marty Sheargold), who mangles her name, then realizes that her dad is a retired Supreme Court justice: "A great man."  She's the oldest of the applicants, so she's in.

He explains: "When someone dies, the loved ones prefer a mature woman to comfort them and guide them through the paperwork."  Uh-oh, Helen is cold and hard-edged, not good at comforting.

On the way out, she almost bumps into Roz, tall, middle-aged, suspicious.  

Roz: "Who was that?"

Boss Ray: "Helen is your replacement.  She's the new you."

Scene 3: Helen having breakfast.  She calls for a teenage girl to fetch her grandma, who is supposed to live in the flat out back, but keeps coming in, feeding the dog, cleaning, and falling asleep in Helen's bed. Tell me more.

Next stop the coffee shop, where a guy is talking loudly on his phone.  She tells him that he's being loud, and the barista kicks her out: "You were talking aggressively!"  

Then work, where Extraordinarily Cute Aaron photographs her for their webpage. Don't photographers usually take their shirts off?  Roz, the person she's replacing, introduces herself as the Office Manager -- she was a solicitor, but she's been suspended.

A tour of the place with picky rules, and then, since they don't have an office for her yet, Boss Ray puts her in his own office to go over some files. 

Scene 3: Office Manager Roz brings in her first case -- way early.  Helen protests: she's never done probate law before, so she thought she would spend the first week studying and going through files.  

Roz: "If you don't like the job..." 

First case: Ruth, whose mum died, leaving half of the estate to her and the other to her brother Dean (Australian tv personality Glenn Robbins, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), but only if he has a vasectomy.   

Helen tells her that you can't put conditions like that in a will.  I've seen weirder conditions than that on tv: you must get married; you may not get married; you must spend the night in a haunted house.

"But he's got five kids from five different women."  

Scene 4:  Roz tells Boss Roy that she called Helen's previous job, and discovers that she was fired.  "You should keep her under supervision."  "But I'm the boss.  I don't have time."

Back to Brother Dean: He refuses to have a vasectomy.  He's afraid it might affect his work as a p*nis painter.  She clarifies: he doesn't apply paint to guys' stuff, he uses his stuff to paint.  

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: The Australian painter Pricasso, profiled on World of the Weird, paints regular portraits using his p*nis, with a brush inserted into his....  The Weird host was horrified, but it's similar to a common bedroom practice.

Ruth: "So, can I get a court order forcing the vasectomy?"

Helen: "No, it's impossible."  

She argues, so Helen turns a paper into a megaphone and yells "No. Vasectomy."  Whoops, Boss Ray sees her, and becomes upset over the unprofessional demeanor. 

More after the break

Mo Bakker: Santa Claus's grandson and his boyfriend cruise in Kenya, cuddle in Greece. With bonus Belgian d*cks

Link to the n*de dudes

English-speaking audiences are most familiar with Flemish actor Mo Bakker for the three Claus Family movies: 

Die Familie Claus 1 (2020): Christmas-hating teenager Jules discovers that his grandfather is Santa Claus, about to retire and expecting him to take over the family job

Die Familie Claus 2 (2021): Jules goes on a trial run to grant a little girl's holiday wish.  Plus the kids try to fix up Mom with her best friend, not realizing that he is gay and has a husband.

Die Familie Claus 3 (2022): Jules and his sister Noor work together to fix the mess Grandpa made of the gift-delivery. Plus Mom's new boyfriend Jeff (Kurt Rogiers) drops towel.

Throughout, Jules is heavily queer-coded, with an interest in musclemen and no romantic interest in girls: he keeps partnering with girls, but they are always relatives or just friends.  Although there are no undeniable queer codes, no boyfriends, or "I'm gay" statements, the series, and especially the first, appears every year on lists of "The Best LGBTQ Holiday Movies."

But what about actor Mo Bakker.  Surely he wasn't cast because he was gay.  At age 14, he may not even have known.  So let's check to see if he is out now.

Mo was born in 2006, son of Belgian actor Kuno Bakker, who played a gay guy in Feast (2022).  

Older brother Kes, also an actor, has 12 credits listed on the IMDB, including the teen drama High Tide, available to stream on Netflix.  He plays a gay character, falls in love with a dude, and drops towel.

Mo's acting career begins with August (2014), a short about a boy with a girlfriend.   He has several other projects listed, with plot synopses and trailers only in Flemish, including:

Niet Schieten (Don't Shoot, 2018): A boy is dying, and his grandfather feels guilty.

The tv series Please Love Me (Zie miej graag, 2017-20): A divorced woman is "trying to put her life back together."  Mo and his brother Kes play her sons.

Sisyphus at Work (2021): A film director is dying.

Finn's Heel (Finn's hiel, 2022): Two boys (Mo, Brecht Dael) bond over boxing lessons, and hug.  This one sounds gay.

The teen tv series wtFOCK (2023), about students in a prestigious high school in Antwerp.  There are gay guys in the cast (who make out in the pool), but Mo plays a heterosexual athlete who gets his girlfriend pregnant.

Not a lot of gay content here.  Let's check Mo's Instagram to see if he is gay in real life.

I'm always jealous of Europeans, who can jet to my top 10 favorite countries (outside the U.S.) in a couple of hours.  Here Mo and his boyfriend are cuddling on a raft in Nicosia, Cyprus: five hours from Brussels, 14 hours from Minnesota.

More after the break

Cody Veith: Why did I want to profile a straight guy with no gay acting roles? Because of his d*ck? With ginger and African dudes

 

My "profiles to do" includes another guy I've never heard of, Cody Veith (pronounced Veeth).  He's the tall ginger hugging a black teenager, with the comment: "Kaiden was happy to meet him mom I watch his shows he couldn't wait to tell his friends."

Apparently Mr. Veith doesn't believe in punctuation marks, so it's not clear whether Kaiden was happy to meet him, or he was happy to meet Cody.    

I found a black teen actor named Kaiden: Kaiden Fiorello.  But he  doesn't have any shows,just an episode of Evil Lives Here.  And he doesn't look anything like our Kaiden.

So Cody is referring to himself in the third person, and quoting him: "Mom, I watch his shows!" 

Surprisingly for someone who wrote that post, Cody is a high school graduate: Arbor View High School, Las Vegas, class of 2022, concentration in business management.  

Left: An Arbor View wrestler.  Cody wasn't on the wrestling team.  I just like the photo.

Cody's Instagram says that he is an actor and "professional prankster," based in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  He's also obviously straight, with innumerable photos hugging, kissing, and showing off the backside of the Love of His Life.  

Why did I want to profile this guy?  Just because he never heard of punctuation marks?

He's got a physique, and a d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, but that's not usually enough. Maybe I saw something inspiring in his social media.

More after the break