Is Malachi Barton gay in "Coven Academy," about teenage witches fighting vampires? With Devon's d*ck and the Saved by the Bell guy's bum

 

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I read online that former Disney teen Malachi Barton plays a gay character in Coven Academy, about a school for witches and warlocks.  Apparently it's intended for kids of the generation that is not familiar with Harry Potter, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Wednesday, The Winx Saga, The Magicians, The Golden Compass, The School for Good and Evil, or American Horror Story.  But if there really is a gay character, it will be worth the overused premise.   It's a freeform series, so episodes vary in length from 10 to 20 minutes.

Episode 1, "Hex Education."

Scene 1: Three girls on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It's past curfew, so they take a shortcut to get back to the academy, and are approached by a handsome stranger.  He turns out to be a vampire, accompanied by a whole brood, who attack, leading to a bloodstained newspaper.  Shouldn't it be a bloodstained cell phone app?

  Cut to an airplane landing, and Goth Girl Briar walking in slow motion out of the airport.   She is rude to Uber driver Ollie, who takes her across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway -- 28 miles long  -- and through a neighborhood of old Victorians to the Crestpoint Academy for Troubled Girls.  

"What do you have to do to become a troubled girl?" he asks.  Rude reply.  She looks at a photo of her and a young child of indeterminate gender.  Update: It's actually herself as a child and her Gloriously Wonderful Mother.

The academy: a run-down mansion amid overgrown shrubbery.  "Keep the meter running -- I won't be long."

Scene 2: Headmistress Graves (har har), that girl from Saved by the Bell, explains that they like to keep a low profile in the neighborhood, so they masquerade as a haunted house.  

Left: I'm sure you'd rather see Mark-Paul Gosselaer and Mario Lopez from Saved by the Bell instead (backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

And his backside.

Next Headmistress Graves (har har) checks Briar's file: "So, you were designated 'troubled' because you were snooping at a police station.  What were you doing there?"

"Something they're too lazy to do -- find my Gloriously Wonderful Mother, who is missing!"

"If you stick around, I'll help you find the truth abouot your beautiful mother." Beautiful, huh?

"Don't ever mention My Mother!"  You brought her up, girl.  "You're not worthy to talk about my wonderfully perfect Mother!" So, are you in love with her, or do you worship her as a goddess?  Or both?  

All of the glassware explodes, and she runs out.  

"It's not safe out there," Headmistress Graves warns.

Scene 3: Briar runs out anyway, and growling things appear in the bushes.  A voice comes from a storage drain.  "Now that your powers are active, you're wearing a 'Please attack' sign.  You'll be lunch in 30 seconds."  

She ignores them, but hears growling and stomping, and runs into the secret passage. 

It's Ditzy Girl (every focus girl has two friends, one ditzy and the other a fashionista). She leads Briar back into the academy and introduces her to Fashionista, who doesn't like her. Drama!

"Headmistress Graves (har har) forgot to tell you that this is a school of magic."

"Oh, like Hog..."

"Like nothing else!  No writer in history has thought of this before!"  The girls are studying general magic, plus developing their individual powers.  Fashionista can read people's emotions ("I know that you're hiding something!"), and Ditzy can turn back time a few seconds. 

Scene 4: Time for a tour.  Ditzy notes that there are boys at the school, too, like Teese (Nathaniel McIntyre).  They take different classes -- the girls' classes are strictly off limits, due to girl power and such. 

One of the boys gazes at Briar in love-at-first-sight horniness.  Hey, that's Malachi Barton.  I thought he was supposed to be gay?

Briar gets a tour of self-defense class, where the teacher destroys the practice mannikin, then gazes up at her in awe.  I guess everyone falls in love with her at first sight.

Next, the Archive, where all of the sacred objects are.  

They ask her to try on new shoes, but Briar resists: "These shoes belonged to my Wonderfully Perfect Mother!"  

Scene 5: Headmistress Graves (har har) asks Briar to stay.  She agrees to spend the night.

Whoops, she left her pink bag, which belonged to her Wonderfully Perfect Mother, in the Uber.  Could he still be waiting, after three or four hours?

Yep, he's there.  Ollie (Louis Thresher) is definitely smitten.

He hands over the bag.  In lieu of payment, he asks her out on a date -- but she has to buy the tickets, because he's broke. 

"Um...er...I don't know.  You seem nice, and I usually date bad boys.  But maybe there's one at the school, and I'll need a love triangle, so you're on."

While they're talking, Malachi gazes jealously down from an upstairs window.  You haven't even met her yet.

Fashionista comes out to snort about breaking the rules, so Briar has to go inside. 

More after the break

Oscar Chark: Lots of physique photos and guy-hugging, but has he played gay characters? Or posted d*ck pics? Or been tied up with Jason Priestley?

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The tied-up actor site had some rather blurry photos of Jason Priestley and Oscar Chark in an episode of Private Eyes West Coast. I've already seen Jason Priestley's stuff (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, so  I checked on Chark: an impressive physique, an unusual name, and an Instagram full of guy-hugging photos.  The dude is begging for a profile.

"Chark" sounds Charn, the dying city of the witch Jadis in The Chronicles of Narnia, but it's actually an English surname derived from the Old French charche (load) or the Old English cierre (bend in a river). 

The guys he hugs are mostly  co-stars, like Jason Fernandes, Robbie in It's a Wonderful Knife.  It looks like they have a gay or gay-subtext romance. 

Wait -- there's a gay couple in Knife, but these guys both play straight.  Robbie is the boyfriend of focus character Winnie.   Oscar is a guest at his Christmas party, who sneaks out to smooch with his girlfriend, and gets eviscerated by a candy cane ornament.  

This shot looks like Oscar and Rommel Mercado have a gay or gay-subtext romance in More Together (2024), but actually Oscar plays a guy who gets his girlfriend pregnant.  Can't get more heteronormative than that. 

You Are So Not Invited to my Bat Mitzvah (2023)?  Two girls are into the same boy, Andy (Dylan Hoffman), so they're not invited to each other's Bat Mitzvahs. Oscar's character is not mentioned in the plot synopsis, but it looks like he hooks up with one of the girls.

Tracker, Episode 1.1, "Klamath Falls" (2024)?  Tracker has to track down a kidnapped boy.  Oscar's character plays his brother: "He woke up, and said he was going to visit his Dad.  His biological Dad."

Let's take another look at Oscar's physique to remind me why I'm profiling this dude.

School Spirits (2025), Episode 3.2:  "Smug Senior"? Not mentioned in the plot synopsis.

The Love Heist (2026): A celebrity stylist and a hotel security guard (Peter Porte) team up to track down a stolen piece of couture, and fall in love.   Oscar plays Devin, his coworker, but I'll bet he's straight by default.

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: Peter Porte getting with Neal Patrick Harris in Uncoupled.  What guy hasn't fantasized about doing stuff Neal Patrick Harris?

More after the break

Wes Stern (sigh): Was the cutest teen idol of the 1970s gay in real life, or just pretending? With bonus Sal Mineo and Dustin Hoffman

 

 Link to the n*de dudes

Sigh.  Isn't this most groovy, ginchy, dreamy, outta sight dude to ever have his name written amid little hearts in a chemistry notebook?

Er...I mean he's a hot snack.

Wait -- not Bobby Sherman.  I meant his boyfriend, Wes Stern (sigh).

In the spring of 1971, 27-year old Bobby Sherman was probably the #1 teen idol in the country,or maybe #2 to David Cassidy of The Partridge Family.  He had released 10 albums and 23 singles, includiing hits "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Julie Do Ya Love Me."  His shirtless photos were plastered all over the teen magazines, actually more often than David Cassidy's.  And he had displayed acting talent as the "allergic to girls" beach movie star Frankie Catalina on an episode of The Monkees, plus two seasons as Troy Bolt on Here Come the Brides (1968-70).

The minds of ABC executives started churning.  Why not give him his own tv series?  He could play "himself," and sing a different number every week.  Surefire hit, right?

They based the premise on the singer/songwriter team Boyce and Hart.  Bobby would play Bobby Conway, a struggling singer. They just needed an awkward, "girl-shy" dude to provide the comic relief and tight jeans as his nerdish lyricist Lionel Poindexter.

Thousands of groovy dudes showed up for open auditions, but Bobby really, really liked 23-year old Wes Stern (sigh).  

Soon they were seen together at Hollywood hot spots, preparing for the deep, deep, deep romance (um...friendship) that would characterize their series.  

Everybody idolized Bobby Sherman at the time, but Wes (sigh) really pushed  up the lovelorn gaze.  He was definitely up for some snogging, and I'm sure that the nearly-openly bisexual Bobby Sherman obliged. 

Interestingly, Bobby married Pat Carnel that summer, and published an introduction to Wes (sigh) claiming that he "loves girls."  Protesting too much, buddy?

Bobby hasn't revealed much about his male loves, but we almost know he dated almost-out actor Sal Mineo.

And Wes (sigh)

Tie-in novels and comic books were ordered, gushing teen magazine articles were written -- Wes (sigh) lives in a "bachelor apartment in West Hollywood.".  Then, after a "meet cute" episode of The Partridge Family, Getting Together premiered in October 1971. 

We must have watched -- the alternative was All in the Family, which Mom and Dad didn't allow because of the atheists.  But I don't recall anything except Bobby and Wes (sigh) smiling at each other.  My description comes from nostalgia articles:

In the first episode, Bobby becomes the guardian of his orphaned younger sister, but she runs away when she thinks her presence is interfering with their romance...um, I mean friendship. Don't they have their own room?  

Most episodes involved their parenting problems rather than the singing-song writing stuff - dig, a teenage girl in 1971 likes The Lawrence Welk Show!

Co-parents in an alternative family, plus the guys lived in an antique shop. They couldn't be more gay-coded if they plastered their bedroom with pictures of Steve Reeves.  

Except Getting Together didn't air on  ABC's Friday night block of kid-friendly programs.  It aired on Saturday night, where it failed to make a dent in the juggernaut of Archie, Edith, and the Meathead.  14 episodes appeared through January 1972, and then the duo disbanded.  But the memory of a gay romance lingered.

Was Wes (sigh) gay in real life, did he and Bobby have a platonic-pal bromance, or was their relationship purely manufactured? I knew almost nothing about him then, and I still don't.  He is almost absent from the internet.  All I have is a few details about the show and 13 acting roles listed on the IMDB. 

He was born in New York City on July 25th, 1947.  "Stern" means "star" in German and Yiddish, so I'm assuming Jewish, although "Wesley" is a Methodist name.  No info on his education.  In 1969 he hit Hollywood and joined the Groundlings comedy troupe.

He turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1969) to star in The First Time (1969): Three teenage boys on vacation in Niagara Falls mistake Jacqueline Bisset for a lady of the evening, and request her services.  Wes (sigh) is into it, but his gay-coded friend is not.

More after the break

"Of an Age": In a 24-hour Garden of Forking Paths, a Serbian teen hooks up with his girlfriend's brother. With some Serbian d*cks

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 It's Sunday morning, and I have no tv series or movies waiting to review, so I'm going to click on my Netflix recommendation Of an Age, with a shirtless guy on the icon.  There may not be any gay characters, but at least there will be some beefcake. 

Scene 1: 1999. A scantily clad woman awakens on a deserted beach.  Her bag is gone, so she borrows some coins from a lady exiting a pastie shop and runs to a payphone and calls someone, but gets a busy signal.  This must be Britain or Australia.

Cut to close-ups of the chest, biceps, and face of a sleazy-looking dude as he dances around to "Bandido," a 2003 song by Ana Barbara.  He appears to be working on choreography in his garage, moving too fast to get a good screen shot.  

Knock on the door.  He yells in Serbian, "Don't come in!", then goes out to yell at his little brother (Peter Rayias), but Bro is in his room.  It must have been his  creepy Mom: "I forgot to wash your clothes again, my handsome man, leer, leer."

Finally The Girl gets through: "What the f*ck, Kol!" 

"Sorry, my brother was using the computer."  

She starts stammering.  This guy was going to take her to his boat in Saint Basil (no such town), and she took some speed.  It's very important to know that he was a little older, but not some rando. The next thing she knew, she was waking up on a beach, with no money, her bag gone, no idea what happened, and no idea where she is. And they have the Big Community Center Thing in two hours.  She has obviously been roofied, s*xually assaulted, and robbed, but nothing more is said about it. 

 They use a street sign to deduce that she's in Altoona, an hour's drive away. She wants Kol to go to her friend Tori's house, pick up her dress for the Big Civic Center Thing, then come get her.  

"But I don't have a car."

"Borrow your mom's."

"I can't.  She's being creepy. Can you call someone else with a car to come get you?"

"But if they have a car, they probably have a life, so they won't be home."  Wouldn't people who have lives be out late the night before, so still asleep at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning?  "Wait -- I know a complete loser who everybody hates because he's so lame.  He has no life, so he'll be home at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning -- my brother Adam!"  Har-har.

Scene 2: Kol runs through the neighborhood to his Girlfriend's friend, now named Jaya: "You have to call this complete loser who everybody hates.  I can't do it because if his Mom answers, she'll recognize my voice and ask where The Girl is."

By the way, the Girl is named Ebony, although she's not black.  Another off-kilter directorial choice.

Tori/Jaya calls Brother Adam: "This sleazy gay guy burst in and insisted that I call you."  Wait -- your girlfriend's best friend doesn't know you?  And her brother doesn't, either?  How long have you been dating?

"I'm not gay, but..."  He grabs the phone.  "Adam, you have to drive me to pick up your sister Ebony, an hour away, and then drive us to the Civic Center, another hour, and we have to be there in an hour and a half."  

He grabs the dress, and while waiting, hears more about Brother Adam: "Loser.  Voted most likely to bomb the school.  Some girls tried to f*ck him, but were unsuccessful."

Scene 3: Adam arrives (Thom Green, left, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  He doesn't think they can make it to Altoona and back in time for "your emergency dance class."  The camera moves around too much to get a good screenshot.

"It's the Dance Finals dude!  Super-important!"  Not that important.  The movie is not about Kol's dancing career.

Kol asks him to stop the car so he can throw up.   This illness is not mentioned again.

"Maybe you could go to the finals next year?"

"My Girlfriend Ebony applied to NIDA in Sydney, so she won't be around."  The National Institute of Dramatic Arts.

He laughs.  "You think she's going to NIDA?  She's a terrible actor."  He ridicules her performance as Lady Macbeth.

Their conversation last for 21 minutes.  I can't cover everything they discuss, but the most interesting topics are:

1. Jorge Luis Borges -- one of my favorite writers. 

"The Library of Babel," containing every possible combination of letters in a book. 

 "The Circular Ruins," where a man dreams a world that is dreaming him.  

"The Garden of Forking Paths," a labyrinth where every decision results  in infinite parallel worlds. .   

2. Tomorrow Kol is flying back to Serbia for his birthday, January 1st, 2000,  the day of Y2K fears.  Y2K is never mentioned again.

3. Kol mentions how much he hates his "psycho uncle."    Adam suggests that he could murder the uncle for Kol, as in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train.  This is never mentioned again.

4. Adam mentions that he's gay. Kol says he doesn't have a problem with gay people, a standard straight guy response in the 1990s.

More after the break