"Vladimir": Pretentious English profs have affairs with students and each other. And talk. And talk. With some prof d*cks and backsides

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Vladimir, on Netflix, has a man and a woman both gawking at a hunk as he dives into the pool and climbs out, so there are obviously gay characters.  Maybe the hunk is himself gay: he's played by Leo Woodall of Vampire Academy and White Lotus 

And some of the episodes are named after literary classics:  "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," "The Awakening," "Everything that Rises Must Converge," "Against Interpretation."   

I got a M.A. in English and started on a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature before switching to the social sciences, so I'm getting a tinge of nostalgia.  Let's go.

Scene 1: A rustic cabin.  A lady in her pajamas puts Toni Morrison's Beloved back on the bookshelf and tells us that she will never again have power over another human being.  Her students think she's out-of-touch; her daughter dislikes her; and she is no longer able to give men ___.  

As she tells us all this, we see that the unconscious Hunk is chained to a chair.  He awakens and starts yelling.  Well, if you can't give men ___  just by looking at them, this is your next best option.

Scene 2: Six weeks earlier.  The lady is buying greens for a salad to take to the faculty retreat -- her 30th.  She's been at the college for 30 years!  She isn't named on the IMDB or the Episode Cast, so I'll call her Madame X

She notices the Hunk chivalrously getting something from a high shelf for a lady shopper.  He glances at her a few times and gets an instant erection, then walks away.  Hey, I thought she couldn't do that anymore.

Scene 3: Madame X in her car outside the faculty retreat.  She tells us that this one will be fun, because there will be a scandal: a professor (her husband John) caught with students.  He texts to ask how f*ked he is. 

Inside, they faculty is discussing the situation.  Andre (Milton Barnes, bottom photo) reports that there are six accusers now (all female), and over a thousand signatures on the petition demanding Husband John's removal.  He'll be suspended until the hearing, and David (Matt Walsh, left) has stepped up as department chair.  

Matt Walsh, a founding member of the Uptight Citizens Brigade, has 190 acting credits listed on the IMDB.  I've only seen him in animated shows like Rick and Morty.

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: he pulls out his d*ck so Will Ferrell can get busy in Get Hard (2015).  Will is too disgusted to go through with it. .

Scene 4: 1:30 pm, time to go in and apologize for being late.  There are no chairs left, but the Hunk from the supermarket -- a new assistant professor named Vladimir -- offers his.  While the meeting drones on (I know all about that!), she zeroes in on his knees and neck.  

Scene 5: After the meeting, Madame X is eating Frito pie when the Hunk dismisses the other flirty female profs and zeroes in on her.  They discuss how sitting is a lethal habit, so everyone should stand at their desks; it's good for the quads. 

Just as he moves on to the shoulder-touching, his wife appears.  Ulp, competition!  Small talk: she's teaching as an adjunct,  she loves Madame X's novel, and she's late because their daughter pooped in her dress. Too much information, girl!  

Madame X tries to save face by inviting them "both" over for cocktails. The Wife refuses -- she doesn't drink.  Maybe the Hunk could go by himself?  Are you pushing them together?

Then David the Department Chair whisks them away.  She growls.

Scene 6: Stomping out, Madame X runs into Andre (who reported on the inquest earlier), and asks for a copy of the report on her suspended-and-soon-to-be-fired husband. 

She reads it in the car.  Pictures of all the complainants, including one with the girl sitting on his lap.  "Scandalous!" she tells us.

Scene 7: As husband John (John Slattery) grills steaks, Madame X sets the table outdoors, and asks us why people are scandalized by prof-student affairs.  They're fun because of the power differential.  The girls who complained are just sad, miserable losers.  So you're going to get even with them?  

John is the one who gawks at the Hunk in the opening sequence, but I think it's just a tease: he only references hetero interest in this episode.

John's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Later, John swims and complains that there are no rules against profs dating students, and his wife Madame X is fine with it, so what's the problem?  Then they discuss compost and growing lettuce (someone actually scripted dialogue about lettuce, yawn), what they hate about the new professors, and not telling their adult daughter Sid about the scandal.

John Slattery, who has been nominated for 4 Primetime Emmys, has 94 acting credits listed on the IMDB.  I've seen him in an episode of What We Do in the Shadows and...um...

More after the break

Nancy: Lesbian Panic in a 1950s Comic Book

The cheesecake comic strip Fritzi Ritz premiered in 1922, with gags involving the aspiring model and her series of boyfriends, notably the nerdish Phil Fumble.  And a lot of sex jokes.

In 1933, Fritzie took in her orphaned niece, Nancy, a mischievous and rather melodramatic child.  Soon Nancy became the star -- the titular character in 1938 -- and acquired a series of friends and antagonists, including poor boy Sluggo.  Fritzie became mostly-absent parental figure.

Nancy has remained in print ever since. In contemporary strips, written by Guy Gilchrist, Fritzie is in her 50s and works as a music reviewer.

Nancy appeared in several issues of Dell Four Color and Dell Giants, and got her own title in 1957 (numbered #146 for some reason).

When John Stanley retired from the Little Lulu comic book,, he went to work on Nancy, writing all of the stories in issues #162  through #173, and then the renamed Nancy and Sluggo through #185 (1961).

Stanley specialized in the terrors and anxieties of childhood, and in Nancy's world  he goes unbrindled. The result is disturbing, sometimes painful to read.

Fritzie is at best neglectful, and sometimes downright abusive.

Nancy is jealous, spiteful, vindictive, petty, and vain.

Sluggo lives alone in an abandoned house and often goes hungry, unless Nancy agrees to feed him.

They are not friends, like Lulu and Tubby; they are dating, adding dark humor to their interactions as Stanley hints about just how physical they have become.

Neither has other friends, just antagonists and enemies who ridicule, criticize, manipulate, and harass them.

Sluggo has an adult nemesis who literally intends to kill him.

And the weird physical manipulations that, in Little Lulu, happened in stories, here happen in real interactions with the yoyos, who will transform you permanently unless you trick them into letting you go.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the yoyos are the adults who fall into their trap, and spend their entire lives transformed, until, in old age, Nancy rescues them.

To top it off, there's Oona Goosepimple, who looks like Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family comics, an orphan (that's three of the regular cast).  She lives in a spooky old house with her usually absent grandmother.  Other relatives usually appear, as threats.

One uncle is a giant, lying asleep in the basement.  If he ever awakens, his movements will bring down the house.  So Grandma keeps him drugged.

Nancy dislikes the "creepy" Oona, and rejects all of her overtures of friendship -- but finds herself drawn unwillingly to the house anyway.

She is invited to a party, but arrives to discover that she is the only guest.

Oona pushes Nancy to eat cookies, play games, and spend the night.

Nancy tries to refuse, but can't help herself.

A weird compulsion to spend the night with a creepy girl, or eat the forbidden fruit.

During the 1950s, gay men and lesbians were portrayed as expert seducers, pulling innocents unwillingly into their "deviance."

Just another of the horrors of Nancy's world.

See also: Little Lulu

Harrison Houde: It's Bowie! Plus gay-adjacent tv, synth-wave music, and a pink Ford. With Diego, Harrison backsides and Nemo d*ck

Link to the n*de photos 

 School Spirits features a high school girl named Maddie Near, who becomes a "ghost" when her spirit is dislocated from her body.  In Episode 2.3 (2025), we meet Diego (Zack Calderon), the older brother of Maddie's friend, n the best possible way -- wearing just a towel. 

Well, maybe not the absolute best possible way...

And we learn that Maddie's body is now occupied by Janet,  the ghost of a high school girl who died in 1958. She goes on the run, bringing a satchel-full of stolen cash. When she stops for supplies, we met Carl (Harrison Houde), a clerk at the superstore.  He has long hair and femme multicolored bracelets, pinging my gaydar.  And he's 5'5".  

Which should I profile?

Sorry, Zack.

You may remember Harrison Houde from Some Assembly Required (2014-16), the Canadian teencom about a boy (Kolton Stewart) who sues his way into owning a toy company,   Harrison plays Bowie, his cute, quirky best bud, who is put in charge of the Jokes and Pranks Division.  (He's pictured with Dylan Playfair as the dimwitted hunk.)  

Although the gay-vague fashion plate of the series is Aster (Travis Turner), until he gets a queerbait girlfriend, Bowie only expresses heterosexual interest in one or two episodes. 

Harrison began his on-screen career as Darren Walsh, who becomes an outcast for touching cheese, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010).  

Next came three episodes of Spooksville (2013-14), about teenage ghost-hunters.

42 episodes of the "how it works" series Finding Stuff Out (2012-14)

And the movie Pants on Fire (2014), with Bradley Steven Perry as a chronic liar who wins The Girl of His Dreams (not by lying).

More after the break.  

Stefanos Kakavoulis: Bizarre, cerebral gay movies and n*de performance pieces, plus an adult video and a kooky documentary

  

Link to the n*de photos

When Stefanos Kakavoulis appeared on the n*de celebrity site, I thought his name was a prank.  Kaka means "bad, evil, garbage" in Greek, so Kakavoulis means, roughly,  "The Little Stinker"  But that's really his name:

Stefanos  was born in Australia in 1977, but moved to Greece when he was a baby.  He got his degree in teaching art from the Higher Drama School New Greek Theatre of G. Armenis (that's what it says).

He has five acting credits listed on the IMDB, and several others on his personal website.  I took a year of Greek in college, but it wasn't quite enough to understand the untranslated plot synopses and trailers. 

Hnychterini sonata ("The Nightengale Sonata," 2015).  I don't know what it's about, but it shows some people in towels kissing.

Exoria ("Exile," 2019):  Stefanos kisses a dude, but strangles him during the bedroom stuff, and approaches a lady dressed as a bumblebee who is lap-dancing a guy in a bunny mask. 

That's what the trailer shows.

Antonious (2020): , a 38-minute poem by gay Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, translated into Greek by Stefanos.  The Emperor Hadrian mourns the death of hislover.

Copper Sand (2020): Two men serve in the army together, then meet again after 15 years.  Is the spark still there?

Based on the trailer, I'd say that it's still there.

Howl (2020): A 20-minute performance of the Allen Ginsberg poem, translated into Greek.

Kathartirio ("Purgatory," 2022).  "Stories about love in modern Greece."  

Leonardo's Ring (2024), based on the play by Rick Elice, is about a ring that travel from hand to hand over the centuries.  Owners include gay icons Leonardo Da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, and Tchaikovsky.  Looks like a lot of musclemen in a pool, and two guys in bed in a crappy apartment.

Stefanos is primarily a theatrical actor.  His credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, The Talented Mr Ripley, Bent. and Vitruvio, where he performs Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (n*ked, of course) in a meditation on mortality.

I'm getting the impression that he's gay.

More after the break