Zoey 101: Your Big Brother's Gay Subtexts

The teencom, like the teen idol, has a short life expectancy.  It bursts onto the scene and becomes an instant Saturday-night must-see for millions of junior high students.  They memorize favorite scenes, fantasize about the teen hunks, buy the tie-in novels and trapper keepers.  But they grow older, go to high school, get drivers' licenses, make plans on Saturday night.  The stars grow older, too, and yearn for mature roles.  So, after two or three years, rarely more, the teencom fades away, replaced by a new one that has the new class of junior high students gushing.

Between 2005 and 2008, this face and physique was intimately familiar to teens, when Zoey 101 ruled Nickelodeon, with 65 episodes and four made-for-tv movies.  It starred Jamie Lynn Spears (younger sister of the pop diva Brittney Spears) as Zoey Brooks, a student at an elite oceanside boarding school in California, and her coterie of friends and friendly enemies.  The boys included:

1. Logan (Matthew Underwood, above), a handsome but self-absorbed rich kid who doesn't own a shirt.

2. Dustin (Paul Butcher, left), Zoey's younger brother, who has bulked up and now stars on the webseries MyMusic.

3. Chase (Sean Flynn, right), a nerd with a crush on Zoey.  The grandson of film great Errol Flynn, and nephew of actor and photojournalist Sean Flynn, Sean has starred in several movies since, including Bad Blood (2012), about the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

4. Michael (Christopher Massey), the token black guy.  The older brother of Kyle Massey of That's So Raven and Cory in the House, Michael previously starred in the parodic "instructional training video" Color Me Gay (2000).

5. James (Austin Butler), Zoey's on-off boyfriend.



Aside from the beefcake, there were hints about same-sex desire or practice in nearly every episode.

A computer dating service mistakenly pairs two boys for a school dance, and they decide to go through with it.

Trying to wrangle an invitation to join a campus fraternity, it-boy Reese gives the president a gift and says “This is just to let you know I’m interested.” The other boy replies, “Thanks, but I’m seeing someone.”

When nerdish Logan displays an expertise in comic book trivia, another boy sighs, “He’s handsome and knowledgeable!”  Later, he challenges Logan to a trivia contest with “Let’s see what you got, Hot Shorts,” a Freudian slip on “hotshot.”

Enough hints and signals to challenge Drake and Josh, or even Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.

Looking for Muscles on The Andy Griffith Show

On a 1960 episode of Make Room for Daddy: nightclub entertainer Danny Williams (Danny Thomas), traveling through the rural South, is arrested by corrupt sheriff Andy Taylor (comedian Andy Griffith).  His sponsor liked the episode so much that they spun Andy off into his own hayseed comedy, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968).  Now the slow-talking but wise sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, Andy rarely did any police work; he was a single dad, busy with the humorous catastrophes of his friends and family.

I know we watched; my parents were big fans of hayseed comedies, and it was sandwiched between some of their other favorites, Family Affair, and Carol Burnett.  But I don't remember a single episode.  I must have been rolling my eyes and saying "Can't we watch Felony Squad, starring former Physique Pictorial model Davis Cole (left) instead?"

When Andy Griffith left the show in 1968, it was renamed Mayberry RFD (RFD stands for "Rural Free Delivery," a mail service).  Most of the other regulars stayed on board, and the focus became single dad Sam Jones (Carol Burnett Show regular Ken Berry, right).  It lasted until 1971.

I've watched a few episodes recently for research. No shirtless shots, not a lot of beefcake (although Ken Berry has some beneath-the-belt things going on in some scenes).  But quite a substantial gay connection, for a hayseed comedy:

1. Andy Griffith played a gay villain in Rustler's Rhapsody (1985).

2. Ron Howard (his son Opie) went on to the gay-subtext Happy Days, and then became one of the more homophobic directors in Hollywood, heterosexualizing gay characters and adding homophobic jokes.

3. Jim Nabors (gas station attendant Gomer Pyle), spun off into his own gay-subtext series) and is gay in real life.

4. Buddy Foster (Sam Jones' son) is the brother of lesbian actress Jodie Foster, and played several gay-vague roles, including episodes of Chips and The Mighty Isis, before he retired from acting.














Here he shows some muscles as a feral Wild Boy on a 1975 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. 

5. Don Knotts (deputy sheriff Barney Fife) later played Ralph Furley, landlord to pretending-to-be-gay Jack Tripper on Three's Company.

6. The character of Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson) was a gay-stereotyped mother-obsessed milquetoast with an interest in music and art and no interest in women, one of the few gay-coded characters in hayseed comedies (or in any 1960s comedy, for that matter).

Ricardo Montalban: What Happened to the Hispanic Beefcake

One of the most iconic beefcake images of the Boomer generation appeared on February 16, 1967, in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed": The Enterprise picks up the frozen survivors of a long-ago eugenics experiment, including the world's most perfectly developed man, former dictator Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban).  As he strutted around Sick Bay, his hospital gown robe falling off his massive, smooth chest, Boomers believed it.

Khan returned fifteen years later, in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), to take vengeance on the Enterprise crew that stranded him on a barren planet.  He was gray-haired and craggy, but he still couldn't find a shirt that could cover his massive chest.  His crew, including male model Cristian Letelier, was buffed, too.  And he had a gay-vague sidekick played by Judson Scott.  Gay favorites  Ike Eisenmann and Merrit Butrick costarred.

In between, Ricardo Montalban played the mysterious, probably supernatural Mr. Roarke, who managed the wish-fulfillment Fantasy Island (1977-84) that our parents or, more likely, our grandparents watched.  Most wishes were about finding heterosexual loves.

But those parts are only two of the highlights of a 60 year career.

Born in Mexico in 1920, Montalban became a film star in his home country before moving to the U.S. in the late 1940s.  He insisted on remaining true to his heritage, and became one of the few Hispanic actors who was regularly cast as Hispanic, even though it meant many suave, sophisticated, gay-vague villains in B-movies.  He also played many hetero-romantic roles, reviving the Rudolph Valentino "fiery Latin lover" image in the postwar world.

And, during the craze for Biblical and ancient Roman epics, he got to take off his shirt a lot.

I haven't seen many of Montalban's 160+ movies and tv shows, but I did note the buddy-bonding Joe Panther (1976), in which Turtle George (Montalban) mentors a young Seminole Indian (Ray Tracey).

In Captains Courageous (1977), he played the noble Portuguese fisherman Manuel, who mentors rich kid Harvey (Jonathan Kan).

He played gay villain Victor Ludwig in The Naked Gun (1988), who doesn't hit on his secretary because he "likes German boys," whatever that means.

More recently, he was playing parodies of himself, such as Senor Senor Senior on Kim Possible and a Hispanic cow on Family Guy.

Although he was married to Georgiana Young from 1944 until her death in 2007, he is the subject of several gay rumors, linking him to Zulu on Hawaii Five-O, Cesar Romero, and teen heartthrob Scott Baio.

Blazing Saddles

March 1979: my first year at Augustana College.  The Student Union is showing Blazing Saddles (1974), directed by Mel Brooks.

I've never heard of him.

It's a spoof of the Western genre, about a black cowboy, Bart (Cleavon Little, shown here in his underwear with Chick Vennera), who saves the town of Rock Ridge from an evil railroad company, in spite of everyone's racism.

No beefcake, though when Bart is seduced by temptress Lilly Von Schtump (Madeleine Kahn), she investigates his penis size:  "Is it twue what they say about you people? [Unzipping sound.]  Oh, it's twue!"

Along the way Bart makes many friends, including the dimwitted but super-strong Mongo (played by beefy footballer Alex Karas, below, the gay gangster in Victor/Victoria).  

But he develops a strong, arguably romantic bond with the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder, left, who would go on to star in another interracial homoromance, Silver Streak).  The movie even ends with the two riding off into the sunset together.

So far, so good: a nice gay subtext, and some references to penises.  But then, during the climactic brawl, the cowboys literally break the fourth wall -- they go crashing into the next soundstage over, where effeminate chorus boys are rehearsing. Their director, Buddy Bizarre (Dom Deluise) criticizes them: "It's so simple!  Watch me, faggots!"

I was shocked and appalled.  Where did this come from?  It ruined the whole movie!

Borscht Belt comedian turned tv writer Mel Brooks directed several comedies during the 1970s.  They were praised by the artsy crowd at my college for parodying movie genres, for breaking the fourth wall, and for talking about sex -- a lot.  The artsy crowd didn't seem to mind the incessant homophobia:

Silent Movie (1976): in a running gag, a passerby sees the men piled atop each other or innocently hugging, and shrieks "Fags!" in disgust.

High Anxiety (1977): psychiatrist Dr. Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) encounters a "fag" at the airport, and a heterosexual "dyke" nurse.

History of the World, Part 1 (1981): there are ridiculed "fag" characters in Roman times and during the French Revolution.

 According to Nathan Lane:  "Mel's take on homosexuals is that we're these flamboyant extraterrestrials."

Not worth the strong gay subtexts.

The Mod Squad: Buddy-Bonding Hippies

During the 1960s, the establishment made many attempts to cash in on the counterculture, often with little success.  But The Mod Squad was a hit.  It lasted for five years (1968-73), won Emmies and Golden Globes, and spawned a toychest full of comic books, tie-in novelizations, games, and toys.

The premise: three hippies are arrested for disparate crimes:
1. Wealthy rebel without a cause Pete (Michael Cole, top and left) stole a car.
2. Black-power Link (Clarence Williams III, right) participated in a race riot.
3. Free-love advocate Julie (Peggy Lipton, center) ran away from home.

With-it Captain Greer (Tige Andrews) gives them the choice of jail time or going undercover in the counterculture.  They refuse to become snitches, but they're assured that they'll be snitching on criminals who prey on hippies, not on hippies themselves.  So they're off, infiltrating high schools, colleges, churches, rodeos, hospitals, and lots of hippie tribes, to apprehend counterfeiters, blackmailers, kidnappers, and lots of murderers.

The two main establishment fears, sex and drugs, are absent.  These hippies don't use drugs, and they don't have sex: in 124 episodes, Pete falls in love twice, and Linc and Julie one time apiece.  They are much more likely to be called upon to assist same-sex chums or young boys.

The squeamishness about heterosexual free-love also has the effect of separating Julie from the others, leaving Pete and Linc to snoop around by themselves. At first they distrust each other -- Pete comes from a privileged white family, and Linc is a black separatist -- but as they work together and rescue each other time after time, they develop an emotionally intense quasi-romantic partnership.  They became in effect an Adventure Boy couple, Jonny and Hadji writ large.

There was also significant beefcake.  Michael Cole was displayed shirtless or semi-nude only a few times, lest the establishment get scared, but he provided substantial beneath-the-belt interest.

After Mod Squad, he guest starred roles on everything from The Love Boat to 7th Heaven, but nothing of substantial gay interest; no word about whether he is gay-friendly in real life or not.

Clarence Williams III never took off any clothes, but he had his own beneath-the-belt action on display. After Mod Squad, he had over 100 acting credits, including several of gay interest.  In Ritual (2000), he plays a successful attorney with a disfunctional family, including a gay son (Shawn Michael Howard) who is the best adjusted of the lot.

Peggy Lipton, friend of Rock Hudson and the mother of a gay son, is a strong gay ally.

Dean and Logan: Romance or Bromance?

23-year old Dean Collins is best known for The War at Home (2005-2007), a sitcom about a lovable bigot (Michael Rappaport), his nearly-gay son (Kyle Sullivan), and the gay Iranian teenager next door (Rami Malek), who eventually moves in.  Dean played his other son, a preteen operator.

But he's also played in several other gay and gay-positive vehicles, such as The Least of These (2011), about sexual abuse in a Roman Catholic boarding school that leads to murder.

21-year old Logan Lerman is best known for the Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (2010), based on the novel series about a boy who discovers that he is half-Greek god and must save the world along with his gay-vague best friend (Brandon T. Jackson) and The Girl.

But he's also played in several other gay and gay-positive vehicles, such as Hoot (2006), about a teenager who moves to Florida and teams up with a mysterious wild boy (Cody Linley) and The Girl to save a habitat of endangered owls.

And The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), about an outcast high schooler who befriends both The Girl and her cool, popular gay brother (Ezra Miller).

Dean and Logan met while working on Jack and Bobby (2004-05), about the childhood of two brothers who will both grow up to be President of the United States (not John and Bobby Kennedy, though).   They've been inseparable ever since.  

They upload their videos to youtube under the name monkeynuts1069.  In "Jealousy," Dean gets angry when Logan dates someone else, so he kidnaps him and ties him up.  

They started a band, Indigo, with fellow musician Daniel Pashman (center). I listened to their song "Touch Screen," and didn't find anything heterosexist: "I'm on a mission to Mars, and I'm burning up cars."

The question inevitably arises: are Dean and Logan a gay couple, or heterosexual life partners?  Is it a romance or a bromance?

I can't imagine what difference it makes.