Jayson Blair's Hard Times

Jayson Blair has been in so many gay-subtext and gay-positive projects that you'd be surprised to discover that he's heterosexual in real life.

1. Chris, a gay singer and dancer on Glee (2009). 

2. The lesbian comedy Public Relations (2010).

3. The Hard Times of RJ Berger (2010-11), about a well-endowed high schooler.  Jayson played the homophobic Max, who turned out to be gay (but not well-endowed).

4. Detention of the Dead (2012). His jock Brad buddy-bonds with Jimmy (Max Adler) in the boys' restroom after the whole school turns into zombies.  He jokes that "they both go gay."

5. The New Normal (2012-13).  Jayson plays Clay Clemmons, the dimwitted estranged husband of the surrogate mother to the gay couple.

6. The marriage-equality movie In Sickness and in Health (2014).  Jayson plays half of a gay couple.

But the gay ally is indeed heterosexual.  He was romantically involved with Rumer Willis, the daughter of Hollywood legend Bruce Willis.

One Direction: Gay Rumors, Heterosexist Lyrics

When I heard the name "One Direction," I immediately assumed that it was a fundamentalist Christian boy band, deriving their name from the popular fundy "One Way" slogan.  But apparently they weren't aware of the fundy slogan and just thought it sounded cool.

They consist of:
1. Niall Horan
2. Liam Payne (left)
3. Zayin Malik (below)
4. Harry Styles
5. Louis Tomlinson

They finished third on The X Factor in 2011, but still got a recording contract, and released their debut album, Up All Night, in September 2011.  Two other studio albums followed, plus lots of tours and screaming teenage fans.


Their lyrics are explicitly heterosexist, with "Girl! Girl! Girl!' every other word.

I wanna stay up all night, and find a girl and tell her she's the one
Girl, I see it in your eyes, you're disappointed
Girl, what would you do, would you wanna stay...

Boy bands and their managers typically assume that no gay boys exist, so their fans are all teenage girls. One Direction's gay fans often feel alienated and alone.

The band's frequent butt and crotch grabs, kissing, and hugging in underwear in bed  grabbing each other's butts and crotches, kissing, lying about in bed together, leading to rumors that they're gay.  When fans make such a horrible accusation, the fan boards go wild with "defenses": "Why you got to hate?"; "They're normal, get a life!".

Harry Styles has been linked romantically to gay dj Nick Grimshaw, but he stated, "I'm not bisexual" (or gay, either, presumably).  Nick, meanwhile "defended" him gainst the "accusation" by saying that their relationship is "perfectly normal."

News flash, Nick.  Being gay was removed from the psychiatric Bible, the DSM, in 1973.  Gay people should really be aware of that.  Maybe he's using the ICD-10 instead.  Being gay wasn't removed from that until 1992.

Niall Horan is not homophobic.  On November 16, he was spotted at the G-A-Y Club in London, listening to his former girlfriend Ellie Goulding perform.

Ryan Ochoa and the Gay Boyz You Like

Ryan Ochoa became a Disney kid after The Perfect Game (2009), about a down-and-out Mexican Little League team.  He became friends with Jake T. Austin and Moises Arias, and parlayed his way onto the Disney and Nickelodeon teencoms Zeke and Luther, ICarly (2008-2010), A Pair of Kings (2010-2012), and Mr. Young (2012-2013), usually playing bratty nemeses.

But the 17-year old has developed a respectable physique, getting him a place on my list of 12 Unexpected Disney Channel Teen Hunks.

He's also busy in a boy band with his brothers:  the Ochoa Boyz, aka Boyz You Like (not the Ochoa Brothers, which is the name of a Colombian drug cartel).

The Ochoa Boyz consist of::

1. Ryan, born in 1996.
2. Robert (left), born in 1998, also a Disney kid, appearing on Hannah Montana, Pair of Kings, and Wendell and Vinnie. 

3. Raymond, born in 2001, a big child star, with appearances on 10 Items or Less, A Christmas Carol, House under Siege, Hank, Special Agent Oso, Ice Age, and Monster University. 

4. Rick, the oldest.   I don't know how old, but he's in college.

Here they ask fans to guess who belongs to the abs.  Give up?
It's Ryan.

Their lyrics are mixed.  Some heterosexist:

Strutting her stuff, she looks fine, dudes try to look tough

Some not:
Let's go outside, run through the streets, and enjoy the night.
Jump on the cars, go ahead and reach for the stars
This isn't a dream, join the team, feel free to scream

I don't know if any of them are gay -- no  gay content on their tweets or instagrams -- but I'd guess Ryan, because he has such an androgynous look -- he's a little heavy-handed with applying the makeup -- and because he's been linked with several gay-positive alpha boyz, including Jake T. Austin, Gig Morton, and Dylan Sprayberry (left).

The Star Wars Holiday Special

The Star Wars Holiday Special aired on CBS on November 17, 1978, during my freshman year at Augustana college.   I didn't see it; I usually wasn't home on Friday nights.

Actually, I don't think anyone has seen it all the way through.  After about ten minutes, you could hear tv sets being switched to another channel all across America.     It was universally panned by critics and universally reviled by viewers -- especially Star Wars fans.

It was never rerun, never appeared on VHS or DVD.  But some collectors had bootleg copies recorded directly from the tv broadcasts by diehard fans who thought they were going to get something good.

Curious about what the worst 2-hours of tv would look like, I bought a copy

Curiosity is a bad thing.

Most of the Star Wars characters -- Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader -- appear in clips from the movie, redubbed to make it look like they're talking about something called "Life Day."

The main story takes place in Chewbacca's house on his home world.  The first fifteen minutes involve his wife Malla  trying to get their son ("Lumpy") to take out the garbage.  Wookies talk only in annoying whines, so it's 15 minutes of mother and son whining at each other.

Then Luke Skywalker calls to say "hello" (apparently they're close friends).  An amazingly feminine Mark Hamill with Farrah Fawcett hair and his face made up like a lower-class prostitute.  Did he forget to take his make up and wig off after performing in a bad drag show?

Then there's fifteen minutes of Malla and Lumpy whining at each other to do the dishes.

Malla cooks dinner, following the directions of a six-armed Harvey Korman in drag.

From The Carol Burnett Show and Blazing Saddles to this?

Then there's a lengthy sketch in a trading post, where shop owner Art Carney tries to sell trinkets to a Storm Trooper.  Very slowly.  Very boring trinkets.  "Here's a miniature aquarium."  "I hate fish."

From The Honeymooners to this?

Then Grandpa Itchy (yes, that's his name), who is apparently senile, opens his Life Day present -- a porn video starring Diahann Carroll, who gyrates seductively and invites Itchy to "experience her," while he grins idiotically, his grotesque gap-teeth throbbing as if he's....come on, kids are watching!

The DVD committed suicide during Itchy's self-gratification on the living room couch.  Thank goodness.   I didn't have the stomach to watch the next 75 minutes.

Hundreds of people contributed to this mess, including some of the greatest actors in Hollywood.

What were they thinking?

Bobby Edner: Gay-Positive Child Star Grows Up and Bulks Up

In the short film The Seventh Sense (2001), a boy named Kyle (Bobby Edner) develops the mystical ability to see gay people.  The only problem is, they don't know they're gay.  With the help of benevolent psychiatrist, he puts his ability to good use, helping people to see themselves as they really are.

12-year old Bobby Edner was one of the most popular child stars of the 1990s, playing everything from the young Zack on Saved by the Bell to the "Can I touch your boobs" kid on Ellen, not to mention innumerable victims of child abuse, stranger danger, and incurable diseases.

He was most famous for The Day the World Ended (2001), about a boy who believes that his father was taken over by an alien and killed his mother.  No one believes him, but it turns out he was right.

And Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003), as Francis, one of the testers of a real-life video game (along with Ryan Pinkston and Robert Vito).

Since he entered puberty, Bobby has had only a few screen roles, notably in Welcome to the Paradise (2007), as the son of a  female preacher (gasp!).  He is now a singer and a songwriter, formerly a member of the gay-positive boy band After Romeo.

He's also bulked up considerably, and apparently he's a gay ally.