David Barry Gray: Not as Homophobic as Chevy Chase, Probably

Chevy Chase may be one of the more homophobic actors in Hollywood, as his cast mates from Saturday Night Live and the National Lampoon's Vacation movies can attest, but the naked man on top of him, David Barry Gray, is not.  Not very, anyway.

Not as homophobic as Chevy Chase.

Probably.

The New York City native, heir to the Pepsi Cola fortune,  has appeared on many tv series, beginning as a teenager with William Tell (1987-88); he played William's son, Matthew.  Other series include 21 Jump Street, The Client, JAG, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, and Rizzoli & Isles.

Not a lot of gay subtext vehicles, although you could include his role in S.F.W. (1994), as the brother of hostage-survivor Stephen Dorf, and the "rescuing people from Southeast Asia" movie Soldier Boys (1995), as Lamb, who steps on a land mine (sacrificial lamb -- get it?).

Man-mountain Michael Dudikoff stars.

No gay characters, although he did star in the mega-homophobic Lawn Dogs (1997):

A lonely ten-year old girl and her only friend, the reclusive Trent (Sam Rockwell), both have problems with unwelcome sexual advances from a couple of sleazoid roommates: the girl from Brett (David), and Trent from Sean (Eric Mabius).  Not to worry, the evil gay guy is killed, but the pedophile isn't.

So he played the teenage version of homophobic President Richard Nixon, and more recently, Todd Palin, husband of homophobic Alaska Governor and VP contender Sarah Palin.  That doesn't mean he's personally homophobic.

Does it?

His sister-in-law, Ariel Winter, stars in the gay-positive Modern Family as the brainy teenager Alex Dunphy.

Doesn't that suggest that David is gay-positive?

No?

Well, at least he has a nicely toned physique.

Summer 1971: How to Catch a Fisherman

When I was a kid in the 1970s, whenever we visited my relatives, my Uncle Paul (of the Naked Man in the Peat Bog)  or Cousin Joe (whom I saw naked when I was seven) or Cousin George would announce "I'm going to take you fishing!"  and expect me to bounce around the room in ecstasy.

I didn't bounce around in ecstasy.

1. You sit in a rickety boat or on a rickety dock, with only a thin veneer of wood separating you from 40 feet of gross, dank water.
2. While the mosquitos eat you alive
3. You bait a hook with gross, squishy worms.
4. You dunk the worms in the water and wait.

5. And wait and wait and wait.
6. Eventually a fish takes the bait, and you pull it onto the dock or the boat, where it struggles wildly and finally dies.
7. Then you have to scale it and gut it.

But fishing had some advantages.

It got very hot, so shirts came off, and the ripple of shoulders and biceps as Uncle Paul or Cousin Joe battled Fish was a beautiful sight.

And we weren't alone.  There were lots of cute boys taking off their shirts to battle the fish, and they were surprisingly easy to catch.

When I was little, I played "inept," fumbling around with baits and lines, and waiting until a cute boy offered to teach me.  Hopefully a fish would take the bait, and he would put his arm around me while helping me reel it in.

But when I visited Cousin George in the summer of 1971, I caught a fish, and paraded around with it until a cute boy offered back-slapping, hand-on-shoulder congratulations and questions of how I did it.  I ended up with a buddy for the rest of my visit.

Cousin George was surprisingly nonchalant about me using fish to pick up guys.

I found out why a few years later.

From David Paetkau to Lars Slind: Finding a Gay Connection

One of the main things I like about writing this blog is the research: investigating gay subtexts in movies or tv series I never heard of before. Sometimes the research leads in unexpected directions:

6:00 am: I never heard of David Paetkau, who played a gay character in the Canadian ice hockey movie Goon (2011), so I looked him up on IMDB.  He's been in over 30 movies and tv series, including Final Destination 2 (2003), Whistler (2006-2008), and Flashpoint (2008-).  Nothing I've seen, and nothing with keywords "gay."

6:10 am: Google Images has pictures of him getting married, in a cop uniform, and hugging a number of guys, including Shaun Sipos.  I never heard of him either, but one blogger thinks he's cute.  So maybe Shaun Sipos is gay or plays gay characters?

6:15 am: Like David, Shaun Sipos is a British Colombia native who was in Final Destination 2.   He's also been on the tv series Melrose Place (2009-2010), Life Unexpected (2010-2011), and The Vampire Diaries (2013).  I haven't seen any of them either, but a keyword search for "gay" reveals that his Melrose Place character was involved with a bisexual woman.

 6:20 am: He's in a movie called The Michaels (2014), in post-production. I can't find a synopsis online, but with multiple Michaels, one must be gay.  And there's a character called Handsome Party Guy, played by Lars Slind.  Never heard of him.

6:25 am: Score!  Lars Slind, born in 1983 in Arizona, is an artist, actor, model, and writer with about a thousand shirtless and underwear shots on the internet.

He starred in the tv series The Cavanaughs (2011-2012) and has guest starred on Teen Wolf, True Blood, and Desperate Housewives, mostly in roles like "Hunky Guy."

6:35: He played Superman in Batman Hangover (2013), available on the Funny or Die website, and he's got a starring role coming up in the superhero comedy Real Heroes (2014).

 Let's face it -- no one with this kind of physique is going to be cast as a gay character -- Hollywood wants its gay men to be wispy bits of fluff. 

6:40: But Lars is gay or an ally (I can't tell which).  He posed for the gay magazine DNA and gave an interview to  The Gay League, a gay superhero fan blog.  

Finally a gay connnection!  And it only took 45 minutes!