The Unique Gay Romance of "Crashing."

In Britain, "property guardians" move into an abandoned property that wasn't designed for permanent habitation in the first place -- an office building, a school, a warehouse.   In exchange for "protecting" the property, they get cheap rent, about 55 pounds a week ($400 a month).  The downside is, the place is usually falling apart, with inadequate plumbing and heat, no bathrooms, no kitchen...

The upside is, there's lots of room for comedy material.

Crashing is a British tv series (2016-), now on Netflix, about a group of young adults who become the property guardians at an abandoned hospital.  Big, spooky rooms where people once got sick and died, now used for comic misunderstandings and buddy-bonding, sort of like Friends if they lived in the entire apartment complex, and had more snogging.

1-3. Anthony (Damien Molony, left) negotiates the sexual tension with Lulu (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and his fiancee Kate (Louise Ford).

4.-5. Hip French artist Melody (Julie Dray) pursues the portly middle aged Colin (Adrian Scarborough), though he can't for the life of him figure out why.

6.-7. Effervescent real estate agent Sam (Jonathan Bailey, who gets blond highlights and a beard so he doesn't look exactly like Damien Molony) courts the uptight Fred (Amit Shah).  Each claims to be "not gay."

The reviews all skip over 6.-7., concentrating on 1.-.3 and calling it a "two girls and a guy dilemma" sitcom, Archie torn between Betty and Veronica.

But the gay romance  is what makes the series unique.

Episode 1: Sam and Fred bond at a party scavenger hunt.  Piggy back ride, forehead bumping, forehead kissing, "beautiful eyes," "handsome face," but each claims that he's "not gay."

Episode 2: Sam lures Fred away from his dull office job for a wild day of rebellion.  They end up in bed together.  Fred hugs Sam, who protests: "This ain't never going to happen!  Ever!"

Episode 3:  Fred, who has admitted that he is gay, starts dating the effervescent Australian Will (Lachie Chapman).  Sam explodes in jealous rage.

Episode 4: Sam and Will compete for Fred's affection.  They get into a fight.  Sam tries to get them to break up by seducing Will, but it doesn't work.  So he has sex with Lulu instead.

Episode 5:  Will gets a new flat, and asks Fred to move in.  Sam seethes.  He accosts Will in the shower.   They kiss.

Fred finds out about the kiss and freaks out.

Sam claims that he was trying to tempt Will on purpose to prove that he's a bad guy.  Will claims that Sam is in love with him but won't admit it.  Everyone gets into a fight.

Will turns out to be a controlling jerk who insults Sam and all of his friends.  They break up.

Episode 6:  Fred and Sam are still at loggerheads.  Fred wants them to be lovers, and Sam insists that he is not gay, so they can only be best friends.  Then Fred collapses, and goes to the hospital.  Sam admits that he's in love with him.  They kiss.

Oh, I almost forgot, the other couples have romantic complications, too.  Melody and Colin and Anthony and Lulu end up together.  I think.  I wasn't really paying attention to them.

Scary, Heterosexist Ads of the 1960s

I hate tv commercials where women take a bite of yogurt, cereal, or chocolate, and then roll their heads back and stiffen in orgiastic ecstasy.  Or kids see the cereal, macaroni and cheese, or hot dogs on the kitchen table before them, and they hug mom ecstatically in gratitude. (Men are expected to prefer quantity over quality, so they usually just shovel it in and say "Great meal, Honey.)

1. They're sexist, replicating ancient gender stereotypes.
2. They're heterosexist, replicating the nuclear family myth, Mom, Dad, and Kids as aggressively as A&W's Papa, Mama, and Baby Burgers (see "Bill and I Become a Mama and a Papa.")
3. If every bite causes a shuddering orgasm of joy, how do you ever get through a meal?

When I was a kid in the 1960s, print ads were even worse.  Not dependent on real humans, they drew faces with bizarre contortions of ecstatic abandon that real actors could never get away with, except maybe in horror movies.

Who ever thought that this picture would encourage kids to ask Mom for Sugar Krinkles?  I'd be worried that the clown would climb off the box and eat me.

Who wears hats to dinner?  And why is the demon girl levitating her plate of human meat, peas, and orange things?

What, exactly, did she put in those drinks?  And why is she serving four of them to one victim?

I've heard people say "O--oh-h Boomer!" before, but they usually don't follow with "It's a Schwinn!"

"Room for one more.  Join us!"

See also: The Bisexual M&Ms

Fox's Heterosexual Rocky Horror Picture Show

I'm not a purist who believes that The Rocky Horror Picture Show  is sacred writ.  I'm all for sanding down the plot inconsistencies, booting the jokes that mock women and the disabled, adding some racial diversity, and modernizing the dialogue ("You look like you're both pretty groovy.")

But I would have preferred the new version which aired on Fox last week to keep it gay.

The problem is, same-sex activity is not nearly as shocking  today as it was in 1975.  Richard O'Brien intended for Frank's same sex desire to be disquieting, and his "wedding" to be downright diabolical, far more sinister than Eddie's murder.

Today married men are commonly shown on tv commercials, eating soup.

How to restore that frisson of dread?

How about making Frank transgender?  Transpeople receive far more hostility and fear than gay men and lesbians.

How about Laverne Cox, arguably the most famous transgender person in the world, as Frank?

So far, so good.  Except:

1. Only a few lines are changed, mostly to eliminate profanity.  Frank is still a "sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania."

A transvestite is a man or woman in drag.  Not a transperson.

Columbia's story of first meeting Frank still has the line "He had a pick up truck and the devil's eye."

For awhile, I thought Cox was playing Frank as a male drag queen, but no, in all the interviews, she says "transgender."

2. This changes the dynamic of the movie immeasurably.  Making it more sexist.

The scenes where Frank seduces Brad and Janet no longer involve sex.  They involve Benny Hill antics of sexual harassment: leering, chasing, butt-slapping.

For that matter, all of the sexual activity is sexless.  When Janet sings "Touch me!", Rocky obliges by touching her...shoulder!

The attempted sexual assault ("You'd Better Wise Up, Janet Weiss") is much more violent, with Frank and Janet getting into a "girl fight" melee.

I guess we shouldn't expect oral sex jokes and breast-fondling with High School Musical director Kenny Ortega at the helm and two former Disney teencom stars as Brad and Janet.

Or anything gay.

3. It's way heterosexist.

The original had three gay male relationships -- Frank with Eddie, Brad, and Rocky -- and six heterosexual (count them!).  No lesbian, unless you count Columbia and Magenta grabbing at each other.

The new version has two lesbian relationships -- Frank with Columbia and Janet -- and seven heterosexual  (count them!).  No gay male.

And lesbian relationships are much more acceptable to the heterosexual "male gaze," so they're worth only about half as much in queering the text.

Meanwhile, the Transylvanians dance "The Time Warp" in strictly boy-girl configurations.

In the original, Rocky shows no interest in Frank during "I Can Make You a Man."  In the new version, Staz Nair plays him as obviously into the buxom leading lady.

In the pool scene ("Don't dream it, be it!"), Brad and Rocky look like they are about to kiss, but Janet intervenes.  Boys don't kiss!

This is a heterosexual Rocky Horror.

I don't care if there are  a few rainbow flags scattered about.

Gay Men....Um, I mean X-Men: Apocalypse

Gay people are divided into the two basic camps: two camps.  

There are two basic camps in the mutant community:

1. Separatists: The straights will always think of us as a threat, so don't associate with them.  Embrace your difference!  Live in your own neighborhood!  Have your own clubs and churches, have only gay friends, read only gay literature, and say "Being gay is who I am."  Loudly, every chance you get.

2. Assimilationists.  If only they got to know us, the straights would discover that we're not a threat.  Minimize your difference!  Live among them, join their clubs and churches, have only straight friends, read straight literature, and don't mention being gay.  If you are outed, tell them, "Being gay is only a small part of who I am."

We've had many Assimilationist-Separatist battles in the gay world, too, starting right at Stonewall, with the Mattachine Society (keep quiet!  don't make waves!) vs the Gay Liberation Front (be loud and proud!), and most recently, same-sex marriage: "We have our own ways to express love and commitment, and they're much better than yours" vs. "Please, please let us get married!  We want to be just like you, because you're so much better than us!"

X Men Assimilationists/Separatists:

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies about the X-Men, mutants with superpowers, the Assimilationist camp is led by Dr. Xavier (James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Harry Lloyd, David Kaye, and many others).  He runs a school for mutants on his vast estate,where they learn to control and hide their differences so they can teach "normal" society that "we're not a threat.  We're just like you."  

A Separatist leader arises, the Big Bad of the episode (played by Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Michael Fassbinder, and many others).  He gathers a group of followers, and engages in a big, flamboyant stunt to let the "straights" know that they're not going to be victimized anymore. Embrace your difference!  If you have purple hair, have purple hair.  If you can fly, then fly!  Be loud and proud!

 The Mutant Liberation Movement goes terribly wrong: the straights hate them more than ever.

After a few changes in loyalty and second-guesses, there's a gigantic battle between the Assimilationist and Separatist groups.  The Assimilationists win.

There's a rather disturbing moral there.  

But this is actually a review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).

This time around, Assimilationist Dr. Xavier is played by James McAvoy, and the Big Bad Separatist is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Sabah, left).  He's a mutant with godlike powers who ruled Egypt in 3600 BC (I won't go into the historical inaccuracies).  Trapped in his pyramid for 5000 years, he emerges in 1983 to gather some followers and restore the Mutants to their rightful place in the food chain.

It's a different Separatist-Assimilationist line-up from the last X-Men movie, so there are several trumped-up stories to explain why characters have changed sides, but it boils down to:

En Sabah Nur's Separatist Crew
1. Magneto, the Big Bad of the last episode (Michael Fassbender)
2. Psylocke (Olivia Munn)
3. Angel (Ben Hardy, top photo)
4. Storm (Alexandra Shipp)

Dr. Xavier's Assimilationist Crew
1. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence)
2. Beast (Nicholas Hoult)
3. Quicksilver (Evan Peters, below)
4. Cyclops (Tye Sheridan)
5. Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee)

I might have missed some.  Frankly, I found it hard to keep track of the changing alliances, the character reboots, the shifting backstories (and forward stories, since some installments take place later).

Cyclops has an origin-story subplot in which his eyes start giving off laser beams, effectively making him blind.  Enrolled at the school by his big brother Havok (Lucas Till), he gets goggles made of "ruby quartz" which allow him to control his powers.  Unfortunately, he also starts a romance with the Girl Who Thinks He's Arrogant.

Heterosexist tripe!

I was mostly in it for the beefcake, the 1980s references (very few), and the queer vibe that Quicksilver gives.  He can move so fast that bullets seem to be standing still.

As he gleefully saves all of the residents of the school (and a dog, some goldfish, and a pizza) from an explosion, he expresses disgust at a boy and a girl about to kiss, but rather likes a boy preening in front of a mirror.

Otherwise for gay subtexts you have to go with metaphor.  Everybody here is heterosexual.