"Wednesday": Is the New Addams Family TV Series Gay-Friendly?

 

The various renditions of The Addams Family have the reputation of being gay-friendly, but I don't recall a single actual LGBT character, or even any significant gay subtexts: it's heterosexual romance all the way down.  I'm hoping that the new Netflix tv series Wednesday, which places the teenage Wednesday Addams in the Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for vampires, werewolves, and other magical types, will move into uncharted territory with actual gay characters.  I watched the episode with a school dance, to check for same-sex couples dancing, foreground or background.  .

Scene 1:  Wednesday and Thing (her disembodied hand companion) break into the coroner's lab to perform an autopsy on a victim of a monster attack.  About what you would expect: some defensive wounds, almost completely disemboweled.  Whoops, they have to hide as the coroner enters, with the sheriff, to show him that the two toes were removed from the victim's left foot.  By the way, this is Dr. Anwar's last week: he and the Mrs. are going to spend his retirement traveling.   He's doomed.  Nope, I looked it up: he only appears in this one episode.  So the retirement and the "Mrs." reference are irrelevant, except to identify him as heterosexual.

Scene 2: Wednesday's dorm room at the Nevermore Academy.  Her roommate objects to the forensic photos covering the wall.  She notes that the victims all had different body parts surgically removed: a kidney, a gall bladder, a finger. This is not a monster; it's an experienced serial killer!  

Scene 3: Botany class.  Wednesday sits next to Xavier (Percy Hynes White, left), her gay bff or boyfriend.  He encourages her to invite someone to the big dance, the Rav'n (because it's the Nevermore Academy, get it?)   "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes.  I may do that anyway." 

She notices scratch marks on his neck.  He explains that he got them from...um...fencing.

Scene 4: To find out what's going on with Xavier, Wednesday and Thing sneak into his art studio, and find paintings of a sharp-clawed monster.  He must be the murderer! They steal a few -- oh no, he caught them.  The girl has no luck with secret missions!    Fortunately, he assumes that Wednesday came to invite him to the dance, but now she has to go through with it.  Oh, well, she can interrogate him about the murders.  

Scene 5: The Roommate is thrilled that Wednesday is exhibiting heterosexual interest (was there a question?), and starts planning an outfit for her.  While she is shopping, Wednesday runs into her therapist, who asks if she is going to the dance (the heteronormative imperative never stops, does it?)  Then she takes the monster drawings to Galpin, the police detective who does the standard "let the professionals take care of it" routine.  

Scene 6: Roommate and two other girls at a diner.  Lucas Walker (Iman Marson), the mayor's son, drops by to ask her to the dance. 

Meanwhile, Wednesday runs into the Detective's son, Tyler (Hunter Doohan, top photo), whom she has an intense-stare crush on.  He was planning to ask her to the dance, but she's already going with Xavier, which upsets him.  "You keep giving me mixed signals.  I thought we liked each other, but then you pull something like this."  

Scene 7:  In a beekeepers' cabin, Wednesday is showing her evidence to Eugene (Moosa Mustafa), a Spanish-speaking boy who has a crush on her roommate.  Ok, everybody is heterosexual so far.  Eugene mentions his two moms, but a single sentence referring to non-appearing characters is insufficient.  Maybe there will be some same-sex couples at the dance. 

Scene 8: They investigate a mysterious cave and find manacles.  They make plans to skip the dance and stake out the cave tonight.

Scene 9: The DJ at the dance, who has a crush on Wednesday,  knocks on her door: Thing has pushed them together by dropping an invitation in his tip jar. This may be a new character, or it may be Tyler from Scene 6.  There are so many guys with crushes on Wednesday that I can keep track.  Is she like, madeo of video games?  

Thing has also provided an appropriately macabre outfit, so Wednesday quickly changes.  They are just leaving when Eugene (the beekeeping boy) shows up, livid over being dumped for the cave stake out.  Xavier (the monster-drawing boy) is also livid. 

Scene 10: The dance.  Roommate arrives with Lucas, the Mayor's Son.  She accidentally spills punch on his crotch, then kneels to clean it up, so her crush Ajax (Georgie Farmer) sees him and thinks she is giving him a blow job.  

Background characters are all male-female couples.

Still 13 minutes to go, but why continue?  There are no LGBTQ people here.  Not one.  Not even a glimmer of subtext.  

So much for the inclusivity of The Addams Family.

Update:  One of the boys has two mothers, and when Uncle Fester visits, he says that Tyler has "clocked" him, but Wednesday immediately says "Tyler is not intersted in you."  Fester is on the run from the law, so maybe he means "noticed that I'm a fugitive," but Wednesday's comment suggests that romantic interest (he's 18, so ok for an adult to date).  

And that's it.  Miniscule representation.  Heterosexuals all the way down.

Happy Trails to Homophobes: The Roy Rogers Show

When I was a kid in the 1960s,  my church didn't allow us to listen to rock music, go to movies, or read comic books or science fiction (I usually found loopholes in the rules).  Television was permitted, but preachers and Sunday school teachers railed against it anyway. 

Did The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ever ask God's guidance in fighting the Communists?
Did The Beverly Hillbillies ever bow their heads and say grace before eating Granny's vittles?
The Flying Nun tried to brainwash you into becoming an evil Catholic.

The only program they approved of was Roy Rogers, about a singing cowboy named Roy Rogers, played by...um...long-time singing cowboy star Roy Rogers.  He never said grace before meals, either, but in real life he was a fundamentalist Christian who always mentioned God in interviews and included Christian songs in his live performances.

The preachers didn't realize that his show (1951-57) had been off the air for over ten years.  But I must have caught glimpses of the Saturday morning reruns (1961-65 or after-school syndication (1961-1972),  because I remember hating it.  Who cared about the Old West in the Space Age?  We were all about astronauts, not cowboys.  Besides, there was hardly any gay content.

1.  Roy didn't hang out with guys like "real" cowboys.  He had a wife, Dale Evans, who sometimes rode next to him in her petite cowboy skirt, but usually stayed home to run a restaurant.

2. This wasn't even  the Old West. They had electric lights, telephones, and cars. As a kid, I found that idiotic. Why would you ride a horse if cars were available?

3.  No beefcake of any sort.  Roy never unbuttoned a button on-screen.  There were a few semi-nude shots in movie magazines, but nothing memorable. The top photo, with Roy eating a hot dog, may look promising, but according to Darwin Porter's autobiographical novel, the "squinty-eyed homophobe" was not particularly gifted beneath the belt.

4. No dreamy boys or muscular men. I found Roy unattractive,  with a face like a mask and tiny, beady eyes. The only other male star was Pat Brady, the cook at Dale's restaurant,  a gawky, comic-relief character who drove a jeep named Nellybelle.

5. The closing song, "Happy Trails to You," sung by the disembodied heads of Roy and Dale, freaked me out.  I distinctly remember them singing it to "cheer up" some kid dying in the hospital.  Mememto mori, a reminder of the transience of life and the inevitability of death -- not what a four-year old wants to hear about while eating his Coco Puffs on Saturday morning.

The only gay content: some buddy-bonding potential, I guess.  Roy and Pat starred in many movies together during the 1940s, and were close friends in real life.

Spring 1983: Reading Faulkner: Redneck Muscle and Boys in Drag

Nothing brings back my memories of college literature classes more than William Faulkner.  Other authors I can return to with respect, even with pleasure, but Faulkner is mostly incomprehensible, and the parts I understand fill me with disgust.

In the spring of 1983, I took a horrible class in turgid, heterosexist "classics."  First Ulysses (by James Joyce).  Then "The Waste Land," by T.S. Eliot.  Then...shudder, gasp... The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner.

"Marvelous!" the Professor chirped. "Stupendous!  A masterpiece!  The greatest novel ever written!"

I doubt he has ever read it.  I doubt anyone has.  It is literally impossible to understand even a sentence.  Check out the first two sentences:

Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.  They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence.

Benjy the Idiot (Faulkner's term) is standing on the other side of a fence from a golf course, watching golfers hitting balls toward the hole, which is marked with a flag.  I looked it up -- no way anyone could ever figure it out from the cryptic text, even if they knew about golf, which I didn't. 

As I understand it from extensive research, The Sound and the Fury is about three brothers in the dying, decrepit, depressed Compson family of Mississipi: Benjy, Quentin, and Jason.  I imagine they look like this.

Part 1: Narrated by Benjy, an "idiot" who has no conception of time, and jumps back and forth at random between events that he didn't understand in the first place.  He cries a lot, and he's obsessed with his sister Caddy's muddy underwear.

Gay subtext: The elderly "Negro" servant Dilsey warns her grandson Luster to stay away from the Man with the Red Tie.  Wearing red is probably a gay symbol, like wearing lavender today.  Maybe they're having a gay affair.  And hopefully Luster looks like this.

Part 2: Narrated by Benjy's brother Quentin, a Harvard freshman who's crazy, and whose mind jumps back and forth at random just like Benjy's. He's obviously gay, in love with his roommate, Shreve, who responds by grabbing his knee.  Someone even calls Shreve his "husband."

He claims to have committed incest with his sister Caddy, but he's lying to hide a worse shame -- she had sex with someone else.

Wait -- aren't you supposed to have sex with someone other than your brother?

This part is also completely incomprehensible.  Not even a single sentence makes any sense. I understand Quentin commits suicide.

Part 3: Narrated by Jason, the third brother, the only one who thinks normally and writes normally.  This part is sort of comprehensible, except for references to events from the first part that we don't know about because they were written in gibberish, and the fact that a different Quentin shows up -- this one Caddy's daughter.  Giving two characters the same name is taboo for fiction writers, as it inevitably leads to confusion, and this is already an incomprehensible book.  

Jason's story is about stealing money from Quentin #2 (Caddy's daughter).

Part 4: No narrator. Miss Quentin has taken the money Jason stole from her, plus some of his own, and run off with the Man with a Red Tie (the one Luster is having an affair with in Part 1).  So maybe Miss Quentin is a boy in drag.  Jason does get awfully upset when he sees "her" in a bathrobe.

The homophobic Jason looks for Miss Quentin, to get his money back, but finally gives up.  The end.

It took a lot of creativity and endless Cliff's Notes to get through!

And beefcake photos.  Here's a semi-nude William Faulkner, thinking up new and better ways to torture English majors.

There's a gay dating story about William Faulkner on Tales of West Hollywood.

"Far From Home": Poor boy cheats his way into an elite prep school, almost gets fed to a hyena, and takes off his clothes a lot

This morning Netflix pushed a Nollywood tv series at me, Far From Home: a poor boy gets a scholarship to an exclusive private school "for the 1%," where posters advertise Chess Club and Choir.  The promo shows the poor boy walking into class: a Femme Boy smiles at him, an Arrogant Jock glares at him, a Mean Girl sizes him up, and a Nice Girl helps him tie his tie.  Wait -- Nigeria is one of the most homophobic countries on Earth. There can't be a gay character -- can there?  I'm reviewing the first episode to find out.  

Scene 1: Ishaya's first art exhibition (all black-and-white portraits of expressive faces), treated like the Oscars, with paparazzi and fans clicking away as he walks up the red carpet.  He adulates himself: "Who would have thought that the dreams of a young boy from Lagos would come true?"    

Obviously this is a dream.  Ishaya (Mike Afolarin) awakens late for work.  Nice beefcake shot as he rushes to get dressed. 

Scene 2: Ishaya at his job cleaning a rich guy's house.  The rich guy clomps on his cleaning supplies; the teenage son throws a plate at him derisively.  After work, he tries to sell his painting on the street, but the rich people sneer at him.  

Scene 3: Back in his horrible hovel.  Ishaya's friend Michael (Moshood Fattah) wants to know why he  needs money so badly: "I won a fellowship to study in London with the famous artist Essein, and I need to raise money for air fare."  Suddenly he remembers that he has to buy the cake for his sister's birthday party, and runs out.

Left: during Pride Month, Moshood Fattah promotes the use of PrEP on his instagram page.  That's quite gay-friendly for Nigeria.

Scene 4: The party is for Ishaya's sister Rahila, but the guests consist of Michael, Ishaya's girlfriend, and the parents.  They play cards and watch an advert for Wilmer Academy, the best school in Nigeria.  Rahila wants to go to the Open Exam Day to try out for a scholarship, but Mom forbids it. 

Scene 5: Ishaya offers to sneak his sister into the Open Exam.  On the ritzy grounds of the Academy, they almost get smushed by a car.  The passenger calls them "gutter-trash" and yells "You don't belong here!"  I can't tell that they are poor by looking. Maybe in Nigeria you can.

Ulp, the registration fee is 150,000 naira ($336)!  They are shocked.  "Aren't scholarships supposed to help people who can't afford extravagant fees?"  "This is Wilmer Academy, you gutter trash!"  They slink out.  Next up: the guy who yelled from his car, and his surly Arrogant Jock son Denrele (Raymond Umenze, left, the one in drag).

Scene 6:  Ishaya offers to help her get the money, but Rahila has given up: "Having dreams only leads to disaster.  Dad wanted to become an artist, and it cost us our brother's life."  I want to know more about that back story!

 Cut to Ishaya's evening job as a waiter at a nightclub where men squeal as women's butts gyrate in their faces (three times!).  His uniform is sleeveless -- so men can gaze at his muscular arms after they finish with the butts?  On to his  day job cleaning houses.  And his side job painting portraits.  (Nice chest shot as he changes clothes.)

Scene 7: Government, the manager of the butt-gyrating club, slams someone for stealing drugs from his stash, and then feeds him to his pet hyena.  Ishaya comes in to ask for his paycheck.  

Scene 8:   Ishaya is still intent on going to London.  Girlfriend finds out that he was planning behind her back, dumps him, and starts dating one of the nightclub guys.  He roils with jealousy.  Plus the travel agent needs the full 300,000 naira fee now.  He can't go.  

Scene 9: At the nightclub, a customer asks for some bills to shove up ladies' butts.  Ishaya goes into the money room to fetch some -- and steals 150,000 naira! Not enough to pay the travel agent, but enough for the Open Scholarship exam, and since his sister is no longer interested....

Scene 10: Ishaya pays the fee, and memorizes the test answers in advance, so he's sure to get in.  Hey, that's cheating!  

Scene 11:  First day of school.  At the assembly, Ishaya sits in the only available seat, next to smiling Femme Guy (Emeka Nwagbaraocha). 

Carmen, the great-granddaughter of the founder of the school, gives a speech.  "That babe is fine!" he exclaims.  Femme Guy Frank: "Sorry, I can't see it."  Did you just come out to a stranger?  In Nigeria?

Ishaya is introduced as a scholarship boy who got 100% on the exam. Everyone wants to get a photo of him.

Scene 12: After the assembly, Femme Guy is buddying up to Ishaya, when a Femme Adult named Atlas (Olumide Oworu) gushes over: "Frankincense, is that you?" "My name is Frank now." Arrogant Jock pulls him away.  I don't understand.  Has Frank turned straight, and rejects people from his old life?  

Time for a campus tour.  When they visit the school's art gallery, Ishaya flashes back to telling his father that he wants to become an artist. "Art is not permitted in this house!" Dad yells.  "It killed your brother!"

Scene 13: Principal tells Ishaya that they need the transcript from his old school. "Gulp...um...er...old school?"  

Meanwhile, Arrogant Jock's Dad is yelling at him for not cheating on the scholarship exam.  "Now the gutter trash who cleans our house won the scholarship!"  I wanted to do it on my own."  "You're an idiot if you think anything can be achieved honestly in this world."  

Scene 14: Ishaya needs 50,000 naira ($112) to buy a fake transcript.  His friend Michael gives it to him.

Meanwhile, Femme Adult Atlas arrives at Carmen's mansion.  He calls his Mum to ask her to pay the school fees, so he won't be kicked out (ok, he's a student.) and can apply to the London Art Institute.  Is everybody at this school an aspiring artist?   Her assistant blows him off: "Your mother is still in Paris.  She'll call when she returns."

Scene 15: While Atlas chats about art with her parents, Carmen is searching frantically through her room.  She orders the maid to fetch Mum:  "Give it to me!"  "You don't need any more painkillers  Your leg is fine."  Uh-oh, Carmen has a drug problem.

Femme Student Atlas and Girl-of-Dreams Carmen head to the car.  She complains:  "It feels like I have no control over my life. I can't wait for us to move to London."  He hugs and kisses her -- a femme boyfriend!  I knew he couldn't be gay.

Atlas is so angry about his mother that he drives erratically.  Carmen flashes back to the car accident a year ago that squashed her leg, and shrieks for him to stop the car.

Scene 16:  Ishaya delivers the fake transcript to the Principal. "Great, now we just need to call your old school to verify it."  "Um...er....um..verify it?"  He desperately calls his friend Michael to ask him to pretend to be a school official.  

Meanwhile, Atlas and Carmen arrive at school, and are greeted by another power couple, Reggie (Natse Jemide) and Nen.  They go to "the shrine," a single-person restroom with a door that locks, where they can smoke marijuana.  Carmen wants to know why they've been ghosting her for months.  "We're like...um...busy."

Scene 17: Ishaya rushes into the bathroom, changes into his school uniform, and rushes into class late.  This is the scene in the promo, with Arrogant Jock glaring, Femme Guy Frank smiling, and a purple-haired girl helping him adjust his tie.  

After class, Purple-Haired Girl, Zinna, asks if he likes Carmen, since he drew a portrait of her in his notebook.  Arrogant Jock introduces himself, but she snubs him to flirt with Femme Guy Frank.  He is thrilled.  I knew he couldn't be gay.  

Scene 18:  Art class.  Ishaya is busily drawing instead of listening to the lecture, so the teacher confiscates his notebook.  "This year the three best students will be permitted to apply for the London Art Institute Grant."  A grant to get into the school, and now a grant to go to another school.  Aren't these rich kids who don't need grants?

Scene 19:  Ishaya in the Bursar's Office, getting his grant money.  After subtracting the cost of his school uniform and textbooks, he gets 5,000 naira ($11.00).  Even in Nigeria, you can't survive on that!  He rushes into the bathroom and takes off his shirt and cries.

Scene 20:  Back home, the manager of the butt-gyrating club has taken Ishaya's family hostage.  He wants to know why Ishaya stole 150,000 naira from him.  "You have one week to pay me back, or your sister will become one of my prostitutes. We'll take her now, to save time."

They leave.  Dad, understandably upset, kicks Ishaya out of the house.  The end.

Beefcake:  Ishaya, frequently.

Other Sights: Lots of establishing shots of Lagos.

Heterosexism:  Atlas-Carmen-Ishaya, and I think the Surly Jock is into her, too.  Everyone else pairs off into boy-girl couples.

Gay Characters: Frank has a gay-subtext romance with Ishaya, but he's mostly busy fallin gin love with his sister.  Feminine appears to signify "rich" rather than "gay" in Nigerian culture.  The "frankincense" line was just an all-purpose insult.

My Grade: Ishaya comes across as a jerk: "I really want to become an artist" is no excuse for stealing, cheating, and (later on) helping your boss kidnap your best friend.  But the juxtaposition of the "who's dating who?" teen angst and the "feed him to my hyena" mob plotlines makes for an interesting drama.  And there is A LOT  of beefcake.  B

The Gay-Positive Episode of "Here's Lucy"

The last of the trilogy of Lucille Ball tv series, Here's Lucy (1968-74), made Lucy Carter a widow with two high school-aged kids, Kim and Craig (played by her real life children,18-year old  Lucie Arnaz and 15-year old Desi Arnaz Jr.).  Gale Gordon reprised his blustering Mr. Mooney role, but as Harry Carter, Lucy's brother-in-law and her employer at Carter's Unique Employment Agency.

Plotlines involved the unique characters seeking employment, generation gap antics between Lucy and her kids, and the usual stream of celebrity guest stars (celebrity to the Establishment, that is): Jack Benny, Eva Gabor, Liberace, Lawrence Welk, Richard Burton, even Lucille Ball herself (when "Lucy Carter" meets the famous actress).

Notice: not a lot of teen stars.

It was definitely Lucy's vehicle; she got the best lines and all of the slapstick comedy.   Craig was cute, nicely tanned, with a penchant for wearing shirts open to his navel, but he had only a few lines per episode, and in the first three seasons he had maybe three centrics (episodes devoted to him).  He sang a few times, but usually when sharing a stage with his mother.  After three seasons, he was written out of the series.

They weren't even trying to draw in a youth audience.  Craig is a fan of Frank Sinatra, not the Beatles.  In one episode, Lucy roils when Kim begins dating a boy who graduated from Berkeley -- with all the sit-ins and protests and...

As a result, Here's Lucy seems less hip, less energetic, and with fewer gay subtexts than the earlier Lucy Show.  

No beefcake to speak of.  No bonding.  No symbolism.

But there was a LGBT-positive episode on November 6,  1972.

Phyllis Diller is scheduled to perform at a benefit, but she can't make it, so Kim finds a replacement, female impersonator Jim Bailey.  Lucy  is shocked at the very idea of a man impersonating a woman, but Kim and Craig are perfectly nonchalant.

I was shocked, too; at the age of 11, I had never heard of such a thing before.

In real life, Miss Ball was gay-positive.  Jim Bailey was a friend of hers.

Beach Movies: The Beefcake

The beach movie crazy began with Beach Party (1963), and lasted through Catalina Caper (1967).  During that 4 year period, American International Pictures churned out a dozen beach movies, starring former teen idol Frankie Avalon and former Mousketeer Annette Funicello, or if they were too busy, Dwayne Hickman, Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, and Yvonne Craig.  Other studios churned out their own teen-idols-in-Speedos movies, starring Bobby Vinton, Fabian, James Darren, Tab Hunter, and when they ran out of teen idols, Rod Lauren, Frankie Randall, Michael Callan, James Stacy, and Edd "Kookie" Burns.

The plot of the beach movie is the same in every installment: a gang of teenagers arrives in Malibu for a summer vacation.  Frankie and Annette (or their stand-ins) argue: she insists that they plan for marriage, the next step in embracing their heterosexual destiny, but he is too happy surfing, skydiving, and drag racing.

That is, he refuses to give up his homoerotic buddy-bonding with gay-vague chums.They separate, flirt with others, complain about each other to their friends, snipe at each other at the teen hangout, and walk forlornly on the beach.

Meanwhile a greedy corporation hopes to exploit the teenagers, or else salt-peter their heterosexual passions.  Maybe some juvenile delinquents cause trouble.  The climax comes in the form of a cartoonish teenagers vs. adults or delinquents brawl or car chase.  Frankie and Annette save the day, reconcile without resolving their disagreement, and head for home.

The teens are staggeringly affluent, white, and free from parental intervention of any sort.  They have all of the freedom of adulthood and none of the responsibilities.  They are living in their own surreal world of spies and saboteurs, drag races and skydiving contests, musclemen hanging from helicopters, gorillas riding surfboards.  There are Martians, mermaids, witch doctors, dime store Indians, bumbling crooks, and a girl whose gyrating hips cause volcanoes to erupt.

Every now and then Frankie mugs at the camera and asks "Can you believe this?"

And there is endless beefcake.  There are many girls in bikinis, but the beach is crowded with swimsuit boys; bulges are displayed as prominently as cleavage.  Jody McCrea's bulge makes a regular appearance.

John Ashley is dragged along the beach, the camera zooming in to capture the curve of his thighs, the tight muscles of his legs and calves, and even his frontside.

Tommy Kirk (left) wears a purple swimsuit so revealing that one can't imagine how it passed the sensors (not this photo).

Frankie doesn't bulge, but he is constantly shirtless, bedding down among his chums or standing tall and iconic beside his surfboard, his smooth, toned body preternaturally bright.

 In Fireball 500 (1966), which doesn't have a beach scene and only counts as a beach movie because it stars Frankie and Annette, Frankie spends a long scene shirtless, being interrogated by the police in his hotel room.  He never thinks to get dressed, though the officers stare at him, and one cheekily inserts his business card under Frankie's pendant, against his bare chest, like someone might insert a card into a woman's bosom.

Too bad the Disney Channel's Teen Beach Movie (2013) doesn't fare as well.

Next: The Duds

Huckleberry Finn: Huck and Jim on the Raft

I don't remember a time when I didn't know Huckleberry Finn.  He was everywhere in my childhood: in a tv series starring Michael Shea, in movies starring Eddie Hodges, Mickey Rooney, Jeff East, Elijah Wood, Anthony Michael Hall, and Brad Renfro, in the musical Big River (left).

One Saturday afternoon in the mid-1970s, I saw a weird prepubscent version that reminded me of  Journey to the Beginning of Time . Later I discovered that it was a Russian adaption called Hopelessly Lost (1972).

By the time I was 10 or 11, I began accumulating editions of the novel at garage sales and library book sales, mostly those with cover art emphasizing physicality, broad shoulders and muscular arms gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. 

I already imagined Huck and Jim escaping from their bondage like Will fleeing the Tripods, and now -- in an eternal now -- rafting slowly, lazily down the Mississippi, free from the pressures of school and "after school sports" and "someday you'll find a girl." The raft became their good place, where Huck and Jim could gaze into each other's eyes, hug, kiss, alone with each other forever. 

But the novel wasn't really about that.  Huck doesn't have any romantic interest in Jim -- he thinks of the escaped slave as a child who needs protection.

He does spend a lot of time evaluating masculine beauty: "Tall, beautiful men with very broad shoulders and brown faces";"men just in their drawers and undershirts, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and comfortable...I never seen anything so lovely."

And he tries to find a lasting romance,  twice.

First he meets and buddy-bonds with Buck, a boy involved in a Hatfield-McCoy feud. They sleep together and smile at each other, and Huck is adopted into his family.  But then he is killed in a feud, and Huck cries and moves on.

Then Tom Sawyer, his old friend from Hannibal. Huck invites Tom to  "come here and feel me."  He does, and "he was that glad to see me again he didn't know what to do."

But when Huck discovers that Tom's Aunt Sally intends to adopt him, he rebels, and decides to "light out for the Territory." It is unclear why  he accepts adoption by Buck's family but not by Tom's. Maybe because he finds Tom immature and annoying.  Or maybe because Aunt Sally wants to "sivilize" him, like Daisy Duck civilizes Donald and Poil civilizes Spooky,  teaching him poetry and etiquette and how to open a checking account.  Love, even homoromantic love, domesticates a man, ends his story with "and they lived happily ever after," and Huck's story must continue.  Or not a story, an image, an eternal now to hang onto when we are overwhelmed by the problems and constraints of life.

We must not remember anything that came before or after, just Huck and Jim, muscular bodies glistening in the sunlight,  as they raft lazily down the river.

Jules Verne: The Disney Version

During the 1960s, every boy I knew loved Jules Verne -- journeys to distant corners of the world or to its center, lost civilizations, monsters, volcanoes, maelstroms, and nick-of-time escapes, all in an environment so masculine you could practically taste the homoerotic tension.

I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, Mysterious Island, and A Journey to the Center of the Earth in elementary school, in abridged Scholastic Book Club editions.  In high school, I read the originals, and collected some of the Ace paperbacks of Verne's lesser-known works: Michael Strogoff, The Begum's Fortune, The Carpathian Castle, Master of the World, The Village in the Tree-Tops.  

During the 1950s and early 1960s, "Disney" versions of these Verne classics appeared, with two important changes:
1. To draw the all-important Boomer audience, a teenager.
2. To ensure a Hollywood fade-out-kiss, heterosexual obsessions were added.

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the French scientist Pierre Aronnax, his assistant Conseil, and his Canadian friend Ned Land are captured by Captain Nemo, who holds them prisoner in his electronic submarine.  Nemo became an outcast after his wife died, but no other women are mentioned or longed for.

In the 1954 movie (the only one actually from Disney), Ned (Kirk Douglas, not a teenager) sings about "the girls I've loved on nights like this," whose kisses make him "bubble up like molten lava."

In A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Lindenbrock, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans journey alone, although Axel does have a girlfriend waiting back home.  In the 1959 Disney version (actually from 20th Century Fox), the Professor meets a lady, and the girlfriend gets a more substantial role.  But at least there are substantial shirtless shots of teen idol Pat Boone as Alec (Axel).  And in the last scene he's completely nude except for a sheep.

In The Mysterious Island , five Civil War POWs escape in a hot-air balloon and end up on the mysterious island, where they fight giant bees and pirates, encounter Captain Nemo (Omar Sharif), and flee a volcano eruption. In the 1961 Disney version (actually from Columbia), there are women on the island for the men to fall in love with.

But at least they are shirtless or semi-nude most of the time, especially Herbert Brown (Michael Callan).  The scene where he and the girl hide from a giant bee in a honeycomb is still scary today.

In Five Weeks in a Balloon, three men explore Africa in a hot air balloon. Again, no women are mentioned or longed for.

The 1962 Disney version (actually from 20th Century Fox) changes the cast, adding pilot Jacques (teen idol Fabian Forte) and newspaper report O'Shay (Red Buttons).  Each falls in love with a woman en route; the movie ends with two couples enthusiastically kissing. And there's no beefcake (although Fabian, right, often appeared shirtless and nude in other productions).

This was also the era of the Disney Adventure Boys -- like Tommy Kirk, James MacArthur, and Kurt Russell -- hired to display Cold War masculinity, which meant two things: muscular physiques and heterosexual obsession.

"John from Cincinnati": Former Surfing Great Gets a New Boyfriend

"In the coastal town of Imperial Beach, California live the Yosts: three generations of surfing royalty with a family curse..until a stranger arrives."

Presumably the title, John from Cincinnati, refers to th stranger.  Sounds like rather an overstuffed plot, and the cover blurg shows only a frizzy-haired woman, but maybe there will be some hot surfers.

Opening Credits:  Establishing montage of hot surfers, a naked lady at the beach, and the town of Imperial Beach, which is right on the Mexican border.

Scene 1: Luke Perry and his Brother (Austin Nichols, left) complain about illegal immigrants acting like "it's just another day on the beach."  Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood) is surfing; they ask him to "get back in the game," but he refuses. Luke stays behind and apologizes.   They discuss the problem with Butchie,who "fucked up" and now has no sponsor, and his grandson "breaking his cherry" at Huntington this afternoon.

Is it possible to get lost after the first three minutes?

Meanwhile, Frizzy Haired Woman is watching her kids or grandkids surf.

Scene 2: Ramon has sold his hotel to someone who is "not nice," so Butchie can't stay there for free anymore.  The Society of Surfing Lawyers has just settled his claim for $2300, so he should be able to pay the back rent.

Society of Surfing Lawyers?

Scene 3:  Brother gets accosted by a guy in military gear, whom he owes money.

Scene 4: Butchie (Brian Van Holt, left) gets a visit from Shaunie (Greyson Fletcher), a long-haired kid who is breaking his cherry later.

Scene 5: Frizzy-Haired Woman (Cissy) tells Mitch that she sent a demo tape of Shaunie  (the grandson) to all potential sponsors, including the one who got Butchie into a drug-addled "shitbird."  They argue.

Shaunie and Kai (his mother?) come in.  They argue some more.

Cissy tells Shaunie (enough with the ie-endings!) to let Bill drive him to the competition,but don't tell him about the liability waver until they are at the registration table. This is very important!

What about the family curse?  Something supernatural -- i.e., interesting -- should be happening any moment now.

Scene 6:  Military Guy and Brother have a cryptic conversation about Mitch, Butchie, and health insurance (I'm not kidding).

Scene 7: Weird recluse Bill (Ed O'Neill, the Dad from Modern Family) agrees to take Shaunie to the competititon. But don't tell Grandpa Mitch!  This is very important!

Scene 8: Chubby Ramon (Luis Guzman) and the Surfing Lawyer (Willie Garson) are packing up stuff and flirting with each other.

Meanwhile Butchie the Drughead is threatening someone over the telephone; if they don't make him right, Ice Cream Man goes over a cliff.

Brother  (name: John: hey, he's the titular character!) arrives and gives Butchie his $2,300.  But the Ice Cream Man doesn't know him, so Butchie gets very upset.  I'm not sure, but I think Brother John tricked his way into Butchie's apartment in order to represent him or have sex with him.  Either way, he'll have to pay.

 They get very close very often. I keep waiting for them to kiss.  They don't, but this is getting interesting.

Scene 9: Frizzy-Haired Cissy and Grandpa Mitch argue,then have sex (we only see them in bed afterwards).

Scene 10: Butchie and John show up at the surf shop where Kai the Ex-Wife  works, to buy a full outfit.

Kai asks Butchie about his new boyfriend (where did you dig him up?) and tells him about Shaunie's competition (don't tell Grandpa Mitch!  This is very important!).

Butchie is furious with Kai for letting Shaunie compete.  He gropes John (I'm not kidding) and holds his hand. They decide to go beat up his Dad (Mitch).

Scene 11: Frizzy-Haired Cissy at Wal-Mart. Gary the Stock Boy flirts with her..  They argue (Jeez, does she argue with everybody?)  It's obvious that she wants some of him.  But he calls the police on her (what for?)

Scene 12: Bill (Al from Married...with Children) is driving Shaunie to the competition.  He yells at other cars: "Up your nose with a rubber hose!", which was the catchphrase of Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter.  They get a flat tire.  Shaunie sees Frizzy-Haired Cissy going past in the police car, and says "The pigs got Grandma."

Pigs?  What is this, 1968?

Scene 13: Having just had "a lei," Ramon and Surfing Lawyer emerge from their apartment to meet the hotel's new owner, Mr. Cunningham (Matt Winston),who talk like a tough from Breaking Bad.   He's newly wealthy, and he intends to level the hotel because he had a bad experience there a a kid.

Butchie and John arrive.and discuss each other's penises.  Eventually Mitch, Bill, and Shaunie all show up.

Mr. Cunningham fires shots and addresses Mitch in Breaking Bad speak: "Dos your grotesque spawn still wield the old broom handle, Mitch?  Brain the occasional 12-year old shell collector?"   Apparently Butchie beat up Mr.Cunningham when they were both in 6th grade.

Bill disarms him.

John plays nice with Shaunie (have to win over the boyfriend's son, right?)

Scene 14: The gang goes down to the police station to bail out Frizzy-Haired Cissy.  Surfing Lawyer tells Mitch that he had a crush on him at age 12.  Bill asks him to not let the Fruit get behind the wheel of a car (I don't know who he means).

Mitch and his son Butchie the Druggie have a heart-to-heart.  During which Mitch rises 2 inches into the air!  What?

Scene 15:  Surfing Lawyer invites Mr. Cunningham to go surfing (a date?  But I thought he was dating Ramon?). 

Scene 16:  The gang goes surfing.  John admits that he's never been on a board before; he lied about his surfing skill to get into Butchie's pants. But Butchie is fine with it ("we'll be friends forever, no matter what").  After knowing each other for a day? Butchie moves fast!

The three of them (including Shaunie) go in together.  Then John turns out to be an excellent surfer. Why lie about something like that? To see if Butchie wants a surf buddy or a relationship?

Cissy comments that Butchie often dates "doofuses."

Bill is suspicious of John's intentions.  He decides to get him checked out, make sure there is nothing fishy going on, just an ordinary romantic relationship.

Beefcake:  They all surf in body suits.  Mitch takes his shirt off.

Other Interesting Scenery:  No.

Gay Characters:  Butchie-John, Ramon-Surfing Lawyer, and Mr. Cunningham are all gay, or have strong gay subtexts.  (The reviews only mention the crazy, teddy bear-lugging Mr. Cunningham).

Heterosexism:  None.  Mitch and Cissy have sex, but off camera. No other male-female romantic interaction.

Will I Continue to Watch?  Only long enough to find out whether the gay relationships are subtext or text.

10 Reasons Why Thanksgiving is the Gayest Holiday

If you're not from the U.S. you might not be familiar with Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November (it's also celebrated on different dates in Canada, Liberia, and Grenada).

It's my favorite holiday.  And the gayest:

1. It's in November, so it's cold outside, and dark at night like it's supposed to be.  No one is forcing you to go out and "enjoy the outdoors."

2. There are no tv commercials depicting heterosexual couples giving each other gifts or watching in rapt joy as their children unwrap gifts.

3. There's no religious significance, so you won't feel guilty if you accidentally say "Happy Thanksgiving!" to someone who is Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, or atheist.  Although sometimes vegans will lecture you.


4. Gay men spend many extra hours at the gym in anticipation of over-indulging on Thanksgiving.  As a result, at Thanksgiving they're more buffed than at any other time of the year.

5. Everyone gets to demonstrate their culinary skill.

6. You only get Thursday and maybe Friday off work, so there's no time to take a plane ride 2000 miles to the place you grew up.  Thus, "home" is no longer in the past, it's the place you are today, and "family" is what you make of it.

This Advocate cover shows Howard Cruse's character Wendel being served Thanksgiving dinner in bed.  But why is the kid wearing a mask?  Is he the famous Thanksgiving character, Zorro?

7. If you do go home to visit extended family, Thanksgiving dinner is the traditional time for making Big Announcements, like "Guess what?  I'm gay."

8. Most of the bars, clubs, and bathhouses have special Thanksgiving Day events, so you don't have to waste all Thanksgiving afternoon watching football.

9. The origin story, about 17th century Pilgrims and Indians coming together to share a meal, is an imperialist myth, masking a history of conquest and genocide.  But it does lend itself to some interesting ideas for homoerotic revisions (picture from Crow821 on deviantart.com).

10. Gay people have a lot to be thankful for.  They grew up in a culture where they told, over and over, that "discovering the opposite sex" was inevitable and universal, that no gay people existed except for grotesque monsters.  And they survived.

"Dark": Missing Boys, Dead Dads, a Mysterious Cave, and Five Horny Teenagers

 

For reasons I don't recall, I avoided Dark, the paranormal horror series on Netflix.  But it has the same producer as 1899, which I am enjoying, and a review stated that there are "four queer characters," so I thought I'd give the first episode a try.

 Prologue: Albert Einstein tells us that "the distinction between past, present, and future" is an illusion.  While the narrator elaborates, we see a scary bunker in the woods, full of emergency supplies and photographs of people "yesterday, today, and tomorrow." 

Scene 1: 21 June, 2019. A rustic house. Dour-looking middle aged man hangs himself in his workshop, leaving a letter next to a photo of his wife and kids: "Do not open before 4 November 2019, 10:13 pm."  Very specific.  A teenage boy awakens from a nightmare, and takes a prescription pill. Couild this be the son, or the teenage version of the dour-looking man?

Cut to: 4 November 2019: Suicide note opening day.  The teenage boy (top photo) comes downstairs, checks the refrigerator, and yells: "Mom, the power's out again!"  But she's busy having sex with a naked man named Ulrich (very muscular back and butt shot).  They disentangle, discuss the meeting tonight, kiss a billion times -- weird kisses, like they're attacking each other's faces.  He leaves -- through the window!  

Scene 2: The teenage boy biking through a scary woods.  He stops at a smoke-bellowing factory so we can see a poster for a missing boy, Erik Obendorf, about his age.  We zero in on his face, so he must be important.   

Meanwhile, Ulrich of the Muscular Butt (Oliver Masucci) jogs through the scary woods toward some dark, sinister caves.  In this world, it's scary all the way down. 

Scene 3: The teenage boy walking in the woods with a suit-clad man, who compliments him on doing well in group therapy.  Must be his psychiatrist.  "I still see him."."  "Well, keep taking your meds."  "I want to know why he hanged himself." 

Meanwhile, Ulrich jogs home, where his wife is chastising their preteen son Mikkel for dressing like a skeleton when it's not Halloween.  Another teenage boy, Magnus, thinks that Mikkel stole his black hoodie, and hits him in the head a dozen or so times.  The teenage daughter is a social activist.  Ulrich kisses them all on the top of the head and explains that he took so long because there was a line at the grocery story (and he stopped to have sex).

By the way, preteen Mikkel is an aspiring magician.  I assume that this will be important later.

Scene 4: Having finished his 5:00 am therapy appointment, the teenage boy goes to school, where everyone stares and points in slow motion.  His friend (Paul Lux) hits him in the head to welcome him back.  I guess that's a display of affection in Germany?  "Don't worry, I told everyone that you were on a study tour of France, not that...you know."  

Meanwhile, Ulrich goes to work at the police station, where the missing boy's parents are yelling: "You don't do anything!  Find our son!"  A female police officer reminds them that they've scoured the woods and conducted 172 interviews.  Whoa, Mom spits on her!  In the U.S. that's aggravated assault!  Ulrich handles the situation much better; the female cop roils with envy. 

Scene 5:  Magnus, Ulrich's teenage son (who lost his black hoodie), is behind the school, smoking pot, when a girl approaches. They flirt briefly. Plot dump: his mom is the school principal. 

Meanwhile, teenage boy and his friend go to a start-of-school assembly.  A girl approaches.  The teenage boy grins, expecting a flirtation, but she kisses his friend!  When are they going to give these people names?   Stares all around.  I deduce that she was previously his girlfriend, but switched during his absence.

The teenage boy continues to stare in jealous rage while the assembly starts: it's about Erik, the missing boy. 

Scene 6: Ulrich and the female cop discussing case details that they certainly already know: Erik vanished after practice one day, leaving his money and cell phone behind.  Ulrich thinks that he ran away, because the small town is boring.  The female cop mentions his brother, and Ulrich rages: "He had nothing to do with this!'  Plus Ulrich is dissatisfied with his life: it's "the exact opposite" of what he wanted.  Big deal.  I wanted to teach Gay Studies.

Scene 7: At the Winden Forest Hotel, very elegant for a small town, desk clerk Regina is panicking.  She calms down enough to answer the phone. Unfortunately, it's a bill collector; she's behind on her loan payments.  She pleads: "No one wants to come her on vacation because of the boy's disappearance."  She screams; she curses; she gets hanged up on.

Scene 8: Magnus of the black hoodie (Moritz Jahn) in class, learning about black holes (which will be important later, I assume), and complaining about the girl who flirted with him earlier.  His friend notes that, if Erik is dead, all of his drugs must still be in the cave.  They could haul out a big score!

Scene 9: A working-class apartment complex.  Ulrich visits his nearly-catatonic mother, who complains that she saw something in the woods: "a dark figure with a gigantic head. Also I found a Raiders candy bar wrapper.  Mads loved those."  Is Mads the vanished brother?  We see a photo of the two brothers as kids in 1986.  

"Everything is repeating," Mom concludes.  "Erik is your brother all over again."

Switch to a rest home, where an elderly man with a weird ear starts yelling "It's going to happen again."  Must be Ulrich's dad.

Switch to a flashback: On TV, a music video of "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)," 1985.  Cute animal wall paper, a panda in a rocking chair, milk and cookies on a tray, and a redheaded boy covering his ears, trying not to listen.  

Scene 10: After school, Magnus, the friend, the girlfriend, and the teenage boy decide to investigate the drug cave.  I've had enough of this refusal to say characters' names.  I'm checking the IMDB: the teenage boy with the dead dad is Jonas, and his friend is Bartosz.  

Meanwhile, Ulrich calls Jonas' mom about the meeting tonight. She doesn't want to go: everyone will be staring and pointing and gossiping about her husband's suicide.  "Ok, then, I'll be at a training in Frankfurt this weekend.  Why don't you come, and we can have sex?"

And at Ulrich's house, the wife notices a long black hair on his sweatsuit. And it smells like lady's perfume!  Obviously Ulrich is a drag queen.

Scene 11: Jonas' Mom is massaging an old guy at the nuclear plant.  He complains that he's been working there for 33 years, and now it's closing.  She goes on to the meeting, which is about the missing boy.  I don't think have town meetings about missing kids in the U.S.  It quickly devolves into a snitting-and-name-calling match.  The old guy bursts in and yells "It's going to happen again!"

Jonas' Mom goes outside to smoke a cigarette.  Ulrich follows.  They kiss oddly a billion times.

Scene 12: The four teenagers head for the cave, discussing Erik's disappearance and the nature of evil.  Magnus brings his preteen brother, Mikkel (the aspiring magician), because his sister couldn't babysit.  

At 10:13 pm,  an old lady opens Dad's suicide letter.  Wait -- is that Ulrich's Mom?  Why would she have the letter, and not the dead guy's wife?  She is shocked by what she reads.

The teenagers, joined by the girl that Magnus flirted with earlier, reach the cave, hear a mysterious wailing from inside, and run away.  Jonas grabs Mikkel's hand, but he trips and falls and lets go for a moment, and the boy vanishes!  Plus he sees his Dad, all bloody! 

Scene 13: The parents and police arrive to hug their kids and search for Mikkel.  Ulrich, his Dad, runs into the cave.

In the morning, the teenagers are home, still being hugged by their parents, except Magnus is at the police station.  The police scour the area with metal detectors, and come across a child's body, covered by leaves.  Ulrich rushes to the site; it's not Mikkel!  It's a boy with a 1986-era walkman.

Back to the room with the cute animal wallpaper and the 1986-era music videos playing on the tv.  The first missing boy, Erik (Paul Radom), is strapped to a chair, whimpering as a weird device is clamped to his head.  The end.

Beefcake: Just Ulrich's back and butt.

Heterosexism:  Ulrich's affair with Jonas' Mom.  Jonas and Bartocz in love with Girl #1.  Magnus having a sparring "you're arrogant!" romance with Girl #2.

Gay Characters: All of the teenagers have expressed heterosexual interest. There are photos online of Jonas kissing a guy, but that may be from something else.

Soap Opera:  All of the adults have a history together.

My Grade:  I'm interested in seeing how Erik ended up in the 1980s room, and why Mikkel was replaced by another dead boy (no doubt Ulrich's brother).  But there are so many characters with interlocking, unstated relationships and so much weird kissing.  And where are the four queer characters?  C.

Update: I found out who the queer characters are: a pedophile murderer who likes trans women; a trans woman prostitute; a predatory lesbian; and her prey.  That must be the reason I avoided watching the program. New grade: F

Lords of Flatbush: Fonzie Before Happy Days

Lords of Flatbush (1974) was a precursor of next year’s Happy Days, about four Brooklyn greasers (about 30 years old but still in high school) whose same-sex relationships are doomed by the “discovery” of girls. Chico (Perry King) courts a rich girl, and Stanley (Sylvester Stallone, pre-Rocky, never shirtless but filling out his t-shirts beautifully) gets his girlfriend pregnant.

 The other two gang members, Butchie (Henry Winkler) and Wimpy (Paul Mace), seem not particularly interested in girls, in spite of their obligatory smooching sounds and breast-grabbing gestures whenever girls pass. 

 Butchie especially, short, slim, with a desperate, haunted look in his eyes and a curious diminution of a name that protests too much, behaves in a decidedly transgressive fashion.  He likes boys, but the objects of his interest keep rejecting him.

Late one evening, the others decide to look for girls, but Butchie wants to hang out at the deserted soda shop with Eddie (Joe Stern), the dark, curly-haired soda jerk. No one else is present, so Eddie asks if they might “get personal.” Butchie, grinning, says: “as long as you don’t come over here and give me a great big kiss, anything goes.”

This is a curious response; although his grin suggests that he is stating a laughable absurdity, his quickness at considering it, and the accumulation of adjectives (it’s not just a kiss, it’s a great big kiss) suggest that it is close to conscious thought: perhaps Eddie could kiss him. Indeed, he has specifically rejected an evening of girl-chasing to be alone with a man. What does he expect to happen? 

 But then Eddie rejects him, telling him that he is wasting his life by spending all of his time in the soda shop, oblivious to the possibility that Butchie might hang out there because he likes Eddie. Understandably angry, Butchie goes home.

Later, Chico sneaks into Butchie’s room. They sit, one on a chair, the other on the bed. “Do you have anything to tell me?” Butchie asks. They gaze at each other for a long moment. 

 Chico considers telling him something, but then decides against it. What are they leaving unsaid? Somewhat angry, Butchie prods him further: “Because if you don’t have anything to tell me, I guess I could go to sleep.”

Chico stares at him for a moment more, and then angrily jumps up and runs for the door, refusing to tell him, leaving Butchie silent and frustrated, rejected twice on the same evening. Butchie remains silent and frustrated as Chico, still refusing to tell him, weds the rich girl.

Henry Winkler went on to superstardom as Fonzie on Happy Days, a sitcom that also had tons of gay content.