The February Doldrums: Five Streaming Services, and Nothing But Boys Meeting Girls

Did you ever have a morning where nothing went right?  It's 4:00 am, and I'm doing my usual run-through of Amazon, Netflix, Disney+,  Hulu, and Vudu,  looking for something with gay characters, gay subtexts, or at least some beefcake.

Amazon:

 One Step Behind the Seraphim.  Who wouldn't want to see a Romanian movie about students at a conservative Orthodox seminary?  Romania ranks #25 of 27 European countries on LGBT rights, and 75% of the population oppose same-sex marriage, so there won't be any gay characters.  But an all-boy school -- there must be some gay subtexts.

Scene 1: Gabriel (Stefan Iancu) and his parents walk through all of the corridors of the school to the courtyard, where they join other parents and new students for morning prayer.  The parents introduce him to a boy -- gay subtext time.  Nope -- the boy insults Gabriel for being at the bottom of his class, and moves on.  

I'll just fast-forward.  Whoops -- halfway through Gabriel gets a girlfriend.  They have sex; her naked body is on display. And it's not just "you're trying to have sex to prove that you're straight": they have a long romance.  Next!

Netflix:

UFO: Aspiring musician Deniz falls for a rough motorcyclist.  Deniz is a boy's name, and the motorcyclist must be a boy, too.  But this is a tv series from Turkey, so how could it be a gay romance?  And what does it have to do with UFOs?  

Before I commit to watching -- and having it stuck on my "keep watching" list for the rest of my life -- I conduct some research.  It's difficult because there are any number of movies and tv shows about UFOs set in Turkey, but finally I find the "rough motorcyclist," played by Mert Ramazan Demir, and UFO (2022):

"A four part docu-series exploring our fascination with UFOs."  Huh?  Sounds like a completely different series, but it has the motorcyclist and aspiring musician characters.  Deniz is a girl.

Hulu

The King's Man: "As the world's most dangerous authoritarians and criminals plot destruction, one man forms a spy network to stave off evil."  I don't think they know what "authoritarian" means.  The head spy is played by Ralph Fiennes; there are three men and a woman on his team.  Action-adventure movies almost never have gay characters except for villains, but maybe there are gay subtexts.

The Trailer: Matthew Goode and Djimon Hounsou wrestling with their shirts off.  Also a submarine, World War I, and Rasputin.  It must be set in the early 20th century.  I'll give it a try.

Scene 1: A concentration camp AND a dying wife.  Two absolute deal breakers.  

Reviews: Rasputin is portrayed as gay, and as a deranged, deviant "pervert." A dead wife and extreme homophobia.  Next! 

Disney Plus

Free Guy: A bank teller (Ryan Reynolds) discovers that he is actually a background character in a video game, and decides to change the rules to make himself the hero.  Sounds like The Truman Show.  1,000 to 1 he wins The Girl of His Dreams.

Trailer:  It must be odd to live in a world where car chases and exploding buildings are happening all the time, and your bank gets robbed every day.  

But once he decided to become a hero, he partners with The Girl/  "Is that a glock in your pocket?" she asks, assuming that he is aroused.  "No, it's two glocks."  Ugh!  

Vudu

A last resort -- you don't subscribe, you pay for each movie or tv series separately.

All American Homecoming: A drama set around the HBCU experfience at a fictional college.  I just found out what "homecoming" is: not the last game of the season, a game where alumni are invited "home."  HBCU must have something to do with homecoming festivities.  Yawn.  But there's bound to be some football hunks wandering around the locker room.

Only one episode has dropped so far, with plotlines about one girl trying to "live life on her own terms," another being haunted by her past, and a boy (Peyton Alex Smith) and his coach being thrown "a curve ball" as they try to revitalize the team.  Surely that means a gay player. 

Nope: the curve ball is a threat by admin. to scrap the baseball team.

Turns out that HBCU means "historically black colleges and universities," so one would expect some African-American beefcake, right?  None in the trailer.  But the boy and the girl do fall in love.

It's 5:30 am.  I'm out.