"The Club": Dynasty, Ecstasy, and Gay-Positive Hunks

What's with Netflix and the nondescript one-word titles.  According to Wikipedia, "The Club" is the title of 4 movies, 4 tv series, 2 video games, and a radio show

This one, originally entitled El Club (2019), is the writing/directing debut of Mexican actress Camila Ibarra, otherwise known as Ruth Martin in the prison drama Capadocia (2008-2012).  It's every telenovela you've ever seen:  impossibly beautiful people arguing in impossibly elegant houses (every room must have at least five chandeliers), then stomping out in anger and driving off their impossibly fancy cars.   Forbidden romance, generational conflict, blackmail, betrayal, murder.  And, in this case, drogas.

Trust fund baby Pablo (Alejandro Speitzer, top photo) is trying to distance himself from his domineering, bigoted, ultra-wealthy Dad (Omar Germenos, left).

So, along with sometime girlfriend Sofia and computer whiz Matias, he starts a business selling Ecstasy.  Of course, plot complications ensue: a drug cartel has already cornered the Ecstasy trade, and its jefe, El Monkey, doesn't like the competition.

Ok, Mexican drug cartels produce heroin and some marijuana, and transport cocaine.  They don't handle Ecstasy because it's a party drug, easily substitutable and not very expensive.  But whatever.


In a gay plotline,younger brother Santiago (Alejandro Puente) goes off to Stanford and finds a boyfriend.  The evil Nico sends a film of the two going at it to all of Dad's friends, resulting in a conflagration at Christmastime.  "In my family there are no queers!" Dad yells.  Santiago decks him.  "I'm not queer, I'm gay!"

Rather an old-fashioned storyline, considering that same-sex marriage has been legal in Mexico City and many Mexican states since 2010. It reminds me of Dynasty, 30 years ago.

But the cast is super-gay positive.

1. Alejandro Speiser as Pablo.  In June 2019, Alejandro and fellow actor Erik Elias celebrated Gay Pride by kissing.  "I'm not gay, but love is love," he told the startled tabloid reporters.

2. Omar Germenos as the family patriarch.  Omar played a gay character in Donde está Elisa?

3. Jorge Caballero (left), seen here with his boyfriend, Colombian singer Esteman, as Matias, the computer whiz.

4. Axel Arenas, who starred in the gay-themed Tremulo, as Jonás. In non-gay news, in 2018, Arenas was arrested for the murder of a female escort, but released after he proved that he was not in the country at the time.

5. Martin Saracho as Max.  Martin starred in Estupida historia de amor en Winnipeg, about a gay couple trying to find a new life in a small town in Canada.

6. Nacho Tahhan, who starred in the Spanish version of the gay-themed Angels in America,  as Gonzalo Cisneros

7. Marco Tostado as Diego, Sofia's anti-drug boyfriend.   He played  a gay character in a telenovela.  And he has a chest.

"The Out-Laws": Adam Devine has a crush on Pierce Brosnan. Don't you?

The Out-Laws has an embarrassing low Rotten Tomatoes score, but it stars Adam Devine, and it features Reyn Doi, who played a gay kid on That 90's Show, as a “weird and interesting looking boy famous for ribbon dancing to weird music.” Maybe he'll be gay in this movie, too.

Link to the NSFW version

Scene 1: This is amazing: a diorama of a wedding reception featuring miniatures of every cartoon and sci-fi character you have ever heard of: Beavis and Butt-head, E.T.,  The Human Fly, Ren and Stimpy, Gumby, a Teletubby.  Owen (Adam Devine) explains to his fiancee Parker (a girl) that each character matches a real guest's personality.  His horrible parents are Skeletor and Medusa.  

She wants to know which figure he is.  "He-Man, of course."  To demonstrate the resemblance, he shakes his butt and frontside (no underwear for our boy!).

"This is the man I'm going to marry," she says with a resigned sigh.  I take that you didn't choose Owen for his goofball personality, girl?  It must have been the cock and balls bouncing around. 

"By the way, let's start the plot moving: my parents can come to the wedding after all."  He gets all excited; they smooch. It's a heterosexual rom-com.  Get used to it.

Scene 2:  Owen 's parents, Skeletor and Medusa, criticize his fiancee ("She is not a stripper!  She owns a very successful yoga studio!"), his choice of wedding venue, and finally him ("You're becoming weird, Owen!).

Cut to work.  He is the youngest manager in the history of Sunshine Bank!   After polishing his photo and booping its nose, he faces his work buds.  They complain that he never dated anyone before, and now suddenly he's engaged.  What's wrong with her?  Why does one of the most handsome men on Earth play so many guys who can't get laid?  You can only stretch willing suspension of disbelief so far. 

First crisis: Gary has locked himself in the vault again, even though there's an emergency exit lever right there. 

Security guard buddy Tyree (Lil Rel Howery) tells  Owen that the manager of the competing bank called him a "dickless troll" "I tried not to laugh, but it was fucking hysterical, imagining you without a dick."  Now try imagining him with a dick.

Scene 3:  Dinner at a hibachi restaurant with Owen, his parents, his cousin, his grandmother, a teenage girl, and a little boy.  They grill Fiancee Parker on being a stripper.  "I'm a yoga instructor!" she protests.  Cousin RJ (Blake Anderson from Workaholics) has become an EMT; he wants to give Owen a ride in his ambulance and flatline him so he can visit their grandpa, who died of...well, figure it out for yourself.  It's dirty.

Owen needs some pictures of Parker's parents for his next creative project, but she doesn't have any, so he calls the owner of their storage facility to ask to be admitted to the McDermott locker.  There are two pictures of shirtless guys on the bulletin board behind him.  The storage guy is gay!  

The storage guy calls a Scary Rich Lady to notify her that someone asked about the locker.   She takes Owen's name, then deals with the issue of a guy selling her fake diamonds -- by shooting him! Uh-oh, Owen is in over his head. 

Later, while getting ready for bed (no beefcake), Owen and Fiancee Parker discuss the logistics of her parents' visit: they'll arrive the night before the wedding, and so on. Owen puts in his retainer, but then realizes that his girl wants to smooch and spits it out.  She definitely was attracted by his genitals, not by his goofiness.  Their foreplay consist of her fondling his earlobes or something.

Scene 4:  Owen comes into the house with groceries, talking to Parker on his phone: "I got that tofu you like." "Yeah, I like my tofu like I like my men: real hard."  Me too, girl.   She continues that "Tonight I'm going to twist you up like one of those Go-Gurts and slurp you dry."  Ok, I like to imagine Adam getting oral sex as much as the next guy, but that sounds painful.  

He begins singing about how tonight they're finally going to bone.  Wait -- they sleep in the same bed. Why wouldn't they have....? 

 Her parents are in the house, watching!  Surprise -- they're 1980s mega-stars Pierce Brosnan (Billy) and Ellen Barkin (Lily).  Who didn't have a crush on Brosnan's lovable rogue on Remington Steele?

After decking him in self-defense and informing him that they aren't burglars, Mom Lily wants a hug, and Dad Billy kisses him - right on the mouth!  "You kiss just like Parker!"  Owen exclaims, not entirely displeasd.

Parker comes in.  The parents act batshit crazy, threatening Owen and then backing off with "I'm joking." Wait -- is Parker doing a long con, pretending to be in love with Owen so her confederates can rob his bank?

More after the break

Aaron Taylor-Johnson: Varying levels of handsomeness and homophobia. His cock stays the same.

  

Link to NSFW version

I seem to be collecting Aarons. This is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, born in 1990 in the quaintly named High Wycombe, 29 miles west of Charing Cross.  You can't get more English than that. He began acting at the age of six, did local theater and broke into film with a string of gay-subtext relationships:

Tom and Thomas (2002), about two brothers (both played by Aaron) who find each other after many years apart and embark on an adventure in order to stay together.

The Thief Lord (2006), an adaption of the German novel about two outcasts who find each other on the mean streets of Venice.

The Magic Door (2007), a heroic fantasy with a rather buffed elf helping a human boy defeat a troll.

Then things get very heterosexist very fast.

Nowhere Boy, 2009, a biopic of the teen years of future Beatle John Lennon.  I suppose they couldn't help making the young John hetero-horny, but having a girl give him a blow job to seal the deal?

Kick-Ass (2010) is about a teen nerd who becomes a superhero. Funny that high school A-list jocks never get superpowers.  When his bulgeworthy spandex costume is discovered, he's assumed to be a gay hustler, to the constant teasing of his classmates.  However, the assumption of gayness allows him to win The Girl of His Dreams.

Chatroom (2010) is a rather homophobic drama about a sociopathic teen using social media to encourage bad behavior.   He convinces his friend Jim to commit suicide, and kisses him to "seal the deal."

Next Aaron starred in Savages (2012) as pot grower Ben, who is in a triadic relationship with Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and their shared girlfriend.  It's all subtext -- but sometimes subtext is enough.

At least we get a more explicit butt shot -- while he is sexing the girl.

Nocturnal Animals, 2016, is a neo-noir about a woman in an unhappy marriage who gets trapped in a novel about marauding thugs, the "nocturnal animals," who kidnap her and her daughter. Aaron plays one of the animals, 

More homophobia and dicks after the break

"Pixie": Gay subtext couple, Irish scenery, priest gangsters, and a bunch of butts, but no pixies

   

For movie night this week, we saw Pixie (2021).  The title makes you think of a children's fantasy about pixies, but it's actually an Irish gangster comedy.  

Pixie (Olivia Cook), the free-spirited, conniving stepdaughter of gangster Dermot O'Brien (Colm Meaney),  sends two of Da's goons to steal a million euros of Ecstasy from a rival gang of drug-running priests.

The goons happen to be her Ex-Boyfriend Colin (Rory Fleck Byrne), who isn't over her yet, and her Secret Boyfriend Fergus (Fra Fee, right).

Her plan is to sell the Ecstasy, dump the Secret Boyfriend, and move to San Francisco, where she will study photography. (You can't do that in Dublin?).  

You see where things might go wrong?

Things go wrong: 

Ten minutes into the movie, both goons and her Dad are dead (with Dad's corpse in the trunk), both the priest gang and Dad's Enforcer are on her tail.

Then two clueless doofuses knock on her door: Frank (Ben Hardy, left) and Harland (Daryl McCormack). Let's just call them Laurel and Hardy.

They mistakenly believe that she will have sex with any man in exchange for letting her photograph them (she actually photographs Frank in drag). Then they are attacked, and flee together.

Did I mention that Pixie's Stepbrother (Turlough Convery) hates her and is looking for an opportunity to take her down?

And that she has another ex-boyfriend, Gareth (Sebastian de Souza), who happens to be the nephew of the head gangster priest?

Laurel and Hardy want to have sex with Pixie.  They discuss women's body parts. They try to convince an altar boy that God wants all men to have sex with ladies. And they discuss same-sex activity only in terms of prison rape and priestly pedophilia.  

But they kiss during the beginning of a three-way (cut short by the arrival of the Enforcer).  Later, when they escape being killed, Pixie points out that it was almost their last kiss: "Isn't it romantic?"  They look embarrassed.

And at the end of the movie, Pixie leaves for San Francisco by herself, and Frank and Harland ask "Where shall we go now?" and walk off into the sunset together.  Have they become romantic partners? Or were they always romantic partners and in denial?  Either way, ending up with each other instead of the girl gives them a remarkable gay subtext. 

Beefcake: The boys strip down to go skinny-dipping, but in a long shot, too far away to see much.

Other Sights: Beautiful Irish countryside, establishing shots of Sligo.

Heterosexism: Pixie tilts her head and smiles, and every men gapes in slack-jawed lust and does whatever she wants.  Her teenage stepsister hooks up with the altar boy.

Gay Subtext: Laurel and Hardy.

My Grade: A-.

"American Gigolo," 1980 and 2022: Frontal nudity and homophobia or underwear shots and gay erasure. Which do you prefer?

Link to NSFW version 

In 1980, American Gigolo became famous for Richard Gere's biceps, chest, abs, and penis -- the first  full frontal shot in any mainstream movie!   

Every gay magazine had an article on The Nude Scene, with a screen shot.  This was before you could buy a DVD or stream the movie, so every gay guy in the country, probably in the world, marched down to the Cineplexto see it.  Gere plays Julian, a hustler who specializes in women, and in fact rejects any assignment involving "fag tricks."  The plot involves Julian falling in love with one of his clients (of course), and being framed for murder.  (He was with a client that night, but she refuses to come forward.)

Gay men of the era didn't mind that the hustlers have 100% female clients, while in real life 97% of their clients are closeted gay/bi men.  They were used to being erased.

They didn't consider homophobic slurs a problem. You weren't allowed to mention gay people, even in slurs, before the 1960s, so in the 1970s and 1980s, most movie characters threw in a few "fags" and "fruits" to demonstrate that they were cool.

Nor did they get upset when the villain turned out to be gay: Julian's pimp (Bill Duke), whom he pushes out a window to his death. Straight people hated us; it was a given, a simple fact of life.  You couldn't escape it,  unless you managed to live and work in a gay neighborhood and avoid mainstream media altogether.  The rest of us would hear homophobic jibes, slurs, scandals and jokes from family and friends, from coworkers, from random strangers on the bus, so what difference did a movie make?  You got to see a dick on screen!

Writer/director Paul Schrader has been involved with a number of other homophobic projects, such as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, about the gay writer who developed a fixation with bodybuilders.  Again, being gay is all about darkness, destruction, death. Being gay is evil.

But not Richard Gere.  A year before American Gigolo,he  starred in the gay-themed (and not homophobic) Bent on Broadway, about gay men who are sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany.  In 1993 he appeared in And the Band Played On, about the first years of the AIDS crisis.

How did he manage all three?  Does he hate gay people, or not?  

In an interview in Entertainment Weekly.  Gere reveals that he took the part because Julian was so different from himself, into fashion and languages (which Gere was not), and with "a gay thing flirting through it," and he knew nothing about "that community."  Good enough explanation, I guess.

In 2022, an American Gigolo tv series appeared.  15 years after the events in the movie, the middle-aged Julian (Jon Bernthal) tries to find out who framed him (I thought Leon confessed?) and to reconnect with The Girl of His Dreams.  

Paul Schrader was not involved, so no homophobic slurs and no gay villain. But gay men are still erased; 100% of the hustlers' clients are women.  There's a lesbian cop, which is not nearly adequate representation.

And no frontal nudity, just a butt shot.

Is that progress?

Berenthal's butt and Richard Gere's dick are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Derek Yates: The Smiley-Emoji Guy shows us what's behind the eggplant

  

In How I Met Your Father, the middle-aged Sophie tells her son stories about her life in New York 23 years ago, presumably culminating in meeting his father.  In Episode 2.3, she doesn't remember the name of her friend's date, or what he looks like, so she calls him Rando.  He appears with a smiley-emoji head and an eggplant over his penis.

The epicode credits list him as actor/model Derek Yates, originally from Chattanooga, Tennesse,  "Bradley Cooper's younger bro." I think he's kidding.

Nick got his start on the Chattanooga stage, with roles including Hairspray, Sound of Music, and A Night to Remember. In 2016, he moved to L.A., where he won the "Ellen's New Gardner" contest on Ellen Degeneres's talk show.

Since then he has racked up 21 acting credits on IMDB, including cops, paralegals, nurses, a sleazoid, a passenger on the doomed Titanic 666, and Rando the Smiley Emoji guy on How I Met Your Father.  He claims to have played the Best Friend alongside Adam Devine in Isn't It Romantic, but I don't remember seeing him there.

Link to nude photos

Derek has also modeled for Caribou Coffee, Volkswagon, Underwear Nation, CSX, and Hooters.

But doubtless his 840,000 social media followers are also interested in his beefcake photos.  Thousands of them, so many that I actually got tired of looking. Selfies, candids, and professional photos.  Always shirtless, usually bulging, sometimes nude.

More bulges after the break

John Terlesky: 1980s Hunk Who Starred in Everything You Didn't See

John Terlesky has 43 acting credits on IMDB, but I can't see any theme or pattern; in his salad days in the1980s and early 1990s, he went everywhere., hitting all the major genres of the era.  And taking his shirt off in most of them.

1. Buddy Detectives.  Legmen (1984).  Two college student bros moonlight as bail bondsmen.  This premise would be revisited 30 years later in Teenage Bounty Hunters on Netflix.

2. Gay Angst.   Consenting Adult (1985), with Marlo Thomas and Martin Sheen as the concerned parents.  John doesn't play the Consenting Adult.

3. Teenkill.  Put a group of teenagers in an isolated location and have a psycho-killer slice and dice them, leaving only the Girl Who Didn't Have Sex.  Chopping Mall (1987). John plays one of the sliced-and-diced teens.

4. Sword and Sorcery. Put a man-mountain in a loincloth and have him fight sorcerers and rescue naked babes. Deathstalker II (1987)

5. Late Night Porn.  Display a lot of naked ladies, with a man-mountain in the background somewhere.  All Nighter (1988).

6. Famous-Face-Filled Adaptions of Agatha Christie Novels:  Appointment with Death (1988), starring John Gielgud,  Carrie Fisher, Peter Ustinov, and even Lauren Bacall.  And John.

7. Vacation From Hell.  Damned River (1989).  John's tour guide turns out to be a psycho-killer.

8. Corrupt Southern Sheriffs.  Nashville Beat (1989), with the Adam-12 guys as Bo and Luke Duke and John as Boss Hogg.

9. No One Believes That She Was Raped.  When He's Not a Stranger (1989), with John as the college boy who rapes his girlfriend's roommate.

10.Comedies Starring Dudley Moore. Crazy People (1990)

11. Female Buddy Comedy. Battling for Baby (1991), with Suzanne Pleshette and Debbie Reynolds as the buddies.

I've never seen any of these movies and tv series, so bear with me if some of these photos are of different guys.  I have no idea what John Terlesky looks like.
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In the 1990s,when acting roles began to dry up, John moved into directing. His 45 credits on IMDB are equally eclectic.everything from Ugly Betty to Criminal Minds.  He's also produced some tv series, like Bluff City Law (Jimmy Smits as a lawyer specializing in civil rights cases). and written some movies, like Guardian (buddy cops fight drugs and a demonic force).

Appearing in Consenting Adult took a lot of guts in 1985, even if he didn't play the gay guy.  Other than that, not a lot of gay representation in John's work, and no evidence that he is gay in real life.  He has a nice physique, though.

But why does his hair color keep changing?

"Littlekenny": A kid-sized version of "Letterkenney," with a gay kid, less homophobia, and some grown-up butts

  

Someone told me that Letterkenney, one of the numerous comedies about quirky small towns in Canada, was "quietly queer-friendly."  So I watched the first episode. Umm...it was about trying to get the central character Wayne to fight by saying that he was like a woman, or that he was gay, with more homophobic slurs per minute than a high school locker room after gym class.  Interestingly, one of the homophobes told his chums that he was, in fact, gay.  

The head homophobe said "We know, and we support you.  Now let's get back to implying that Wayne is gay to get him angry enough to fight."  That is way homophobic. Imagine if, instead of gay, they figured that the best way to get Wayne angry was to imply that he was Jewish. 

Other guys in the episode get gay or woman accusations for dating a "good Christian girl,"  for having his girlfriend stolen by another guy, and for using the Tindr heterosexual dating app. Definitely not "quietly queer."

So when Hulu dropped a kid's version, Littlekenney, I streamed it out of curiosity: kids are usually much more homophobic than adults, but six homophobic slurs per minute would be a tough record to break.  How low could they go?

It's not actually for kids, it just features child-versions of the characters.  There are only six episodes, each about two minutes long, and about a third is taken up by a "Mature" proviso and Hulu displaying the name Hulu over and over -- you don't notice how annoying it is until you see it every two minutes.  Half of the episodes don't have a plot: they consist of the boys reciting the problems of other kids at Letterkenny School, like getting in trouble for farting or eating paste.

Episode 1: Two boys recite some of the problems.  They promise that with 500 kids, there will be 500 problems, but we only hear eight or so. No homophobic content.

Episode 2: The teacher tries to mentor the mentally disabled Darryl.  Then two bullies harass him.  Next, she tries to mentor the surly outcast Wayne.  After school, the bullies harass Katy.  Wayne intervenes, and they all become friends. 

I think Wayne grows up to be the central character, played by Jared Keeso, who everyone is trying to force into fighting by calling him gay and a woman.

Bonus: Jared Keeso's butt.

Episode 3. More problems. Three involve being gay, or Dad trying to prevent you from "turning" gay:

"Your friend showed you his dick and said it was a mouse, and you said that was the only one-eyed mouse you ever saw."

"You and your friend touched tubes, and your Dad got real cross, but he got even meaner when Mom said he probably did that as a boy, too."

"You got campiest camper award at the Cub Scouts, and now Dad wants you to play football instead,"

Episode 4: Daryl invites his friend to a "super soft" birthday party, with a unicorn and boas to wear. The bullies make fun of him, so Wayne douses them with mud and then invites them to the party.  They come.  No homophobic slurs.

Here Daryl seems to be presented as gay, but I think he grows up to be Wayne's heterosexual life partner, who has an unrequited crush on one lady and starts dating another

I think the bullies grow up to be Reilly and Jonesy, played by Dylan Playfair and Andrew Herr, the main antagonists in the "Wayne is gay/a woman" slurs.  They are heterosexual-ish life partners who often have three-ways with women, and befriend a gay couple at the gym.  Maybe they were homophobic for just that one episode.

Bonus: Dylan Playfair butt.  It's on a hookup app screen. 

Episode 5: The problems.  One involves the implication of gayness.

"You want to sing in the all-boy's choir, but Dad says singing is for fairies."

Episode 6: A new boy arrives, Daniel. He has a crush on Katy.  The bullies harass him, but Wayne intervenes, and they become friends. 

Daniel grows up to be a main character, Squirrelly Dan,  played by K, Trevor Wilson. His crush on Katy continues, and he also dates other women.

Left: Jacob Tierney doesn't appear in the cartoon, but in the regular series he plays Glen, an evangelical Christian minister who gets vulgar gay hints, like fellating a popsicle.

My Grade:  It's hard to tell with less than ten minutes of text, but it looks like we have a gay kid, plus the problems gay and feminine boys have growing up with unsupportive fathers.  I remember being pushed into sports a lot, plus excessive jubilation when I mentioned a girl, however casually.  So it resonates. B-.

See also: Schitt's Creek: Quirky small town in Canada with gay characters.

The twelve scruffy hunks of "Animal Kingdom." WIth a lot of bare butts

  

Someone recommended Animal Kingdom, not to be confused with the Animal Kingdom at Disney World, the Animal Planet network, or a tv show entitled Animal Control.  This one is a drama TNT featuring the struggle for succession in a crime family led by...Smurf?  "Ok, boys, I want you to go smurf out those rival smurfs and bury their smurfs in the smurf."

Link to The 12 bare butts of "Animal Kingdom"

There are a lot of sons, grandsons, and boy toys, even a gay one.  Most are sleazy, scruffy, and tattooed, not my cup of tea.  But most get bare butt scenes, so you don't have to look at their face.

1. Scott Speedman as Baz, adopted Smurf, who wants to try new crime techniques instead of Mama Smurf's old fashioned smurfing. 

2. In flashbacks to 1992 and 1996, Baz is smurfed by Darren Mann, left

3. Shawn Hatosy as Pope, eldest Smurf, who suffers from mental illness and does a lot of risky smurf. Plus he's smurfed in prison.

4.  Kevin Csolak smurfs as Pope in the flashbacks.

5. Ben Robson as Craig, middle Smurf, who parties and does drug instead of paying attention to the smurfing. 

6. Jake Weary as Deran, youngest Smurf, the moral smurf who is trying to distance himself from the family, running a surfing shop instead of smurfing crime. He is closeted for a long time, but when he finally comes out they are fine with it. 

More butts after the break

10 Gay Surprises of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasss Song

In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles had had enough of the Man, and set out to bring the Black Community together with a movie about a hero who triumphs over white oppression.  He had no money, so he shot a lot of scenes with a hand-held camera, used leftover footage from other projects, and did a lot of trippy montages and visual gymnastics.

I expected an angry Black Power movie, with lots of violence and heterosexual sex.  But I was not expecting so much gay content.  Here are the 10 Gay Surprises of Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song:

1. In the first scene, a group of prostitutes gaze lustfully at a young boy (Melvin's son, Mario Van Peebles).  One takes him to her room, strips him, and initiates sex.  We see a glimpse of his penis and a lot of his bare butt as he thrusts71, thrusts, thrusts. (Don't worry, this photo shows neither.)

2. The boy grows up to be Sweetback, after a slang term for a gigantic penis, and we see it, gigantic and aroused, on camera, as Melvin Van Peebles prepares for sex with a woman.  We see it again several times, and quite a lot of his bare butt as he thrusts, thrusts, thrusts in unsimulated sex scenes.  Yes, it's all heterosexual, but frontal nudity was unheard-of.

3. Sweetback works as a performance artist in a gender-bending sex show: a woman is seduced by an elderly man who becomes a woman, and then becomes the naked, aroused Sweetback, all thanks to the efforts of a drag queen Fairy Godmother.

4. Two white police officers appear, wanting to arrest a black man -- it doesn't matter who --so Sweetback volunteers.  On the way to the station, they break up a Black Power rally and arrest the teenage Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales).  They beat him severely, and Sweetback rushes to the rescue, injuring the cops. Gay-subtext rescue!

5. Now the cops want him dead.  Sweetback hopes to take refuge in the home of Beetle (Simon Chuckster), the owner of the brothel, an extremely feminine, gay-coded man, naked except for a towel and a shower cap.  Beetle sympathizes with Sweetback, but he can't stay there; it's too risky.  Later, still shirtless, Beetle is beaten, deafened, and killed by the police.

6. Sweetback tries to take refuge in a church, but the pastor tells him that Mu-Mu has been captured again, so he rushes out.  More gay-coded emotional intensity.  The "damsel in distress" is a guy.

7. Sweetback rescues Mu-Mu, and they seek refuge in a deserted house.  Presumably they're about to have sex when the police break in.

8. Mu-Mu is injured in the ensuing fight.  A black biker (John Amos) offers to take Sweetback to Mexico and escape, but instead he insists that Mu-Mu be taken into town for medical care.  Sacrificing his safety for Mu-Mu.

9. By now Sweetback is a folk hero, so as he runs toward Mexico, dozens of random people, presumably being interrogated by the police, claim that "I ain't seen Sweetback."


Including three lisping, mincing gay stereotypes. Who nevertheless participate in the struggle, try to discomfort the police officers by flirting with them, and key into the Gay Liberation movement by identifying themselves as  "militant queens."

9. One doesn't expect Melvin Van Peebles (who still has a physique) to be gay-friendly.  After all, in the shooting script, the three militant queens are identified as "fags."  Yet he has appeared in several gay-positive movies, such as Love Kills (1999).

10. His son Mario is rumored to be gay, and played a gay character in Multiple Sarcasms (2010).

Grant Wood: More Than Pitchforks and Cornfields

When I was growing up in Rock Island, we had a lot of local celebrities.  Grant Wood wasn't one of them, even though he was the most famous American artist before Andy Warhol, and he was local, from Anamosa, Iowa, just north of the Quad Cities. He spent his life in the area, overseeing Stone City Art Colony nearby, and teaching at the University of Iowa, about 45 minutes away.

We ignored Grant Wood because of American Gothic, the second most famous painting of all time, and the most parodied.

It gave the Midwest a bad name.  The goggle-eyed farmer with pitchfork looks like he's about to go storming off to protest civil rights, or gay rights, or violence in comic books.  The weepy woman, her beauty faded by the boredom and isolation of farm life, dreams of escape.

Even today, if I admit to being from the Midwest (I usually don't), I get "How awful it must have been for you!  Nothing to do but watch the corn grow and fight all those redneck bigots!"

Um...no.  We had more to do than watch the corn grow: we had symphonies, live musicals, operas, ballets, art galleries, and museums. And about those bigots:  Iowa had the first class in Gay Studies in the world, and was one of the first states to get gay marriage.

So I didn't know much about Grant Wood until I started investigating John Bloom, who sculpted the statue of a naked man that I got for Christmas in junior high.

In 1926, the aspiring artist won a prize for an oil painting, "The Burial," at the Iowa State Fair.  The judge, celebrity painter Grant Wood, invited him to join his new Stone City Art Colony.  For the next two years, they lived together, in a converted ice wagon (rather a small space!). Together they worked on murals for libraries and post offices all over the state.

In 1934, when Grant went to the University of Iowa, he took John with him.

In 1935, Grant married Sara Sherman Maxon (the marriage ended in divorce three years later).  John moved to Davenport, where he married Isabel Bloom in 1938.

Sounded a lot like a spurned lover.

Sure enough.  A new biography, Grant Wood: A Life, by R. Tripp Evans, reveals that Grant was gay.  When he got to the University of Iowa, some faculty members in the Art Department suspected, and they already looked down upon Grant for rejecting the status quo of European Impressionism -- ergo his screen marriage and giving John Bloom the boot.

After his divorce in 1938, Grant had a series of handsome male "roommates."  This riled the homophobic faculty so much that, superstar or not, they wanted him out.  They waited the fall of 1941, when he was on sabbatical, and invited a writer from Time magazine to investigate "sexual improprieties."  The University President managed to put a kibosh on the story and quickly moved Wood into a new division.  However, he didn't get a chance to return to the faculty that loathed him.  He died of pancreatic cancer in February 1942.

But if you look carefully at his work, you can see the glimmers of homoerotic desire.

And even that stupid American Gothic isn't heterosexist.  Everybody thinks the woman is the farmer's wife, but she's his daughter.