Kaos: Scheming royals...I mean modern-day Greek gods, some queer, some Daddies, some both

  

Link to the Daddy dick

Greek gods and demigods are usually heterosexualized in modern texts, but in the original myths they were all queer, having sex with any being who caught their eye, and even pursuing an occasional same-sex romance.  Kaos, on Netflix, imagines a world where the gods are still active and involved in human affairs, like a royal family with the power to turn humans into artichokes.  Let's see how well their queer past holds up.

Scene 1: Prometheus (Stephen Dillane, above), the one who gets his liver eaten every day, narrates as we zoom in on Mount Olympus: "Power can give a man many things. Taste is rarely one of them." Zeus, Jeff Goldberg, struts Hugh Heffner-like through his gold-and-white mansion, sits on his throne, and invites mortals to worship him on Olympia Day.  But you shouldn't: "He's a transcendent, unmitigated bastard." 

Prometheus has a plan to bring him down, involving three mortals and a prophecy.

Scene 2: Modern-day Heraklion, Crete, except they're still worshipping the Greek gods, or at least keeping track of their scandals.  The first mortal is Eurydice, or Riddy, who isn't interested in politics. 

Cut to Riddy at the supermarket, looking at boxes of Spartan Crunch, Gaia's Granola, and Achilles' Heels, har har.  A woman tries to pick her up, but she deflects her by mentioning a husband.  

Check-out counter: on tv, an announcement of Olympia Day.  She buys a pomegranate, har har.  Look it up.

Outside, the woman who tried to pick her up is being manhandled by security for stealing cat food. Riddy intervenes.

"Nobody believes me," the woman says, "But it all comes true.  I told them about the horse..."  OMG, this is Cassandra!  Look it up.  She tells Riddy, "Today's the day you leave your husband.  Your love is dead."

Scene 3: Up on Olympus, Zeus is producing lightning and thunder.  His wife Hera arrives, and he shows her the Meander, a fountain where the water flows in circular pattern in mid-air.  He will reign as long as it runs.  He noticed a blip in it.  She thinks he's being ridiculous.  He asks "Where's our son, by the way."

Cut to the son, Dionysus, Nabhaan Rizwan, "god of pleasure, madness, and wild frenzy," dancing and carousing at a nightclub, smooching with men and women both, getting a blow job from a lady, then leaving, depressed.  He tells the falafel guy that he works for his dad, "but he doesn't take me seriously."  So sons have complained since...um...ancient Greek times.  He wants to do more for people than just dance and have sex.

Dillane's cock and Nabhaan's butt are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends 

He zooms up to Mount Olympus for an uncomfortable breakfast.  Hera sneers "Would you like some honey?", har har.  Look it up.

Dionysus gives his Dad an Olympia Day present: a watch, because "time together is precious."  Zeus is not impressed: "nope, ugly."  He summons his ball boy to dispose of it.  A ball boy to fetch tennis balls, not a sex partner.

It's the wrong time to ask for a promotion, but Dionysus tries anyway: "Make me the god of love, or war, or anything with influence."

Nope.  He gets all bratty, so Zeus uses his god powers to pound his head into the table.  "Where did I go wrong?" he asks Hera.  None of his kids come to visit him.

Down on Earth, they're about to unveil the Olympia Monument.  Uh-oh, it's been stolen, replaced by the graffiti: "F*k the gods"!  

Zeus goes all Spirit of Vengeance.  "Who has desecrated the gods?  Who has blasphemed against me?   I am going to wipe them off the face of the Earth."

No, he isn't, Hera suggests.  Kings delegate power.  Call  Poseidon (Cliff Curtis, left).

Scene 4: Riddy drives home, to where her husband, Killian Scott, is playing his guitar and thinking about how much he dislikes her.  Wait -- he's Orpheus.  They're the stars in like the greatest heterosexual love story of all time!  And their love is dead, har har.   They certainly joke, frolic, and kiss like they're still in love. 

Back story: Orpheus is a famous singer.  But you knew that already, right?

The problem: he's too needy.  He forced her to model for the cover of his new album, and his latest song is entitled "Eurydice." 

Prometheus: "There's nothing quite like the loneliness of someone you're falling out of love with."

They do some sloppy smooching and hit the bed, Orpheus with his shirt off, Eurydice with her bottom showing, but they're interrupted by Calliope, the Muse of Music, evidently his agent, picking him up for rehearsal.

I'm out of space, but I read ahead to see about the fates of the LGBTQ characters. After the break

Simon Rex: From gay-ish porn to homophobic comedy to gay necrophilia to Bupkis

 

Link to the porn and penis shots

I don't know who Simon Rex is, except that he starred in Down Low, a Netflix bait-and-switch movie where everybody dies, and maybe Jackass?  But seeing or hearing his name gives me a vaguely disquieting, uncomfortable sensation, as if there's something wrong about him.  Let's do some research to find out why. 

Wikipedia gives a full, lenthy biography.  Born in San Francisco in 1974, started out modeling nude and wanking in four gay porn videos -- not having sex with any guys, just wanking.  Wikipedia mentions his girlfriend right off to assure readers that it's ok, he's straight, he never did any actual gay stuff.

Maybe that's where the disquiet comes from -- reading articles that mention his "disreputable" and "sleazy" past, without specifying that it's just some j/o videos.

Modeling gigs for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfinger followed.

In 1995, at age 21, Simon became a VJ, like a disc jockey for videos, on MTV.  He says that this  made him a household name, "because I was on tv every day from 3-4."  Prime after-school time.  

The VJ gig lasted for only two years, but it pushed Simon into a movie career:

He played "Slab O' Beef" in Shriek if You Know What I did Last Friday the 13th.

George Logan, a rapper/ women's boxing promoter in Scary Movie 3 and 4.  He commits suicide by overdosing on Viagra and jumping off a  balcony.  Also, there's a lot of homophobic rhetoric.

National Lampoon's Pledge This  is about the breasts of college girls. Simon plays Derek, who dumps one college girl with breasts when he falls in love with another.  A review notes that it presents lesbians as sexual predators and gay men as easily turned straight by the right pair of breasts.

I'm getting an idea of the reason for the disquiet.

His days of frontal nudity far behind, Simon rarely even took his shirt off. Here's one of the few examples, in Boy Toy, 2011. 

The title is misleading: it's not a gay movie.  It's about an unsuccessful but well hung underwear model who tries a new career as a gigolo. No, we don't see his dick.

2020s dick after the break. Warning: explicit.

Modern Family Episode 5.6: Gloria's crush on Adam Devine, Phil's three-way, and a nude Matt Risch

  

Link to a nude Matthew Risch and an almost nude Ed O'Neill

Back in 2014, I was quite adamant that Adam Devine's character on Modern Family, Andy the Manny (male nanny), was homophobic, so I've been reviewing episodes, looking for evidence.  This is his first appearance, in Season 5.6: "The Help."  Ugh!  I hated being called "the help" when I was in high school, working at the Carousel Snack Bar.  I told the boss "I am a human being.  I have feelings.  I am not 'the help.'"

As in all Modern Family Episodes, we have three plots, usually involving a random assortment of family members, interspliced.  I separated them out.

Plot 1: Claire, her husband Phil, and their kids.  Phil's Dad, Frank (Fred Willard), staying with his family because his girlfriend dumped him, being depressed and annoying. They discuss whether he needs a therapist, but Claire's dad Jay (Ed O'Neill) says that he just needs a woman.

"I know a place," he tells Phil.  "Tonight you, me, and Frank are going out on the town." 

 "Fun!  A three-way!" Phil exclaims: a running gag has him saying innocent things that sound sexual, usually homoerotic.   

Cut to the bar.  The men approach two women and say hello. "Not interested!" one exclaims. The other flirts with Frank, so his wingmen scram.

In the morning, Frank tells Phil that he hooked up: "She's downstairs right now.'  Except she turned out to be a sex worker, and he owes her $500. Ok, first of all, you have to make the contract clear, and second, sex workers don't spend the night. They get the job done and go home. 

While they're scrounging to find $500 in cash, Claire returns from yoga class, and wants to know who the woman in the kitchen is.  "The therapist we hired!" Let the misunderstandings begin: "I have always wanted to do what you do. I'd be good at it.  It's basically what I do for the whole neighborhood anyway."  

The sex worker (Peri Gilpin, best known for Frasier) assures Frank that his performance was superlative.  She has a lot of elderly clients who can't even get...um there are kids present...but "any woman would be lucky to have you."  This gives him the confidence to start dating again -- and move out, which is what Phil and Claire wanted all along.

Plot 2: Gay couple Mitchell and Cam are getting married, but they can't decide on anything, so they've asked their flamboyant friend Pepper (Nathan Lane), a professional wedding planner, for help. He comes in with overloaded binders and his flamboyant assistant, Ronaldo. But when they don't like his first idea (a purple color scheme), he goes into a snit, so they have to pretend to like all of his other horrible ideas, like riding in on a unicorn and wearing Willy Wonka outfits. 

Pepper is burnt out from planning 50 gay weddings since they became legal in California, so why not let Ronaldo do it?  Uh-oh, the assistant stealing the job from his boss -- drama.  Of course, they all act like they are cheating on a romantic partner: "I couldn't stop thinking about you.  What happened here yesterday was real!"  Pepper-Ronaldo break up and reconcile.

Plot 3: Jay, the patriarch of the family, and his wife Gloria, who is actually younger than his adult kids, argue over her habit of firing their infant son's nannies: she feels threatened by other women in the house. Also, their teenage son Manny keeps sexually harassing them. 

At the park, Gloria meets Andy, the manny of her frenemey Joan.  Andy reveals that she is  unfriendly because she's worried that Gloria might steal her husband.  

Gloria is irate: Frenemy's husband is too fat to be attractive.  Not anymore: Andy helped him lose 30 pounds! He also can cook. Enough bragging, dude.  It sounds like you're hitting on Gloria.  But it works -- Gloria decides to steal Andy, but in a non-sexual way (well, not overtly sexual; she gets quite chummy as she leads him off).

When Jay and Manny get home, Andy introduces himself as the new manny. Manny: "Am I being replaced?"  No, he's the baby's new nanny, but "My mission is to make all of your lives happier and healthier." So, are you a nanny or a life coach/personal trainer/dietitian?

No way! Jay yells.  "He's a man!  It's weird!" The aging Baby Boomer Jay thinks that only women are qualified to do childcare, but Gloria has a big crush on him: "He's perfect," she sighs. Manny disapproves, too: how is he going to sexually harass a guy? Gloria storms out of the room.  That's the end of it, right?

The next day, Jay is in the shower.  He forgot to get a towel (isn't there always one hanging on the towel rack?), so he yells for Gloria. But Andy brings it for him, and does the gay discreet-glance-at-his-bulge thing (but in this case, he sees Jay's dick rather than his bulge).  I'm confused: is Adam playing Andy as gay, or do straight guys like looking at dicks, too?    

Andy made a heart-healthy breakfast for Jay and Manny, and afterwards, he suggests jogging.  How about taking care of the baby?  

"Nope," Jay tells him. "My wife overstepped her bounds by hiring you. You're fired!"

"I came on too strong, didn't I?  My dad warned me about that when I turned 14." He goes into a story of his dad dying, so he had to be "the man" of the family, and take care of the kids. But that doesn't dissuade Jay and Manny: they want him out.

Gloria returns and starts yelling.  They yell back.  Andy begins a group therapy session that ends with everyone apologizing and promising to do better at communicating their feelings. Cut to the whole family jogging...er, walking fast.

Ok, I get it.  All three of the groups hired "help" in scenarios that looked sexual (or, in Frank's case, were sexual), and turned out to be more "help" than anyone anticipated.

Beefcake: None.

Gay Stereotypes: Of course.  Mitchell, Cam, and their friends seem to be having a contest to see  who can be swishier. 

Homophobia:  I didn't see any in this episode, just some gender polarization.  Andy displays no queasiness about seeing Jay naked in the shower, and actually takes a peek at his penis.  All gay characters on the show are femme stereotypes, of course, so he's written as straight, but it  certainly indicates that he is not afraid of male nudity.

See also: Modern Family Episode 5.13: Phil wants Keefe's lips on his mouth. Who doesn't?

Gangs of London: A gay assassin, his boyfriend, a gay mafia son, some sex parties, and a lot of violence and dicks

 

Link to the mafia dicks

In dramas about crime families, the youngest son is traditionally gay -- think Deran in Animal Kingdom, Ian in Shameless, and Kelvin in The Righteous Gemstones.  So I'm reviewing the first episode of Gangs of London, on Netflix, to see if the traditionl continues.

Scene 1: An upside-down view of a cityscape.  Telling us that this is an alternate world?  No, it's a guy hanging upside down from a tall building, crying and begging Sean (Joe Cole, left) not to kill him.  But he says "What choice do I have?", douses him with gasoline and sets him on fire.  Soon the rope snaps, and the burning body falls. Kind of an overkill.

Scene 2: Irish Traveler Darren (Aled ap Stefan), who apparently works as a hit man, gets a new assignment -- "nobody, just some pedo," and invites his Buddy ( Darren Evans) along.  They park, and Darren goes up the stairs to an apartment, where he waits to shoot the guy.

Downstairs, the Buddy has trouble from a group of toughs.  Then Finn Wallace arrives!  The hit is on the head of the biggest, most important, most brutal crime family in London!  He tries to call Darren, tell him to cancel the job, he's not who they said,  but it's too late, Finn Wallace goes upstairs, and Darren shoots him.

Meanwhile, his Driver Jack ( Emmet J. Scanlan) is terrorizing the Buddy.  When he hears the shot, he runs to the car for his gun.  All the Buddy can think to do is run him over. 

Emmet's dick is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Scene 3: While Darren soaks in a tub, being horrified, the family gathers for the funeral.  

We meet Family Advisor Alex (Paapa Essidue) and a little boy named Danny, who may grow up into a main character.  The costumes seem a little quaint, so I'm thinking that this is all a flashback

They watch the guests arriving, wondering if any of them ordered the hit.

Scene 4: Sons Billy and Sean (Brian Vernel, Joe Cole) play Dad's favorite song, "Suzy Q," so loud that everyone is disturbed.  

We saw Sean being brutal in Scene 1.  Billy is the gay one, and a recovering heroin addict, naturally.  

Left: Horror Hunks claims that this is Brian Vernel, but the one in Gangs of London is younger, with black hair

Family Advisor Alex advises them to not look for the killer, or they'd have a war on their hands.

More dicks after the break

"English Teacher": Gay teacher, his ex-boyfriend, and his homophobic buddy face woke culture and get naked

Link to the nudity

I spent the worst year of my life teaching English at Homophobe State University in Hell, aka a far northern suburb of Houston, Texas. The minute I submitted the last of the final grades, I got in my car and drove nonstop until that blessed "You are now leaving Hell" sign was receding into the distance.

So the new Hulu series, English Teacher, about an English teacher in small town Hell...I mean Texas...piqued my interest.  I could relive how hideously horrible it was, from the safe distance of my living room a thousand miles away.

Score -- none of the promotional materials let on, but this English teacher, Evan, played by Brian Jordan Alvarez,  is gay.  Let the rampant homophobia begin.

Left: the worst place in the world

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, Brian Jordan Alvarez's cock, to take your mind off the horror.

Wait -- in English Teacher, everyone knows that Evan is gay.  Not a problem.  The problem is, he's kind of a jerk.

The much more woke students want to cancel him, for instance, because he said that he couldn't understand why lesbians aren't attracted to men.  Lots of people aren't attracted to men, idjit!

In the first episode, a parent wants him fired, claiming that he turned her kid gay by kissing his then-boyfriend and current hookup, played by Jordan Firstman, in front of the class.  

He has to prepare a defense for the school board, so he writes an impassioned essay on homophobia and gay rights, claiming that it was act of love between life-partners, and if he kissed a woman, it would be celebrated.  But Dude is not totally blameless: in a flashback, we find that the kiss was not a little peck. There was grinding and butt-grabbing. 

More after the break

Zephyr Benson: The Son of the Most Beautiful Teen Idol of the 1980s

What is it like to grow up with a father who was the most beautiful teen idol in the world, the source of gushing romantic fantasies for millions of gay boys and straight girls?

Of course, I'm talking about Robby Benson, teen idol of the late 1970s and 1980s.  He appeared in some movies, but really, he was too beautiful to be a major star -- everyone was so busy swooning and sighing to pay attention to the plot.

He had a physique and a basket, too, but who noticed?  We were busy imagining what it would be like to walk hand-in-hand with Robby through the rain, and share a brief, chaste kiss.

Oh, I hear laughter in the rain,
Walking hand in hand with the one I love

Sorry, I had a Neil Sedaka moment.What was I writing about, again?

Right, Robby's kids.  It seems that Robby managed to find someone strong enough to come within five feet of him without swooning (Karla DeVito), so he married her...um...sorry, just imagining their wedding...kissing Robby Benson! ...and they had two kids, a girl named Lyric (born 1983), and a boy named Zephyr (born 1992).

Zephyr lacks the drop-dead gorgeousness of his father: his long, oval face is rather a turn-off.  But he does have dreamy blue eyes. 

He has the same slim, tight physique as his father, but not so tightly muscled.

He's an aspiring actor with 7 credits listed on the imdb, including more than one gay character.

His magnum opus to date is Straight Outta Tomkins (2015), which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in.  It's about a teenager who falls in with a drug dealer, and mistakes the mercenary attention for a real emotional connection.

Plus he tweets his support of marriage equality.  What else could you want in the son of the most beautiful teen idol in the world?