Kevin Zegers: Two gay roles, two gay teases, two dicks, and a lot of beefcake

  

Link to the dicks and butts

Born in 1984, Kevin Zegers was a child star well known for the Air Bud series, about a basketball-playing dog; and Treasure Island, where he played Jim Hawkins to Jack Palance's scary Long John Silver.  

Nico the Unicorn (1998) is not a heroic fantasy, as the title suggests, but about a oddball outsider boy, crippled when his leg was shattered by a drunk driver, whose horse gives birth to a unicorn.

He took his shirt off in Komodo, 1999, beginning a long beefcake career.

Teen magazines gushed, and shirtless photos began to bounce around the internet. 

He impressed one fan so much that they devoted a website to him, back in the 2000s when such things were uncommon.  There were hundreds of pictures, and article on topics like "Kevin's Biceps."

Wait, it's still there.  This photo illustrates an article telling us that at age 14, Kevin could bench press 200 pounds.  If true, that is quite impressive: the average for a 14 year old is 65 pounds.

During the 2000s, Kevin moved easily between lighthearted child fare, like the contining Air Bud series,  and teens having troubled lives or meeting monsters. In Four Days, 1999. a bank heist goes wrong; in Sex, Lies, & Obsession, 2001, his dad has a sex addiction. Wrong Turn, 2003, is a teenkill. Dawn of the Dead, 2004, is about zombies; The Hollow,  2004, is about the Headless Horseman.

But he managed to take his shirt and pants off in almost everything, such as when sex with his girlfriend made him sick on an episode of House MD.

Kevin's big social-commentary movie was Transamerica, 2005.  He played Toby, a teenage drug dealer and hustler.  After his mother commits suicide, he takes a road trip with a "Christian missionary" who turns out to be a trans woman Bree. 

He tries to seduce her, with a butt shot, whereupon she reveals that she is his biological father. They have some rough times, but the movie ends happily with Toby working in gay porn and reconciling with Bree.

Today most trans people dislike it: "absolutely horrible from beginning to end"; Bree "reinforces just about every single worst stereotype about trans people."  But in 2005, it was lauded for its "sensitive" portrayal of gay and trans people.

More after the break

Michael Welch: Flying starships, fighting zombies, getting baked, showing his physique

Link to the d*ck pics

You probably remember Michael Welch from the Twilight saga, about a girl torn between vampire and werewolf boyfriends (Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner).  He plays a human who has an unrequited crush on her.

Michael had sharp features and striking eyes that make him look angelic, demonic, or alien, so he was often cast as a  gay-vague outsider, even if his characters sometimes experienced unrequited heterosexual passions.

He began his acting career at the age of 10 in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)  as Artim, a boy from a non-technological planet who bonds with the android Data.  performance won him a Young Artist Award.

Next came a series of paranormal and science fiction roles, including a clone of Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) who just wants to be a normal teenager, on Stargate SG-1.  

He guest-starred in a number of sitcoms and dramatic series, including a memorable role as a new neighbor who falls for the brainy Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle.

On Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005), Michael plays Luke Girardi, genius brother of the girl who talks to God,  He has a homoromantic buddy-bond with his best friend Friedman (Aaron Himmelstein), although he's also girl-crazy.

In The United States of Leland (2003), his mentally-challenged Ryan is murdered by classmate Leland, Ryan Gosling, who is dating his sister.

The Grind (2009) is about a grifter, Luke (C. Thomas Howell), who depends on his friends Josh and Courtney (Michael, Tanya Allen) to get him out of a jam. They start a sleazy website, but things go sour, and Luke has to rescue them from the Mexican mafia.

In Lost Dream (2009), college student Perry (Michael) falls for nihilistic free-spirit Giovanni (Shaun Sipos), who is involved in risky sex, drugs, and games of Russian roulette.  He must save Gio before it's too late.

As we often find, teenage gay-subtext roles give way to a thoroughly heteronormative adulthood.  Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, 2013, about a witch who lures teenagers into her house and drugs them with marijuana before literally baking them for dinner.  

More after the break

Wayland Flowers and Madame: TV's first drag queen puppet

During the 1980s, there wasn't much of gay interest on television.  An occasional "old friend comes out as gay or transgender" episode of The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Alice.

A "guy accused of being gay tries to commit suicide" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.

Some "murderous, psychotic" drag queen episodes of cop dramas.

A few gay subtext shows, like The Powers of Matthew Star (with Peter Barton, left)

And Madame's Place (1982-83).

Gay actor and puppeteer Wayland Flowers (1939-1988) began voicing Madame in the 1970s.  She was a new twist on the drag queen persona, an elderly former movie star who had a potty mouth and told outrageous stories about her exploits with men.

Wayland was fully visible behind Madame, and openly saying her lines instead of keeping his mouth shut, like a ventriloquist.  But you didn't notice him.

Young adults, who thought of the older generation as skittish, easily-scandalized, and sexually repressed found Madame's bawdy humor mesmerizing, and soon she became the most famous puppet since Charlie McCarthy.

Wayland and Madame were everywhere in the 1970s and early 1980s, on  Andy Williams, Merv Griffith, The New Laugh-In, The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, Playboy's Roller Disco and Pajama Party, and Solid Gold.  They hosted the 1982 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They were regulars on the Hollywood Squares game show.

A tv series was inevitable, a throwback to the old "celebrity home life" sitcoms of the 1950s, with Madame as a talk show host asking inappropriate questions of real celebrities like William Shatner and Peewee Herman.  At home, she interacted with her butler (Johnny Haymer), uptight assistant (Susan Tolsky), dumb-blond niece (Judy Lander), and kid next door (Corey Feldman, left).

There were no references to gay people, but it was easy to imagine Madame as an aging drag queen.  In fact, it was expected.

  You can see clips on youtube.

Wayland never came out, for fear that a public statement would "cost him a million dollars a year."  When asked directly, he said he was "not into labels."   It was the 1980s -- who can blame him?  He died of AIDS in 1988.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.6: Kelvin sees Keefe's d*ck, and gets a big head. Sounds like a fun evening.

 

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Episode 1.5 is a  flashback to 1989, when Aimee-Leigh is pregnant with Kelvin.  She's over 40, so she calls him her "miracle baby." Episode 1.6 shows us that "miracle baby" as a grown-up gay man interacting with his boyfriend or soon-to-be boyfriend Keefe.

Title: "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." From 1 Samuel 2:12.  Eli was a high priest during the era of the Judges. His two sons did not perform the sacrifices properly, and had illicit sexual relations, so the Lord punished Eli by killing them. Uh-oh, Jesse and Kelvin are doomed.

Keefe's Mushroom Head:  After their Friday night encounter with the blackmailers, Jesse has their van towed to Kelvin's garage, talks to Kelvin, then fetches Judy. Jesse is wearing the same clothes, but Kelvin has changed out of his Faith Factory t-shirt. 

As they are talking, Keefe comes out of the house, wearing only a shirt and socks, eating cheese.  "What's going on?" he asks.

Jesse: "Sickening!"; Judy: "Cool mushroom tip"; Kelvin: "That shirt's not as long as you think, Bud.  Just go back inside."  We see his mushroom tip peeking out from below his shirt, and then his back side as he turns around.

Structurally, this seems to be a joke on Keefe being drug-addled, combined with a view of his privates that leads us to ask "are they or aren't they?" But in- universe, it becomes much more significant. 

First, notice that just a few episodes ago, Kelvin was terrified by the sight of Keefe's testicle.  Now he is embarrassed but not alarmed.  He is used to seeing Keefe.

Second, why is Keefe wearing only a shirt and socks?  Was he in bed?  No -- when you get dressed, you put on your pants first. Getting ready for bed?  No, when you get undressed, you take off your shirt first. 

A likely scenario: After the Club Sinister rescue, the guys drop Dot off, then go home and change clothes.  Some time later, Keefe decides to move forward with the relationship that Kelvin has been suggesting,  Since he rejected a bj offer earlier, it makes sense that he would want to start with a bj.  He takes his pants off, and his shoes have to come off, too.  Kelvin is so overcome by passion that he doesn't have time to take his clothes off -- he just drops to his knees.  

As they are getting busy, there's a knock on the door.  Keefe waits for Kelvin to return, gets bored, goes to the kitchen, gets some cheese.  Then he hears everyone talking and, assuming that his shirt is long enough to cover his privates, investigates.

It makes structural sense: Keefe looks for love in Episode 1.4, rejects the Satanists to follow Kelvin, and ends up in Kelvin's bed.  If Kelvin's "celibacy promise" was real, tonight he broke it, thus making his later despair more realistic.  And it would lead into the isolation tank rescue.

And it gives the siblings definitive proof that their brother and Keefe are boyfriends.  Notice that the gay implications immediately cease.

Saturday or Sunday: Rev. Seasons announces that his church is closing due to losing members to the Baby Billy's Locust Grove church.  We cut to Eli, Baby Billy/Tiffany, and BJ/Judy playing golf.  Wait -- shouldn't they be in church?  Or is this Sunday afternoon?

Personal note:  When I was growing up, our Nazarene church was across the street from a golf course.  The preacher ofter called down the wrath of God on those sinners who played golf on Sunday morning instead of worshipping Him.

Baby Billy gets BJ's name wrong, and then offers Judy a job singing with him. Since he was unsuccesful in drawing Aimee-Leigh from Eli, he's going to try it with Eli's daughter?

"This isn't normal":  Meanwhile, at Jesse and Amber's house,  Gideon comes down to breakfast with a black eye.  His parents are upset, but they don't make the connection to the car chase last night.  So it's Saturday morning?  Was the Rev. Season scene a flashback?

These timeline inconsistencies are annoying.  Let's just think about Keefe's mushroom tip again.  

More about Keefe: Kelvin's garage, several days later (queer code: there's a neon picture of a flexing bicep on the wall).  

Kelvin tells the silings that Keefe ran the van's plates -- stolen -- and got fired for it.  So he was living with Kelvin before he got fired?  Maybe he just spent the night of the Club Sinister rescue, because it was late and they wanted to be intimate?

Kelvin brags that the Nancys gave him a soda machine to thank him for bringing Dot back to the church.  Judy criticizes him for "getting all cocky," and Jesse agrees" "you have had a big f*cking head lately."  Both are double-entendre call-backs to Keefe  (unintentional in-universe, or are the siblings hinting?).  So, where did Keefe put his big f*cking head, Kelvin?   We're getting more and more structural evidence that the guys have been intimate.

See also:  Keefe's Capacious D*ck, Part 2: The Mushroom Head

Next: Gemstones Episode 1.6, Continued: Scotty flirts, BJ is spanked, and Kelvin says "Let's hook up".  With bonus Kenyan men

True Blood: Vampires come out of the closet amid a Southern Gothic soap opera, with some n*de vampires

  

Link to the n*de photos

Last night we latched onto True Blood, which ran from 2008 to 2014 on HBO.

This is the stereotypic South of Eudora Welty and Mama's Family, where people named Hoyt Fortenberry shop at the Piggly-Wiggly and drink sweet tea on the veranda, where everyone is related to everybody else's great-grand daddy once removed, and where the War means the Civil War...um, I mean the War of Yankee Aggression.   

It starts in media res, two years after vampires have "come out of the coffin," har har -- yep, the connection with LGBT people is just that heavy-handed -- due to the invention of artificial blood, brand name True Blood, which some humans have developed a taste for.  Snooty fratboy Brett (Josh Kelly, top photo), looking for a store that sells it, learns too late that every long-haired, multi-ringed Goth isn't a vampire; and sometimes chubby rednecks are.

We switch to the problems of Tara, who gets fired from or quits every job because she doesn't abide idiots and her best friend Sookie, who can read minds.  Sookie and soon Tara work at Merlotte's Bar, where the owner, Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell), is in love with her.  He won't come out with it, but of course Sookie can read his mind.

The only gay character so far is the bar's swishy cook, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), a stereotyped flamboyant, promiscuous queen who  claims he's done most of the men in town, and likes to flirt with racist, homophobic rednecks to get them all scared. He doesn't get a boyfriend until late in the series.

That same evening, the bar's other waitress, Maudette, hooks up with Sookie's brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten).  She's a fangbanger, a human who likes sex with vampires, because they get rough.  She offers to show him the video, which turns him on so much that he wants to do rough sex, including strangling her...a little too enthusiastically.  And she's taping the encounter!

Ryan Kwanten shows his stuff on  RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

The top 15 hunks of the "Twilight Saga," with some n*de vampires and werewolves

Link to the n*de vampires and werewolves

Twilight, a series of four young adult paranormal fantasy novels by Stephanie Meyer, was published between between 2005 and 2008, with sequels in 2015 and 2020. They have been translated into 49 languages, with worldwide sales of 140 million.  The movie series, which appeared between 2008 and 2012, grossed $3.36 billion worldwide.

The premise: teenager Bella moves to Forks, Washington with her parents, and falls in love with the vampire Edward.  When he leaves town, she falls in love with the werewolf Jacob.  Eventually she has to choose between them: she chooses Edward, and they get married and have a daughter. 

There were lots of sexy, tortured bad-boy vampires before, on Dark Shadows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the novels of Anne Rice, but never whole tribes of them.  And uber-muscular, macho vampires, not sophisticates and androgynes.  Perfect for erasing the gay symbolism from the vampire mythos and producing a totally gay-free world.

And it is.  There are dozens of vampire, werewolf, and human characters, but not a single gay one, in the books or any of the movies.

Are you really surprised?  The series is aimed at an audience of teens, who are never allowed to know that gay people exist.  It's fantasy, and gay people appear almost exclusively in comedies set in the real world.   Kristen Stewart, the actress who played Bella, claimed that the series had a "gay inclination...it's all about oppression."  

Big deal.  This was in 2012, not 1965.

But that doesn't mean that gay teen boys must be content to watch actors looking sullen with their shirts off.  There are always subtexts, either intentional or accidental, especially among the gay or gay-friendly members of the cast: 

The Vampires:

1. Robert Pattinson, left, as head vampire Edward.

2. Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, his Dad.

3. Kellan Lutz, left, as Emmett, his brother.

4. Jackson Rathbone as Jasper, his younger brother.

5-6. Christopher Heyerdale and Cameron Bright as Marcus, leader of the Volturi vampires, who have lived in Italy since Etruscan times.

7. Xavier Samuel as Riley, companion of the evil vampire Victoria, who is trying to kill Bella.

More after the break