Dang!: Dysfunctional Asian-American family, with Andrew Law as a gay brother. Gen Z humor, gross-out jokes, cute gay guys, and Brian Jordan Alvarez..

 

Link to the not-fully-clothed dudes

I've been looking forward to the animated Dang!, about dysfunctional Asian-American siblings, wiith some trepidation.  In one of the scenes in the trailer, Andrew Dang struggles to say something to a burly Hispanic dude in a bodega, knocks over a display, says "I love you!" and leaves in embarrassment.  Sounds like he's gay, but in another scene, he's knocking over furniture in enthusiastic kissing and hugging with a woman, so I'm not sure.  I've been fooled by queerbaiting trailers before.

But it stars Andrew Law, the showrunner of The Family Law, about a Chinese-Australian boy coming out, so we'll give it a try.

Scene 1: Boardroom at the XY Deadstock Company.  Andrew calls a meeting with his disengaged, phone-scrolling "grindset alpha" employees.  His co-owner fires him because "every day you spend hours in the bathroom, eavesdropping on your own employees and tweeting their conversations."

"Can't fire me if you can't catch me!" He runs away in a panic, chased by security guards in a parody of those zany movie chases. One expects to hear "Yackety Sax" in the background.  He runs into Lucille,  Head of HR, who hands him the termination papers.

Scene 2: A purple-haired woman is livestreaming her bread podcast, accumulating coins. If she gets enough, she promises marble rye next. Andrew comes and gets yelled at for interrupting. She notes that she's only doing this until she lands the job at Klerp, Kate Hudson's lip gloss newsletter. 

Andrew being fired will be a major inconvenience for Sister, since he pays for all her stuff. "Go back and fight for your job."

Scene 3: Andrew begs the Co-Owner to give him his job back.  "We're a world-changing company!" "We let teens resell their fanny packs for $6,000.  And you don't do anything."  Who would spend that much on a used fanny pack?  

"My lawyer and I will see you in court!"

"Isn't that just a guy you date?"  

"We only dated once."

Gay identity established at Minute 5.00, but what about the enthusiastic girl-kissing?  Maybe it's bi identity.

Scene 4: Lawyer tells Andrew that they have two options: Prove that the Bathroom Twitter account wasn't his.   "Nope, it was mine."  Ok, prove that he was wrongfully terminated.   His older sister Ruthie texts, so he runs away.

Left: The IMDB and the closing credits don't reveal which actor plays which character, so all I know is that Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jared Goldstein (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) are in the cast.

Cut to Klerp, where Purple-Haired Sister is waiting for her internship interview.  The receptionist offers several wacky perks, like a cranial massage, bone marrow broth, and a bossy therapist: "A gay guy who agrees with everything you say, but goes too far."

She's interviewed by a young teen girl who puts rose quartz in her coffee.  They're ready to hire her, when Andrew appears, gesturing wildly.   "Our Sister Ruthie is in town, and she wants to...ugh...grab dinner!" 

"Don't panic.  We can avoid her until she leaves."

Scene 5: They run back to their apartment to grab some essentials and hide, but she's in the house!  She explains that she's moving to town for her very important, very successful job, so she'll be able to evaluate their tech business and muffin shop. 

Dang, the siblings don't have either of those careers!  "When Little Miss Perfect finds out, she'll be sooo annoying!"

Purple-Haired Sister has another interview at Klerp, so Andrew is in charge of entertaining their sister for the day. She interviews with Kate, who is trying "interminable fasting" and doesn't know what "Cornell" means.

More after the break

Yuchi Chiu: The n*ked man on Leighton's couch teaches special education, plays gay guys, likes p*nises. With three examples.

  

Link to the p*nises

We're watching Dark Matter (2024-26), starring Joel Edgerton as Jason, as a struggling physics teacher who is kidnapped and zapped into a parallel world -- by himself! The Parallel World Jason invented a device that can zap you between worlds. He wanted Our Jason's wife and kid (the show is aggressively heteronormative), so he decided to force a switch). 

In Episode 1.4, Imposter Jason visits Leighton (Dayo Okiniyi), who funded the device back home. Here he's a partyboy living on his grandpa's trust fund.  As they talk in his swanky apartment, a n*ked person gets up from the couch and walks toward the bedroom.

"That's a n*ked man!" I exclaimed.  "Leighton is gay!"

"No way -- this series is entirely heteronormative," my partner countered. "It must be a woman." But he rewound the sequence.

"Look -- short hair, no hips."  

"I'm not sure.  They're in the background, and the scene lasts for a second."

I had to agree that it was very subtle, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, but still, a queer code.

The n*ked man is listed on the IMDB as Yuchi Chiu.

Who has a beautiful physique.

According to his resume, Yuchi was born and raised in L.A., but moved to Chicago for college.  After receiving a B.A. in Communication and Commercial Music from Northwestern in 2015, and a M.A. in Special Education from Dominion in 2017, he became a teacher.

This isn't good: in 2017 Yuchi goes to church to hear one of his special education students sing, and hears Christian rapper Chancer give his testimony.  Sounds like our boy is on the fundamentalist side, which usually means homophobic.

Chance the Rapper's p*nis is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, in case you're interested.

While teaching, Yuchi starred in the short Audition: a down-and-out violinist (Amy Meek) gets with a conductor (Yuchi) to get a chair in his orchestra.

Rather a heteronormative start to your career, buddy. 

And BJ's Mobile Gift Shop: A young hustler (not that kind of hustler) makes the rounds in Chicago.

He also did some Calvin Klein modeling.

In 2022, Yuchi moved into full-time acting, with guest spots on Chicago Med and Stuck in Reality.

In 2023, the shorts Kairos, which seems to be about a father and daughter, and ba.la, about a competitive swimmer with PTSD.

In 2024, the shorts Parting Piece and The Coder, and N*ked Man on Dark Matter.

His backside, anyway.  His p*nis after the break

Sam Li: Frank's victim in "Always Sunny," a lawyer, two students, a gangster's brother, tells his mom "It's not a phase." With some Chinese cocks

  

Link to the n*de dudes

In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Episode 18.1, Dennis, Dee, and Mac sit in on a psychology class at the University of Pennsylvania, to prove that they could have succeeded.  Meanwhile, Frank grabs a random student named Jie to fulfill his Back to School fantasy: take a dump in the dean's office (they're interrupted), pick up girls at a frat party (they're not impressed by the dance moves Frank teaches Jie), and jump off the high dive at the pool. Wearing a shirt, but a glimpse of his beneath-the-belt gifts in his swimsuit.

In Back to School (1986), crass comedian Rodney Dangerfield enrolls at his son Jason's college, and encourages him to do those things, including show a monumental bulge in his swim suit.  Jason (Keith Gordon, right) completes the high dive, but Jie does not.

The actor playing Jie is not in the cast list on the IMDB, and Google Ai doesn't know who he is, but Bloody Disgusting says that he is Sam Song Li.  Verified when the guy includes a Sunny clip on his Instagram.

Sam was born in 1996 in Shenzen, Guangdong Province, just north of Hong Kong, and raised in Southern California. He graduated with a degree in Performing Arts from UC Berkeley, and began on-screen acting in 2015.  He doesn't seem to have any major acting roles, so I'll just go by what he lists as "famous for":

A 2022 episode of Better Call Saul, with Bob Odenkirk as the sleazy attorney from Breaking Bad.  He plays Cary, a lawyer who joins Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill after Chuck McGill's death.  His part in the episode seems to involve dropping cans of soda, and being taught how to avoid them exploding due to the carbon dioxide pressure.

A 2022 episode of Home Economics, about three siblings, rich straight male (Jimmy Tatro, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), an entrepreneur; middle-class straight male (Topher Grace), a writer; and poor lesbian (Caitlyn McGee), a teacher.  In Sam's episode, the writer struggles to finish his book before his 40th birthday, while his siblings agonize over what gift to buy him.  Sam plays one of the students in his writing class.

A 2023 episode of Never Have I Ever, with an Indian-American girl negotiating crushes and her heritage. In "Never Have I Ever Been to Jersey," Devi takes a school field trip to New York, and meets Columbia University student Anton (Sam).  The plot synopsis doesn't mention if they do romantic stuff.

8 episodes of The Brothers Sun (2024).  Taiwanese gangster Charles Sun (Justin Chien) goes to Los Angeles to protect his mother and younger brother Bruce (Sam). It's classified as a comedy, but there's drug-dealing, kidnapping, and murder.  No girlfriendsd are mentioned in the plot synopsis.

More after the break.  

Hudson Yang: From "Fresh Off the Boat" to Harvard, cooking, dudes, and the best gay comedy of the year. With Hudson and Xu bedroom stuff

Link to the n*de photos

Fresh Off the Boat (2015-20) was a nostalgia series based on the memoirs of celebrity chef Eddie Huang.  Hudson Yang (left) plays the 12-17 year old Eddie, growing up in the 1990s in a Taiwanese-American family "fresh off the boat."  

Dad (Randall Park), who runs a cowboy-themed restaurant in Orlando, pushes him to embrace the best (and worst) of American culture, while Mom pushes him to embrace his Taiwanese heritage, resulting in conflict and plot complications.

Eddie has two younger brothers (Ian Chen, Forrest Wheeler, right) and a surprising number of gay friends and acquaintance: 

Officer Bryson (Alex Quijano), a regular at the family restaurant.

Oscar Chow,  Mom's college boyfriend, whom she helped come out (Rex Lee, playing about the same character as on Suburgatory).  He brings his dull-as-dirt boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner.

Randy and Andy, who buy a house from Realtor Mom.

Next door neighbor Nicole, whom Eddie helps come out (after dating her)

A good beginning for a gay-inclusive career.  Let's check on Hudson's other roles.

While on the Boat, Hudson appeared in a 2016 episode of the Disney Channel's Liv and Maddie, either as a basketball player or an art student.

The short Hum (2017), about a preteen boy-girl romance.

A 2018 episode of Sofia the First, about a girl who becomes the Princess of Enchancia when her Mom marries the King.  Hudson's episode is about mermaids

Seven 2019 episodes of The Lion Guard, featuring Kion, son of Simba from The Lion King (voiced by Matthew Broderick, left in 1994, Rob Lowe here).  

After the Boat, Hudson appeared in Run & Gun (2022), with Ben Milliken as a criminal-on-the-run trying to live a quiet life with the heterosexist trajectory of job, house (well, trailer), girlfriend, and kid.   You know that won't work out well.  Hudson plays a college student interning at Ben's insurance company.

Next he played the Honor Student (2023), who loses his brother in a mass shooting, and gets revenge by holding a teacher hostage.  No indication that he's gay.

So, only one show with gay representation. That's  not....

Wait, I forgot to research Extremely Unique Dynamic (2024).

The premise: best friends (Harrison Xu, left, Ivan Leung) spend the weekend making a movie about making a movie.  Extremely Unique made the rounds of 17 film festivals and won five awards, plus a nomination from the Queerties. Reviews calls it "A new standard in LGBTQ and Asian-American representation" and "the dumbest, dopest gay meta comedy of the year."

More after the break

The Season: Rich straight guys have problems, too. Even in Hong Kong. With some d*cks, yachts, and the dad from "Lost in Space"

Link to the n*de dudes

I've been fooled by two tv series and a movie today.

Voice mails for Isabelle: A guy sits by Golden Gate Bridge, complaining to his dead sister he can't find his people in San Francisco. Where are all the drag queens. It took me 20 minutes to figure out that it's actually a girl, not a gay guy.  She was wearing a hoodie and pants to trick you into watching.  

Booth Bangla: A guy plans his sister's wedding.  He doesn't express any heterosexual interest -- until halfway through the movie, when he meets the Girl of His Dreams.

Oasis: A family checks into an exclusive resort.  Two boys immediately meet the Girls of Their Dreams, and an established couple smooch.  I was holding out for the teenage daughter to be a lesbian because she keeps cruising girls.  Nope,  she meets the Boy of Her Dreams at Minute 12.  

Heck with it.  I'm watching The Season on Hulu, about "the glittering world of super-yachts, sun, and scandal" in Hong Kong.  At least there will be some nice exterior shots.

Episode 1 Prologue.  A woman tells us: "Hong Kong is a city of bloodlines.  It will destroy you."   An elegantly dressed middle-aged woman floats in the water outside a burning yacht.  She sinks.

Scene 1: Six weeks earlier.  A young woman jogs through Hong Kong.  Nice exterior shots.  Someone named Carrie calls, and tells her that her job today is impress the Hexts.  Impress them, and you've got it made in Hong Kong.

A taxi takes her through the forest to her destination, a mansion or institution.   Carrie ends her cardio work out to greet her.  Back story: Her name is Cola (I love your parents' products, girl!), she has graduated with a degree in economics and maths, and her classmate Carrie, a wealth mover, has invited her to come out to Hong Kong as an intern.  "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get a full-time job offer," Cola says.  Lie?  Steal?  Blow up yachts? 

The summer is Boating Season, where Hong Kong A-Listers decide who they will admit to their social network.  You have one chance to make a good impression; a single misstep, and you're out. 

Scene 2:  A lady, maybe Carrie, tells the staff that everything must be spotless, and asks Jon if he is ready for the maiden voyage.  "Bring on the Bacchanalia," he says in a bored/aesthete tone. He'll be telling the guests to "Diversity at your own risk."  He must be gay.

His teenage daughter sneers: "Great small talk, dad."  Nope. 

On the way upstairs to change, Jon asks a Male Staffer, "Is everything ready?"  Maybe they are having an affair. Wife, now calling him Christopher, says "I really need this to work."

Why the changed name?  It turns out that Bored Aesthete is Christopher (Toby Stephens, the Dad on Lost in Space).  Jon (Lee-Jai Yoon, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is the Male Staffer.  Wife asked him a question while she was walking away from him, toward Christopher, who answered for him.

Scene 3: Cola and Carrie enter the yacht.  They're joined by a guy named Andrew Fung (Chris Pang of Crazy Rich Asians), who was in St. Tropez, but it's too hot in Europe. "Global warming is so inconvenient."

When Carrie introduces Cola, Andrew teases "A younger, hotter version of you?" Heterosexual identity established in his second sentence.  His "lovely wife" Niki arrives and is introduced.  Her family owns the Harbor Club, and are the bitter rivals of the Hexts, whom they are there to impress.  

Next Jay and Sara Byford (Jai Dai, top photo), from Melbourne, arrive and kiss up to Andrew and his Lovely Wife, but he doesn't like them.  

He does like Hong Kong's most eligible bachelor, David Ho (Justin Chien, left). Maybe he's.....

Confused by the plethora of names?  Don't worry; all you really need to know is that everyone is very rich, very bored, and heterosexual.  

Back story: the family from Scene 2 are Christopher and Fiona Hext.  This is their yacht.  Wait -- everyone is here to impress them.  Why are they concerned about the day going well?  Spoiler alert: they're having financial problems.

Sceme 4: Cola is introduced to the Hext Family.  "How nice to see some new faces!" Fiona Hext exclaims.

Cola is turned on by a semi-shirtlessC hunk with his lady, but Carrie warns her: "God, no, that's Matthias! Just a personal trainer, not rich.  Ignore." Heterosexual identity established at Minute 11.

Left: Lincoln Younes, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, plays Matthias the Personal Trainer, Gigolo, Drug Dealer, and Actor.

Dirt on the Hexts: "Christopher's family practically invented colonialism, and Fiona's Old Hong Kong money fueled it."  

Scene 5: Eligible Bachelor is helping the Captain pilot the ship.  Christopher Hext takes over and asks how things are going since the divorce.  It must be rough.  After all, he and Lian were together for 13 years. Don't get your hopes up -- Lian can be used for any gender, but 2/3rds of the time, it's a girl.  And gay marriage is not permitted in Hong Kong, so he would have to establish residence somewhere else if Lian was a guy.

"You're right, I'm miserable.  How are you doing?"

"Miserable, too."  

More after the break

"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings": Martial Arts Hero with Heterosexual Subtext

 

I've been avoiding Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, on Disney Plus, because I heard that it had that old, tired, uber-heterosexist cliche of a dead wife.  And it does; but worshipping the dead wife turns out to be misguided and evil, not praiseworthy.  

There are enough plotlines crammed in to the 2 1/2 hour running time to fill several movies.

1.  A thousand year old crime boss named Xu Wenwu (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, who stared in one of the first LGBT movies to come out of Hong Kong, Happy Together ) has Ten Rings (worn on his arms) that give him infinite power.  But he wants even more infinite power, so he sets out to find the fabled village of Ta Lo, hidden behind a living forest and scary waterfall, where everyone practices a "martial arts sent by the gods."

2. He can't get into the village, but he does convince the guardian, Ying Li, to marry him.  They return to the crime compound and have two kids.  Then she dies.

3. Neither kid likes their crime lord father: his lack of affection, his "I'm going to train you to be an assassin" parenting style.  Shang-Chi (Simu Liu, top photo, the hunk from Kim's Convenience), runs away to America at age 14.  He takes the name Shaun, and becomes one of those effervescent scalawags who populate Disney movies (although it's not quite so charming when you're pushing 30).  His best friend and wisecracking partner-in-30-year old juvenile delinquency is bff Katy (Aquafina), whose main defense is to sing "Hotel California" and confuse her assailant.   At this point I'm thinking,  "Of course they're just friends now, but they'll fall in love during the movie.  Probably in a Betty-and-Veronica 'girl next door' vs. svelte sophisticate triangle."

4. Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, runs away to Macao, where she runs an illegal fighting club on the umpteenth floor of a half-constructed building.  She's also the chief performer.

5. When Dad sends some of his soldiers to kill Shang-Chi, he easily tromps them.  Then he returns to China to protect his sister, who is no doubt getting the same treament.  He arrives just in time to fight her, then to fight more soldiers on the scaffolding outside the upteenth floor of her club.  Pay attention to the extremely sexy Razor Fist, who is missing a hand, but makes up for it with a magic sword.  His name is Florian Munteanu, and his instagram contains 6,000 pictures of him hugging guys, but no women except his mother.

 Then Dad captures them both. 

6. He explains that he has been receiving messages from his Dead Wife, who is being held captive in the fabled village of Ta Lo. They're all going to break through the living forest and rescue her, and "be a family again."  "But Mom's dead!" "No, she's not."  After they retrieve her, his soldiers will burn down the village and kill everyone, just to be evil.

7. To save the village from decimation, Shang-Chi, Sister, Bff, and a comic relief drunk Shakespearean actor (is there any other kind?) steal a car and rush over themselves.  It's in a pocket universe full of strange entrancing animals, and people who speak perfect English.  They meet their aunt, and train in various martial arts, and Shang-Chi learns that he is the Chosen One (naturally).

Left: Andy Le, another of Dad's soldiers, who wears a Chinese demon mask.  In real life he gives off a gay vibe..

8. Auntie explains that the village, and its resident sleeping dragon, are guardians of the gate to another Dark Universe, where soul-eating Cthulhu monsters have been banished.  If they ever break through the gate, it's curtains for all of us!

9. But Dad thinks that his Dead Wife is being held captive behind the gate!  You can see where this is going. 

Beefcake:  Shang-Chi takes his shirt off a couple of times.  Otherwise the main characters are all elderly or women.

Gay Characters:  Shang-Chi displays no heterosexual interest.  I kept waiting for a fade-out kiss with Katy, but all they do is: she puts her head on his shoulder; they touch hands; they have dinner with a heterosexual couple; they walk into the portal to their next adventure arm-in-arm.  At most they have a heterosexual subtext.

Why didn't they kiss, like the boy-girl team in 13,000 other action adventure movies?  Is the director trying to hint that Shang-Chi, or Katy, or both, are gay?  Then why not come out with it?  Because then the movie would be censored in China?

In an interview, director Destin Danile Cretin explains that a romance "didn't seem right," true to the characters and their personalities.  I agree: after being friends for 15 years, like Will and Grace, falling in love would be like perving on a brother or sister.  But heterosexual viewers are pining for the two to hook up in future installments, while gay viewers are grateful for momentary relief from the "boy meets girl" brainwashing.

Homophobia:  The internet has been buzzing with a 2015 comment from Simu Liu that he recently played a pedophile, and it changed his opinion:  "pedophilia is no different from being gay." Both are "disorders" based on genetic mutations. He responded to the accusations of homophobia by saying that he has "evolved" during the last seven years.  But there were gay characters in only one episode of Kim's Convenience.