The Gay Connection of "Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles"

Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles.  An instant New York Times bestseller!  A cross between J. Rowling and Douglas Adams!  The next Harry Potter!

Ok, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, and the Harry Potter series isn't bad, either.  I'll give it a try.  Of course, I judge a fantasy novel primarily on gay subtexts: deep, passionate same-sex bonds, or at least a minimum of heterosexual interest.

How much do you want to bet that Ronan gets a girlfriend?

Page 2: Ronan Boyle is a 14 year old intern in the Galway, Ireland garda (police force).

Page 25: He is recruited by the Garda Special Unit, a secret police force dedicated to relations the faerie folk -- leprechauns, trolls, and others,who live in their own world, Tir Na Nog, but like to transfer over from their world to ours to cause mischief.

So far, so good.  No hetero interest, but no same-sex romances, either.

Page 35: Ronan is a big fan of Dame Judy Dench, and when stressed, imagines conversations with her.  The actress is 84 years old, so it's probably not a hetero-romantic thing.

Page 51: His parents are in prison after being framed for the theft of a  4,000 year old mummified Bog Man, the oldest artifact in ireland, so he's living with his guardian, Dolores, "an absolute delight." No romantic interest mentioned.

This sounds suspiciously like the plot of Artemis Fowl

Page 60: Ronan arrives at the training academy and meets the other recruits, including Log, a very tall, muscular, thick-limbed girl with the strength of a chimpanzee.  Doesn't sound like romantic interest.

And Dermot, a "dreamboat," who has broad shoulders and a square jaw, and is so tall he can block out the sun. Definite attractiveness. Ronan dreams of their "becoming mates," but he doesn't seem particularly interested in Ronan. Homoerotic interest!

Dermot is not pictured in the book illustrations, so let's imagine him as the top photo.

Page 115: He visits Lord Diamond Dooley, who he believes actually stole the Bog Man and framed his parents.  Not exactly Voldemort, but close.

Page 131: The Malton Hotel has been robbed of 30,000 euros of wine.  The suspect is probably Lovely Liam, a gancanagh-- everyone who sees him falls in love with him.

In the original folklore, the gancanagh is a male fairy who seduces only women.  Let's hope that "everyone" here is inclusive, men and women both.

Page 145: Ronan and Captain De Valera, must go to Tir Na Nog to investigate. Ronan respects her, but there is no heterosexual interest implied.

So far, so good -- inclusivity and no heterosexual interest.  But it seems that everyone important in Ronan's life is female: his guardian, Log, the Captain, even his police dog partner.

Page 156: The Bridge of Riddles is just the way into the faerie town of Nogbottom.  It provides a brief setback  -- not nearly worth naming the book after.  Someone is trying to emulate Harry Potter "and the Chamber of Secrets" or "the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Page 188: Ronan keeps his eyes averted, but both the Captain and a male troll get a glimpse of Lovely Liam and fall in love with him.

Score!  An inclusive love spell!

Page 220: While transferring the prisoners to Dublin, Log wants to take time out to visit the wax museum.  She wants to see the statue of Liam Neeson, whom she finds hot. Ronan states that he is open to the idea of "meeting a wax Liam Neeson," but would would prefer a wax Judi Dench. 

Page 237: They begin the next case, tracking down harpies in County Wexford.  There's a fight, and Ronan sees something that will propel the plot into the next book of the series.

More after the break

Asa Butterfield: A dozen "boy meets girl" movies, a dozen nude photos, and a boyfriend

 

Link to the nude photos

I keep thinking that Asa Butterfield is American due to his old-fashioned name -- maybe Moravian or Amish -- but he's actually British, born in Islington, 30 minutes by underground from the British Museum.  It has pubs called The Earl of Essex, The Duke of Cambridge, and the Pig and the Butcher.  Can't get more British than that.

He got his start in horribly depressing movies like After Thomas and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 2007, which of course were on my "run away fast" list.  

Then came Hugo, 2011, a fantasy with an ending that made me cringe -- the photo looks like two boys have the adventure, but it's actually a boy and a girl.  When Hugo announces that he's got a girlfriend, the adults throw confetti, high-five each other, and scream with joy.  That happened to me every time I mentioned a girl, no matter how casually: "A girl in my class did a book report on Finnegan's Wake."  "Hallelujah, he's straight!  He's normal!  We don't have to worry anymore!  Here, have some money and the keys to the car!"

Although it did allow me to get away with anything: "Sorry I left my jacket on the bus.  I was talking to this girl, see...."  "Hah-hah, of course, boys will be boys!  Here, have some money and the keys to the car!"

I didn't see Ender's Game, 2013, because the original novel was written by the horribly homophobic Orson Scott Card, or A Brilliant Young Mind, 2014, because the brilliant young math prodigy gets a brilliant young girlfriend. 

The novel version of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children contains no heterosexual romance, but in the 2016 movie version, there are three of them. It's boys and girls gazing into each other's eyes all the way down. 

Are you noticing a pattern here?

Then Came You, 2018: A boy falls in love with a dying girl. This seems to be quite a trope.  Why do girls never fall in love with dying boys?  Of course I'm not seeing it.

Time Freak, 2018.  At least Asa has a gay-subtext relationship with Skyler Gisondo en route to winning the Girl of His Dreams.

Your Christmas or Mine?, 2022.  Isn't Asa a little young to graduate to Christmas romcoms?

Asa's biggest role to date is in the tv series Sex Education, 2019-23.  He plays Otis, a boy whose mom is a sex therapist, so he and his friends get the idea of opening a clinic to solve teenagers' sex problems. There are some gay characters, but Otis is straight.  And naked a lot.

More after the break. 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Heterosexual Children

After he is bullied by some mean kids, 16-year old drugstore employee Jake (Asa Butterfield) received a telephone call from his raging, delusional grandpa, Abe Portman (Terence Stamp).

His deadbeat father, who doesn't have a job, can't get off work, so his boss drives him over. 

It's mid-afternoon when they leave but the middle of the night when they arrive, although in other scenes Abe lives close enough for Jake to bicycle over. 

Have you had enough inconsistencies yet?  Good-- we're just getting started.

They find Grandpa dead, with his eyes gouged out.  But he lives long enough to tell Jake to go to the Home.

Flashback to Grandpa babysitting the 5- and 10-year old Jake, and telling him about his childhood.  He lived in Poland before World War II, where there were "monsters" about, so his parents sent him to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, on an island off the coast of Wales, where he would be safe.

Ok, I get it.  Grandpa was Jewish.  Repeat:  Jewish. It's a perfectly legitimate word.  Why is everyone afraid to say it?

The Peculiar Children all had bizarro powers:
1. Emma was lighter than air.
2. Olive could start fires by touching things.
3. Fiona could make plants grow.
4. Millard was invisible.
5. Hugh (Milo Parker, left) was full of bees.
6. Horace (Hayden Keeler-Stone, below) could project his dreams onto a screen, like a movie (how did he ever discover that one?).

Abe left the home in 1941 to join the army, but he stayed in contact with the Headmistress, Miss Peregrine. 

Back to the present: Jake tells the whole story to his therapist, who suggest that the Peculiar Children were actually mentally ill or physically disabled or something.  Since Miss Peregrine is still alive -- she would be well over 100 -- why not pop over to Wales and check? 

So Jake and his dimwitted loser Dad drop everything and fly to a tiny village in Wales, where Dad pays some local boys to hang out with the mortified teenager.  They take him to the Home, in ruins since it was bombed by the Nazis in 1941.

Why would the Nazis bomb a children's home in a tiny town in Wales?

By the way, Dad (Chris O'Dowd) is writing a book on birds, and the tiny town has some interesting specimens.  We get the idea that the bird book is a pipe dream, something he is writing endlessly but will never finish. 

He's also amazingly neglectful:  "I see that something is troubling you.  If you want to talk about it, call your therapist.  I'm busy."

No wonder Jake later drops out of the family without a moment's hesitation.

Back to the House: somehow Jake takes a step to the right, and the Home is still there, with Miss Peregrine and the children the same age as they were in 1941  After some shenanigans and missteps, they explain: they're in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over.  Every night, just as the bomb falls, Miss Peregrine resets time 24 hours.

And there are similar time loops all over the world, where other Peculiar Children are kept safe from monsters by reliving the same day over and over.

These time loops are presented as marvelous paradises, but can you imagine how horrible it would be to live 70 years with the same 11 people, never growing up, no movies, no tv, nothing to do all day, every day?  They don't even take classes.  They play, eat giant carrots for dinner, watch Hugh's dreams on a movie screen (here's hoping he doesn't have an erotic dream), and then go outside to watch Miss Peregrine reset time as the bombs fall.

And there are monsters, eyeless creepy things who are  trying to regain their humanity by eating the eyes of Peculiar Children.  I think.

It's all completely muddled and nonsensical, a mishmash of Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, H. P. Lovecraft, and nonsense.  Plus two -- count 'em -- two hetero romances.

1. The morose teenage Enoch, who hates Jake on sight, finally gets the gumption (after 70 years) to tell Olive that he is in love with her. They walk off hand in hand.

2. Jake falls for Emma, his grandfather's girlfriend.  After the adventure is over and the eyeless monsters subdued, Grandpa Abe (alive again for some reason) tells him "Go to her."  So the 16-year old drops everything, including school and his parents, and rushes to the ship and kisses her. 

Oh, I forgot.  The Peculiar Children raise the Titanic or something.

I don't know what was more annoying, the incessant heterosexism or the fact that the MOVIE MAKES NO SENSE.

By the way, the top photo is the hunky Bryson Powers, who is listed in the credits as "Surfer Boy."  I don't remember anyone surfing in the movie. 

"The Sandman": Endless/King of Dreams is Trapped in a Bottle for 50 Years, and There are Gay Guys

 

People keep praising Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels, so a few years ago I bought The Overture to familiarize myself with the complicated postmodern meta-narrative.  Couldn't understand anything, not a word!  Netflix just dropped a Sandman series, so I'm trying again.  Hopefully they'll dumb it down sufficiently so someone with just a Ph.D. and eight published books can follow the plot.

Scene 1: An old-fashioned car driving through woods, while the King of Dreams (Tom Sturridge, left) tells us that the dream world and the waking world are interconnected.  Its occupant hugs a mysterious satchel.  Meanwhile, a bird flies into outer space and through a spooky graveyard to a castle, where the man in the car is waiting with his satchel.  But it doesn't stop: on and on, into the castle, through the library, and into a chapel, where it lands on the King of Dreams' shoulder. 

Flashback: in spite of the misgivings of his servant ("Dreams rarely survive in the waking world"), the King puts on a gas mask and ventures into the waking world to prusue a "rogue nightmare."  Couldn't you send a dream-world cop, or rogue-nightmare-control officer?

Scene 2:  1916, Wych Cross, England.  The driver awakens the man in the car, Dr. Jonathan Hathawy of the Royal Museum: they've arrived at Fawny Rig, a spooky old mansion.  A boy named Alex answers the door.  He wants to know if Hathaway has come to join the Order of Ancient Mysteries, but he's actually going to see the Magus, Roderick Burgess.  

Alex leads him to a chamber where robed figures are performing a ritual, but actually the Magus is in the study!  He led Hathaway to the wrong room just to mess with him!

The Magus (an old guy) enters, sends Alex scurrying out to fetch tea.  Plot dump: the Magus wanted a book, the Magdalene Grimoire, to summon and trap the Angel of Death and force him to resurrect his son, who was killed at Gallipoli.  At frist Hathaway refused to bring it, but then his own son was killed, so ok.  

Scene 3: A procession of robed figures holding candles. Alex takes Hathaway's hand and leads him with the procession to a crypt. "Tonight we will capture Death," the Magus announces.

The scene abruptly shifts to Berlin, where a motorist, nattily dressed with a Panama hat, is shocked to see the gas mask-clad King of Dreams materialize.  The motorist is the rogue nightmare, killing people in the waking world for fun.  "Isn't that why you created us?" he exclaims. The King disagrees, and starts evaporating him -- but then he is evaporated himself!

Meanwhile, back in England, the Magus is offering various gifts to the gods or whoever, to draw the Angel of Death into a magic circle.  After some chanting and fireworks, the King of Dreams appears instead, gas mask and all,  unconscious! The Magus strips him and steals his magical implements: a ruby, a feather, and a bag of sand -- leaving him naked,  helpless, trapped in the magic circle.  The boy Alex is upset by his brutality.

Having the King of Dreams incapacitated causes havoc in the dream world and the waking world, like nearly a million people who were asleep not being able to wake up.  Millions of others could never fall asleep again.

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Scene 4: The rogue nightmare from Scene 3, now named the Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook), visits the Magus.  He explains that the ritual accidentally summoned Dream, an Endless ("more than a god").  To keep him contained, put him in a glass sphere, and never fall asleep in his presence -- take amphetamines to stay awake. If he ever escapes, into the waking or the dream world, he will kill you all.

Scene 5: The Magus knows that he got the wrong guy, but he still orders  Dream/Endless to return his son from the dead.  If he can't do that, then how about providing  "power, wealth, and immortality" instead?  But Dream/Endless refuses to speak.  Alex feels guilty about keeping someone prisoner.  The bird from Scene 1 hovers around.

Scene 6: Ten years later.  The Magus and his cult  used Dream/Endless's ruby, feather, and sand to acquire "youth and prosperity," while the rest of the world languished.  The 20-year old Alex (Laurie Kynaston) tells a roomful of people that  the Magus can't see anyone else today.  Two men get angry and start to yell, but the Girl scares them off by claiming that Alex has magical powers, too.  She flirts her way into getting in.

Scene 7: Was it a magical consultation or a wild party?  In the morning, booze bottles and semi-naked women are scattered around.  The two daytime guards are late, so Alex offers to guard Dream/Endless.  

After feeling guilty for the last ten years, Alex asks Dream/ Endless "Are you all right in there?"  Dream/Endless stares: What do you think, jerk?  "I would let you out, if I could...."  

Uh-oh, the Magus overhears!  He drags Alex upstairs, beats him, accuses him of conspiring with Dream/Endless, and tries to kill him.  The Girl and Deram/Endless's pet bird intervene.  "Ok, to prove your loyalty, shoot the pet bird!" the Magus yells.

Scene 8: While Alex is out hunting for the bird, it sneaks into the mansion, starts a fire, and uses the distraction to --- well, nothing.  Alex shoots it, then feels guilty. Dream: "The savagery of my captors bespoke a world whose dreams in my absence turned darker still."  What, exactly, is his job?  Does he put people to sleep and wake them up again?  Decide what people dream about?  Or keep them from having nightmares?  

Scene 9:  Alex, dozing in the park while reading Evelyn Waugh, has a meet-cute with Paul (Christopher Colquhoun)  Wait -- he's gay?  I thought he was dating The Girl.  

Later, the Girl (Ethel) tells Alex that she's pregnant.   The Magus is irate, and wants her to get an abortion.  So she's dating the Magus, and she and Alex are just friends?

Scene 10: Instead, she steals Dream's magical items and the Magdalene Grimoire (and 200,000 pounds) and vanishes.  Snarling, the Magus uses this as a bargaining chip with Dream: "Give me what I want -- youth, wealth, and immortality -- and you can go after her and get your stuff back."  It used to be power, wealth, and immortality.  I guess he's getting older.  Still, seems like an odd wish list.  

He starts beating Alex, who pushes him away -- right into the glass cage.  He bashes his head and dies.

So, now Alex can release Dream, right?  No ---  the Magus told him that if the Dream gets out, he'll kill them all.  So -- "I have to think."

Scene 11:  Alex is comforted by Paul.  In the rain.  They hold hands.  Dream: "Out of loss, new love was born."  Wait -- I thought Alex hated the Magus.  

"And new life."  Ethel, the Magus's ex-girlfriend, is still in the story: she tells her baby son, Johnny: "We're going to make our dreams come true.  And nothing is going to stand in our way."  Ulp, a villainess in the making.

Scene 12: Alex and Paul visit Dream: "Do you promise that, if we let you out, you won't harm us?"  Dream refuses to answer.  Many years pass, and Dream still refuses to answer.  Alex and Paul get old.  Darn, they'll be out of the story  in the next episode.

I'll stop the scene-by-scene there.

Beefcake: The naked Dream.  

Other Sights: Other than a glimpse of Dream's palace, just the mansion.

Gay Characters: Alex and Paul.

Inconsistent Motives:  The Magus keeps asking for wealth, but he's already got wealth.  Dream refuses to speak, even though he will be released by promising not to harm Alex.   And the guy at the beginning vanishes from the story.

Pretentiousness:  Lots.

My Grade: A-

See also: "The Sandman": Season 2: What happened to the beefcake and gay romance? After watching, you'll need to see some cocks

Twelve Forever: The First Gay Protagonist of Any American Children's Program

In Twelve Forever, a 12-year old girl named Reggie is terrified by the prospect of growing up, so she creates a fantasy world called Endless Island, and populates it with interesting characters like Flower Woman (with flowers for eyes), Brown Roger (a small, hairy thing), and Guy Pleasant (half rock star, half dog).


For antagonists, she conjures up the Butt Witch and her henchman Big Deal, who try to force her to grow up.  She convinces two of her real-life friends, Todd and Esther, to come along.


Sounds like H.R. Pufnstuf meets Peter Pan, except those islands were real.   I'm not so sure about Endless Island. It sounds very much like a psychotic delusion.

I became interested due to an episode in which the Butt Witch tries to break up the romance between two burly wrestlers, Mack and Beefhouse.  Two burly male wrestlers!

The other characters are completely nonchalant about their gender, saying things like "I can't wait to find my soulmate," and so on.

This is definitely a gay -positive show.  Reggie herself gets a crush on a girl named Connelly.

Unfortunately, Reggie is such a self-centered jerk that she's impossible to watch.  When Connelly displays interest, she makes an excuse and runs away.  Repeatedly.

Imagine: you're 12 years old, you find a girl you like, and she makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you.   How's that for a crushing childhood trauma?

Later, at the school dance (4 male-female couples and Reggie), Connelly shows up, and a flustered Reggie forces her friends to leave, even though they are having fun.

Isn't it always the way: you find a gay-positive character, and they're unpleasant and possiblypsychotic?

Oh,well, who am I to nit-pick?  This is the first gay protagonist of any American children's tv program, cause for celebration.

"Werewolf Castle": Mostly Gay Actors, Mostly Shirtless Scenes, and a Dead Wife

 

Werewolf Castle (2021) has popped up among my Vudu recommendations.  The trailer shows a werewolf eating a girl while Medieval villager Thorfinn (Peter Lofsgard) looks on in horror, but after that it's all beefcake and bonding -- seven shots of the shirtless Thorfinn, plus a scene where another guy grabs his arm.  Besides, who knows who the girl is?  She could be his sister, his mother, or a random villager. 

I'm still worried that I'll fork over $3.95 for a rental and spend two hours watching Thorfinn fight werewolves with his shirt off, only to see him fall in love with a girl.  Time for more research.

1. Getting pictures of his shirtless scenes proved impossible.  There are none on Google Images, and screen captures didn't work with Chrome or Firefox.

2. If "Peter G. Lofsgard" is the same as "Peter Lofsgard," he has a boyfriend.

3. Six of the top-listed stars on IMDB are men.  I am particularly interested in the buddy-bonding potential of Percy, played by Jake Watkins. 

Jake Watkins is also gay.

4. Or Osmond Blakewood (Derek Nelson).

Derek Nelson has lots of pictures of women on his Instagram, so he's probably straight, but he has a bedroom-cuddling shot with Peter Lofgard in Vampire Virus 

5. A second trailer on IMDB shows the girl getting werewolf-ized three times.  Once she's in bed with Thorfinn.  So the dead wife or girlfriend drives the plot!  Boo!  

6. A review on Dread Central complains about having a "flamboyant" gay-coded villain, Wolfstan (Reece Connolly, who is gay and flamboyant in real life).  Maybe it's not a stereotyped gay villain so much as the luck of the draw: when you hire mostly gay actors, some of them are bound to be swishy.

7. Who is hiring all of these gay actors?   Writer/director Charlie Steeds has produced 15 movies, including A Werewolf in England, Vampire Virus, Death Ranch, An English Haunting,  and Escape from Cannibal Farm.  They usually have a heterosexual-romance primary plot, with gay characters or gay subtexts in the background.

I've now spend more time on research than it would take to watch the actual movie.  But sometimes research is a lot more fun.

"Legend": Tom Cruise Grins, Tim Curry Growls, and Everyone Gets Drenched with Pollen

When Legend premiered in April 1986, I was living in West Hollywood, where everyone assumed that 23 year-old Tom Cruise was gay.  But no one I knew saw it.  Last night we watched the director's cut, and I found out why.  

Scene 1: In his brightly-lit lair, the Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry with horns and 9-inch nails) gives plot exposition to his lackey, Blix, who speaks in rhyming couplets:  He was about to make it so the sun wouldn't rise again.  But then two unicorns appeared out of nowhere, so Blix has to get rid of them first.  Also, the only thing that can stop his plan is inn-o-cence.

Scene 2:  Inn-o-cence, aka Lili, is wandering slowly through a forest where bails of pollen, flower petals, and glitter are floating around, obscuring the camera and covering her face (how can she breathe?).  There are several long close-up shots of her face as she grins idiotically.  She is apparently very high.

Eventually she arrives at a peasant's house, where she can't seem to remember her lines.  

Peasant woman:  "Would you like a biscuit?"

Lili:  Grins idiotically.  "Ummm....what?  Oh...um....I love coming here."  

Peasant woman:  "I'll get you a biscuit."

Scene 3:  Back to the forest obscured by bails of pollen.  Lili yells "Jack!" about a hundred times.  Then Jack (Tom Cruise) appears, and she says "Jack!" another hundred times, while he grins idiotically.  Lots of tight close ups of their faces covered with glittery stuff.  Jack has bad teeth.

  Then they stare at each other for a long, long time.  Just when I think that he's feral and doesn't speak, Jack says that he'll finally take her to the place she's been begging to go to for months.  

Scene 4:  Stalked by Blix and his comic-relief lackeys, Jack and Lili go to the place, a nondescript piece of the pollen-drenched forest, and stare for a long, long time, while I wonder what the big deal is.  Then two unicorns appear. "They'll only be here for a short time," Jack says.  Then why was Lili begging to see them for months?

Lili starts to walk over to them.  Jack stops her in a panic. "NO!  You absolutely cannot go near a unicorn!  It is absolutely forbidden!   It is the worst sin of the pollen-drenched forest!"

But Lili ignores him and walks over, while Jack stares in horror.  She touches a unicorn horn.  They go rogue and run around her, neighing angrily, while she kneels and screams.  (No one notices that Blix and his lackeys have used the confusion to blow a poison dart into one of the unicorns.)

Wait -- why were Blix and his lackeys stalking the girl?  How did they know that she would lead them to the unicorns?  Or does the Lord of Darkness want her, too?  Her inn-o-cence is a threat, or something?

Scene 4:  Later, Lili gets horny (she touched a unicorn horn and got horny -- get it?), and tries to seduce Jack, who is not sure if he's ready for sex.  She sweetens the deal by throwing her ring into the lake and offering to marry him if he retrieves it.  So he dives into the water and looks around.

At that moment, Blix and his lackeys approach the dead unicorn and sever its horn, which is the source of all magic in the world.  Huh?

Suddenly the pollen-drenched forest turns into a snow-drenched forest, where snowflakes and for some reason bubbles obscure the camera and collect on people's faces.   The lake is now iced over.  Lili runs away, leaving Jack to drown.  But he breaks through the ice and survives.

Scene 5:   Lili runs to the peasant's house where she got the cookie. Everyone inside is frozen in place.  She hides as Blix and his cronies come in to fool around with magic and do some plot exposition. 

 Then the Lord of Darkness shows up: they have successfully killed one unicorn, but a second is left, so the sun will rise again.  Take care of it!

Meanwhile, Jack is approached by Honeythorn Gump (David Bennett), a pedophile's dream -- a little boy in a loincloth -- who is extremely high.  He stares at Jack for a long time, grinning idiotically.  Then he gets his eyes to bulge and yells "A human touched a unicorn!  The worst sin in the pollen-drenched forest!  Did you think you could perform such a sacrilege without consequences?"  Hey, it was Lili.  Jack tried to stop her.

Honeythorn says that he won't kill and eat Jack if he answers a riddle.  Jack answers, and Honeythorn has a meltdown, screaming and kicking and rolling around on the ground.  Wait -- you agreed to the riddle penalty.  

Then, all nice, Honeythorn says "Let's gather the gang and try to fix this."  His lackeys consist of two comic-relief dwarves and a ball of light that looks identical to the pollen floating around, but turns into a horny fairy when no one is looking.

That's enough scene-by-scene analysis.  Next there's a lot of staring while grinning idiotically, some magical foes, and the Lord of Darkness (who suddenly has a father, the King of Darkness) deciding that he wants to marry Lili. 

 Jack rejects the horny fairy, who then refuses to rescue him from a dungeon (fortunately, she rescues her friends, who are in the same dungeon, so he can kind of tag along)  He saves the day by reflecting sunlight into the castle, which blasts the Lord of Darkness off into space.  

Back in the pollen-drenched forest, Jack says goodbye to Honeythorn and his lackeys, kisses Lili for a long time, makes plans to see her tomorrow, and then returns to Honeythorn and his lackies.  Wait -- he said goodbye, as if he wouldn't see them again, and one five-minute-long kiss later, he's back?  None of this makes any sense.

Beefcake:  Nope.  No one shows any skin except for the prepubscent David Bennet and Kiran Shah, who plays an elf saved from being baked in a pie.  Obviously you take a guy's clothes off before cooking him.

Gay Characters: Maybe Honeythorn is into Jack.  Jack is unwilling to have sex with Lili or the horny fairy, but that may be because he's a forest creature, and sex represents civilization or something.

Heterosexism:  Jack and Lili are in love, of course.  The Lord of Darkness turns out to be hetero-horny.

My Grade: Ugh. Tell your actors to lay off the weed, and cut back on the pollen!

Michael Moorcock: Bisexual Decadence at the End of Time

Michael Moorcock was a leader in the British "new wave" of science fiction, confusing mishmashes of sci fi, fantasy, and James Joyce..  I liked the beefcake covers, and his name was...um, appealing.  But the novels were impenetrable.

Except for the Dancers at the End of Time (1972-76), a series of novels set in the far, far, far, FAR distant future, when the few remaining humans have practically infinite power.  They can change the shape of the continents and the color of the sky,  instantly.  No one has been born or died for thousands of years; they can be killed, but their friends resurrect them again.

Beings with names like Lord Jagged, Werner de Goethe, the Duke of Queens, Mistress Christia the Everlasting Concubine, Lord Shark the Unknown, and the Iron Orchid spend their time in aesthetic revelry and partygoing.

Sounds like the Aesthete-Decadent Movement of the late 19th century, with power rings.

And substantial beefcake.

They can change their sizes and shapes in order to produce more aesthetically pleasing effects, and what could be more aesthetically pleasing than a gigantic lavender penis?

And the first hints of same-sex activity that I ever saw in print. 

1. Miss Amelia Underwood, a time traveler from the Victorian Era, is horrified when Jherek Carnelian nonchalantly admits to having sex with "a male friend'!

2. An alien named Yusharisp warns them that they have expended so much energy in their various schemes that the heat death of the universe is imminent.  Jherek Carnelian doesn't really believe him, but thinks it would be a lark to accompany him through the universe, warning people.

Yusharisp comes to believe that Jherek is in love with him!

Turns out that Michael Moorcock often included gay-vague or bisexual-vague characters in his novels, although he never actually portrayed any same-sex relationships.

That's a lot more gay content than most science fiction of the 1970s.  Actually, it's a lot more gay content than most science fiction today.

See also: Xanth; Samuel Delaney.

"The Magicians": Hogwarts Plus Narnia Plus Bisexual Menages-a-Trois

 

The Magicians has a 97% rating on Netflix, and it's already in Season 5, so here goes Season 1, Episode 1:

Scene 1: Elegant man and woman are arguing on a park bench. The woman: "You have to get them to Brakebills before HE finds them.  They're infants!  They know nothing!"  The man promises to try.  But...he's lost the boy.

Scene 2: Statue of Liberty pas out to the Midtown Mental Health Clinic.  Urm...the Statue of Liberty is nowhere near Midtown Manhattan.   A psychiatrist or social worker gets all sarcastic at a patient, a surly long-haired guy (Jason Ralph).  He admits that he's feeling better, no longer out-of-place, "the most useless person on the planet."

He's about to graduate from college (wow, he looks really old for 22!), and he has some interviews set up for grad school at Harvard, Yale, Princeton -- the standard Ivy Leagues.

Switch to a close-up of a gyrating girl butt.  Gross!  It's a gyrating party.  Surly Long-haired guy is sitting by himself.  Back to the girl butt.  She turns around to show us her boobs.  Gross again!. Surly tries not to look.

We intersplice the interview and the party scene. Surly impresses girls with a magic trick, discusses Danish cinema, and ignores Gyrating Butt's attempts to engage with him.  He goes to his room, which is full of books on stage magic, plus the Fillory and Feathers series of children's books.  He begins to read one.

Scene 3:  The story: The Chatwin Twins (Jane and Martin) and their older brother Rupert(who was wounded in the War) are staying in the country house of an elderly professor, where they discover that an old grandfather clock is a portal to Fillory (Narnia without the copyright issues).

Back in New York, Julia comes into Surly's room and asks why he didn't try to pick up Gyrating Butt.  "Not my type."  "But she was wearing a unicorn t-shirt.  She was clearly into all of that fantasy stuff you read.  But you wouldn't know because you never interact with anyone.  You're too busy with that Fillory crap."

She climbs onto the bed next to him.  James (Michael Cassidy) comes in and pretends to be upset: "My girlfriend and my friend together! Have you no decency?"  He piles on, yelling "Three way!"  

Scene 4: Julia is escorting Surly (we finally get his name -- Quentin) to his Yale interview.  Piece of cake -- Yale is so desperate for philosopy majors that they'll take anyone.   

The interview is being held in an elegant house in midtown Manhattan.  No one answers the door, so they go in.  In the drawing room, they see the Fillory and Feathers grandfather clock!  The admissions counselor must be a super fan.  Ahh -- he's lying on a chair, dead!

Scene 5:  The Admissions Counselor left a package for Quentin: the manuscript of Book 6 of the Fillory series.  But there were only five books.  This one was unpublished!  It will turn the fantasy world upside down! 

 "Nonsense!" Julia  snipes. "You said you were a super-fan on your application, so he thought he'd share his fan fiction."

"You used to be a fan."

"Yes, but then I grew up.  You should, too.  Start living life in the real world."

Scene 6: Quentin walking down the street at night, reading the unbound pages (not worried that they will blow away?)  Whoops, a page does blow away.  He chases it through a mysterious gate and into the woods.  Suddenly it's daytime, and he's on the lawn of an elegant old manor house.  Uh-oh, Quent is having a psychotic breakdown!

Meanwhile, Julia gets on an elevator, but instead of going up, it goes down -- way, way down, past P1, P2, and P3.  To a floor that is above the ground.  A corridor.  A sign reading "To exam."

Quent heads for the building -- Brakebridge Hall.  An Edwardian dandy with a nice basket eyes him.  "I'm Elliot.  You're late.  Follow me."  

Hey, his name is Elliot Waugh, a homage to Evelyn Waugh who wrote the queer classic Brideshead Revisited.  

I'm not going to watch anymore.  This sounds like the setup for yet another complex mythology featuring the Chosen One, and I don't have time for it.  But some research reveals that practically everyone on the show engages in same-sex activity at one point or another, although the main romances are heterosexual.

1. Elliot is more into guys than girls.  

2. Quentin is more into girls, but ends up with Elliot in Season 4. 

3. Penny (Arjun Gupta, left) is more into girls.

4. Rupert Chatwin (from the Fillory stories, which are real) is more into guys.

5. Josh Hoberman (Trevor Einhorn) is more into girls.

"Onward": Not Your Grandfather's Teen Nerd Movie

I've seen any number of teen nerd movies, where the nerd gets mystical powers or goes on a quest for the sole purpose of wrestling the Girl of His Dreams from the obnoxious jock she's dating.  On the way, he is terrorized by bullies and sadistic big brothers, and savagely rejected by the "it" kids.

So I wasn't interested in seeing the new Disney-Pixar Onward  (dumb title). But Netflix is a desert and Vudu is getting slim...

The Premise:  A world populated by beings from folklore and mythology: elves, dwarves, pixies, centaurs, and so on.  They used magic until they discovered that technology is easier, so now they live in urban-sprawl cities with rush-hour traffic (this is better?), identical to our world except for some clever touches, like houses are shaped like mushrooms and they keep tiny dragons as pets.  Magic still exists, as a weird hobby pursued by a few eccentrics.

The Players:
1. Shy, socially-awkward, anxiety-ridden elf Ian (Tom Holland, top photo).
2. His widowed Mom (Julia-Louis Dreyfuss), apparently a troll or an orc.
3. His big, brash older brother Barley (Chris Pratt), also a troll or an orc.
4. Mom's new husband, by-the-books cop Colt Bronco (Mel Rodriguez), a centaur (insert joke about being hung like a horse).

The Set-Up:
It's Ian's sixteenth birthday.  He's agonizing over the prospect of inviting kids from school to his party, when Big Brother bounds down the stairs.

Uh, oh. Time for insults and name-calling.

Nope: Barley is exuberant and physical, but not bullying.  He's super-excited about Ian's birthday.

On to school.

Uh-oh.  Time for the Girl of His Dreams to walk by in slow motion, her hair blowing in the wind.

Nope:  No teenager in the movie displays or expresses any heterosexual interest.  John Hughes must be turning over in his grave (if he's dead)

Hesitating, petrified, Ian approaches the it-kids to invite them to his party.  Is one of them a troll with cerebral palsy?  Disability inclusive!

Uh-oh.  This is where they savagely reject him. "Come to your party, dick-wad?  I'd rather kiss a goblin!"

Nope.  They are perfectly willing to come to the party.

The Plot:  Ian's Dad (Kyle Bornheimer) was into magic, and left him a special gift: a mage-staff, with a spell that will bring him back to life for 24 hours, but only once.

Thrilled with the prospect of spending a day with his Dad, Ian starts the spell,but only gets Dad's bottom half revived before the Phoenix Stone that powers the staff breaks.  Ian, Barley, and Dad's Bottom Half are off on a dangerous quest through the urban wasteland to get another stone and finish the spell before the 24 hours are up.

They are pursued by Officer Bronco, Mom, and a helpful Manticore.

There are some minor complications.  The brothers have some minor disagreements:   It's all rather mild stuff up to the dragon at the end, the father resurrected only for a few seconds, and final brother-brother hug.

I think that the writers were trying so hard to be nice that forgot to be exciting.

Beefcake: No animated beefcake.

Gay Characters:  One of Colt Bronco's fellow officers mentions that she has a girlfriend, and the two are shown among the patrons of Manticore's restaurant in the final scene.  I expected a gay subtext between Ian and Barley, but their relationship is blatantly fraternal.  But not to worry, I'm sure the high school has a Gay-Straight Alliance.

My Grade:B+.

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Lewis Carroll's books, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, are supposed to be nonsense.  Characters appear and disappear at random.  There is no plot, just a series of incidents.  There is no goal.  Things happen, and Alice wakes up.

There are three ways that you can adapt these books for movies or tv.

1. You can stay true to the original books, and have Alice faced with a random series of events that make no sense.
2. You can play on what would happen if Alice returned to England and insisted that she had actually been to Wonderland:  a grim story of a girl undergoing Victorian cures for insanity.
3. You can make Wonderland a real fantasy or science fiction universe, with internal consistency and logical plot developments (good luck!)

The 2016 Alice Through the Looking Glass did #3, with a little of #1 and #2.  The result varies tremendously in tone, and has about as much to do with the original book as The Lord of the Rings has to do with professional baseball.

Alice (whose last name is Kingsleigh, not Liddell), is grown-up, and who is played by 27-year old Mia Wasikowska, is a sea captain, with a domestic problem: her ex-suitor Hamish (Leo Bill) has bought her father's company (um..Alice's father was a college professor), and will throw her mother out unless she gives up her adventuring life and goes to work as a clerk in his firm.  When she refuses, her mother has her committed to an insane asylum under the evil Dr. Addison Bennett (Andrew Scott).

Got all that?  As turgid as a George Elliot novel.

Then Alice goes through the looking glass, gets involved briefly with some nonsense shenanigans involving chess pieces and Humpty Dumpty, then plummets into Wonderland (now called Underland), where she is given the task of curing the life-threatening depression of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp).

He's depressed over his family being killed a jabberwock attack when he was a boy, so the White Queen (Mirana of Marmoreal) talks her into going back in time to try to prevent their deaths.

To do so, Alice has to steal something from the chronoscope from the God of Time (Sacha Baron Cohen).

Unfortunately, the exiled Red Queen (Iracebeth of Crims) is dating the God of Time.

She also gets involved with the feud between the White and Red Queens back when King Oleron (Richard Armitage) ruled Underland, and they were just princesses.

Got all that?

I don't.

But at least there's no hetero-romantic plotline.  The Mad Hatter does not express any romantic interest in Alice, or anyone else.  I expected Alice to fall for James Harcourt (Ed Speleers, top photo), the only Victorian who isn't shocked by her eccentricities, but she doesn't.

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Teen Tristan Strong's father and grandfather were famous boxers who want him to follow the family tradition -- he has the physique for it --but he would really rather do nerd things with his best friend Edward.  They make up stories, which Edward records in a journal.

You've got my attention.  

When Edward dies,Tristan is so distraught that he starts to hallucinate, seeing a green light glowing from the journal.  No one else can see it. His parents send him to Grandpa's farm in Alabama, hoping that a change of scenery will help.

Definite gay subtext!  I'm listening.

On his first night on the farm, a strange doll-like being, the Gum Baby, appears in his room and steals the journal.  Tristan pursues her to a Bottle Tree, and accidentally punches one of the bottles, opening up a hole in the sky.  They fall through into a scalding-hot ocean, pursued by ships made of human bones.  They are rescued by Ayanna, a girl-warrior...

Uh-oh.  The Girl!  I'll just skip ahead to the last chapter to see if they fall in lo--ooo---ove.  

All clear.  Tristan is talking to the Gum Baby and someone named High John (High John the Conquerer Root from African-American voodoo?)

Ayana is piloting a boatload of survivors from a disaster of some sort, including humans and talking animals. Like Brer Fox....

What the heck is going on? 

Tristan is trapped in the Midpass, a world populated by figures from African-American folklore. Such as the old trickster god Brer Rabbit.  And John Henry, the super-muscular 19th century railroader with the powerful...um...hammer.  

His story actually involves convict leasing (African-American men were arrested for the crime of being black and put to work on railroads and in coal mines, basically slavery by another name).

Whoa, heavy.  African-American folklore was born in adversity.  

When Tristan meets John Henry, he has to stop himself from asking to touch  his..um hammer.  

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Is this kid canonically gay?

That would be telling.  It's a nonstop race, with things trying to kill or eat them every moment, to the Warren, a temporary haven against the darkness that threatens to encroach all of the land.  There a council consisting of Brer Rabbit, John Henry, and a lesbian couple from the folktale "The People Could Fly" discuss the Book (which has been lost) and discover that Tristan is...guess what...the Chosen One.  

Tristan has to be the Chosen One, or else he couldn't participate in the adventure. The adults would just say "Wait here where it's safe."

He has to travel to the other side of the world to convince Anansi the Spider to come out of hiding and repair the hole in the sky. But there are complications.  

Of course.  Otherwise be lousy story.

When he meets High John the Conqueror, the ultimate Power, Tristan finds him him obnoxious, irreverent, and arrogant.

Whoa.  Now I know Tristan is canonically gay!  I'll check out the author, Kwami Mbalia.

Ok, but that's another story: he's  "a husband, father, writer, New York Times bestselling author, and pharmaceutical metrologist, in that order."  He grew up in the Midwest, graduated from Howard University, and now lives in North Carolina. This is his debut novel.

Nothing jumps out at me saying "I'm going to make the protagonist of my young adult novel gay."  But you never know....

"Once Upon a Time" Season 7 Beefcake

Once Upon a Time, Season 7 is a blatant, unnecessary reboot.

Season 1:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Storybrooke, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 7: Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

Season 1: The Evil Queen Regina has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Snow White.

Season 7: The Evil Lady Tremaine has orchestrated the whole thing in order to get revenge on her stepdaughter, Cinderella.

 Season 1: 10-year old Henry Mills tracks down his birth mother, who happens to be Snow White's daughter, the only one who can break the curse.

Season 7: 10-year old Lucy tracks down her birth father, Henry Mills, who happens to be Cinderella's long-lost husband, the only one who can break the curse.

Yawn.  And they're fresh out of fairytale characters.  The only new ones who show up are Mother Nature and Baron Samedi, Hansel and Gretel, and Captain Ahab.  I don't remember Mother Nature actually being a character in any story, and Baron Samedi is a Haitian voodoo god.

Season 7:  Fairytale characters are living in our world, in the town of Hyperion Heights, with wiped memories and new identities.

It's also a beefcake-limited season. The main characters are Cinderella, Lady Tremaine, the wicked stepsisters, Lucy, Regina...men mostly relegated to recurring and guest roles.  I could only find 7 respectable hunks.

1. Andrew J. West (top photo) as the adult Henry Mills, who has forgotten that fairytale worlds exist.  He published a bestselling novel about them, but insists that it is pure fiction.  Oh, and he's Cinderella's husband and Lucy's father.

2. Jeff Pierre (second photo) as Prince Naveen from "The Frog Prince," who is cursed by Baron Samedi but doesn't really turn into a frog.

3. Nathan Parsons as Hansel, who, after the candy house thing, ends up in Oz, and then in Hyperion Heights, where he becomes a serial killer.

4. Liam Hall as the Prince, who dates Cinderella before she marries Henry.  He doesn't have a first name because in the fairytale he's called Prince Charming, but that name is taken.

5. Kevin Ryan as Robert, who is working for Baron Samedi because his lover has been turned into a frog.

6. Dan Payne as Ivo, Hansel and Gretel's father.

7. Chad Rook as Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, who owns a magic fish hook that Captain Hook needs to....well, who knows?