"Baba Yaga: Terror of the Dark Forest": Russian Witch Steals Children

The puppy-dog-cute 17-year old Oleg Chugunov (left) stole the show as the naive assistant to loose-canon police detective in Major Grom: Plague Doctor.   So naturally I wanted to know if he starred in any other project available with English subtitles, and if there were any hints of gay identity (they would have to be hints, to accommodate the restrictive Russian media laws). 

Here's one hint: queer-coded purple glasses.

And another: a starring role in Baba Yaga: Terror of the Dark Forest (2020), a horror movie about the mythical witch who kidnaps children.  A review stated that there was a gay subtext. So I ordered it on Vudu.

Scene 1: A dark street in an urban neighborhood.  Egor (Oleg), a young teen, walking alone.  Suddenly a woman approaches and tells him that he's dead.  Surprise!  It was a dream.  He awakens in a sunlit room with his mother at the door.  She criticizes him for reading fairy tales and doing origami (a sensitive, artistic kid -- gay coded!).

He goes down to breakfast.  Dad (Alexey Rozin) asks him to help install a nanny cam.  They argue about "respecting your mother."  But she's his stepmother! Uh-oh, in fairytales stepmothers are always evil.

On the way out, Egor smiles at the baby in its crib.

Mom tries to make breakfast, flubs it, and breaks down: "Alexey, I can't take it anymore!"  Take what?  Egor's resentment?

Scene 2:  Young teen girl on the way home from school.  Uh-oh, love interest!  Bullies attack.  Egor intervenes and gets beat up.   She walks away.  He runs after her, overcome by hetero-horniness: "Hey, you're the Girl of My Dreams! What's your name?"  "Dashka or Dania."  But her stern, scary mother calls her away.  "I thought we agreed: no boyfriends!"

She goes into the house.  Egor stays behind, overcome by emotion.  Dania, Dania, Dania.  Say it loud and there's music playing.  Say it soft and it's almost like praying.  I'll never stop saying Dania.  Do I even need to bother with the rest of this?  But I'm sticking it out, looking for that darn promised gay subtext.

Scene 3:  At home, Egor looks at a lot of photos of Dania on his phone and gushes about how beautiful she is.  He is interrupted by a weird noise:  the new, scary nanny is vacuumming the kitchen floor, as if she doesn't know how modern appliances work.  She criticizes him for spying on people: "You'll grow out of it.  If you grow up, that is," she says, reaching out to him with sharp claws.

Scene 4: Late night.  Egor goes into the baby's room, watching himself on the nanny cam.  Wait -- someone is sitting in the chair, but only visible on the nanny cam!  A lady with claws and a bird-face!  He runs away in a panic.  The door opens -- he throws a basketball to defend himself -- and hits Stepmother!

Scene 5:  Dad reviews the nanny cam, and doesn't see any mysterious bird-woman.   "Look, I understand your anxiety, but your Mom is dead.  It's time to forget her, pretend she never existed.  You have a new mother now."  Harsh!  

Scene 6:  Anton (Antyon Zhigulin), one of the bullies, is working at the supermarket.  He sees Dania and is so awestricken that he drops a box of tomatoes.  Wow, the Girl of His Dreams, too!  Girlfriend has to swat them away like flies!   His mother, the manager of the store, yells at him for wasting produce: you're useless, you're an idiot, I curse the day you were born...and by the way, don't come home until after 10:00 pm because I'm expecting company.  Two abusive mothers!  Are there any nice women in this movie?

Later, Egor tries to get with Dania, but she rejects him.  Angry, unaware that "no" means "no," he snipes: "If you were nicer, maybe you'd have friends."  

Suddenly the bullies attack.  Egor and Dania run away, into the dark forest right next to the playground.  The bullies follow.  Supermarket Boy Anton trips over some wires, and is grabbed by a scary guy with a knife: "Get out!  If I see you again, I'll cut your head off!"  A deranged hermit living in the woods?  Maybe he's gay-coded.

Meanwhile, Egor and Dania seek refuge in an abandoned building.  It contains a gigantic furnace, which, Dania says, was used to burn people alive during the Stalin regime.  Their souls are still nearby: they call your name, and when you turn around, they steal your face!  (this will become important later).

Suddenly Egor has a video sent to his phone of the nanny cam, with the baby replaced by a doll.  They rush back to his apartment.  The baby is fine.  

But in the morning, the nursery is empty!  Plus Dad and Stepmother are unaware that the baby ever existed; they think the room is empty because they're redecorating.  When he insists that they've forgotten his baby sister, Dad assaults Egor and locks him in his room as punishment.  Egor calls Dania.

Scene 8: Dania getting ready to meet Egor.  Mom intervenes: "You're too beautiful.  Boys are going to try to seduce you,  That's what happened to me, and I got pregnant, and my life ended  in tragedy.  Do you want to have a daughter that you'll hate as much as I hate you?  Forget this Egor and practice your piano!"  Three abusive mothers, maybe four!  What's going on in this town?

Ahh -- the piano teacher is the scary nanny!  She makes Dania practice harder and harder, until she collapses!

Meanwhile, the other bullies tell Supermarket Boy Anton that Scary Guy (Igor Khripunov) has a cabin full of vintage World War II weapons.  He decides to break in and steal some.  

Dad wonders if he was too hard on Egor, beating him up for inventing an imaginary sister.  "You did the right thing, dear," Stepmother cackles.  "Children must know their place."  I'm still waiting for the gay subtext.  Maybe Supermarket Boy Anton has a crush on Egor?

Scene 9:   Egor escapes from his room and tracks down Dania, who acts like she's in a trance.  She keeps saying "She'll come back."  

Supermarket Boy Anton and another bully grab them and take them to Scary Guy's cabin.  They have to go inside and do some recon, in preparation for the weapons theft.  Still waiting.  Why Anton an abusive back story if he's not going to turn into an ally?   In the cabin, Egor hears a baby crying, and there are photos of the Scary Nanny, plus Egor, Dania, and Anton, and lots of other kids.  We've got a perv stalker on our hands, guys! But he stalks boys and girls both, so he's not gay-coded. 

Egor calls them into the cabin to look; the other bully vanishes, so it's just Supermarket Boy Anton.  Whoops, Scary Guy comes back!  They hide; he finds them and attacks; they overpower him and tie him up

Time for some explanations:  Scary Nanny is Scary Guy's wife, who died after their daughter disappeared.  There's always a dead wife in the back story, but I didn't expect it here.  I thought Scary Guy would be gay.  She's been kidnapping kids, who disappear, and every trace that they ever existed vanishes, and people's memories are wiped.  That's what the photos are for -- when one goes blank, it means a child has disappeared.

But who would steal children and erase their existence?  Daria googles it: Baba Yaga, a Slavic witch who occupies the region between the living and the dead.  

Scene 10: Egor and Daria set out to find Baba Yaga and get his baby sister back.  Supermarket Boy Anton wants to join the team.   Egor rejects him: "We don't need you."  Too much competition, dude?  Daria feels sorry for him and lets him join.

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

Beefcake: No.

Other Sights: A housing development in Russia.

Child Abuse: Always caused by a witch's spell. 

Gay Subtexts: Egor and Supermarket Boy Anton interact only through Daria, whom they are both in love with.  During the climactic battle, Baba Yaga tries to distract Egor by telling him "Your friends have forgotten you," and flashing an image of Daria and Anton cuddling.  Interesting that she doesn't say "your girlfriend" has abandoned you.

Anton and Scary Guy seem to develop some affection for each other.  They rescue each other, and hug, and in the last scene Scary Guy takes Anton's hand and leads him away.  But they have more of a father-son vibe. 

LGBT Inclusion: Casey Mongillo, who voices Egor in the English-language version, is nonbinary.  Plus Aleks Le, who voices Mikha (Anton), tweets that he can't wait for more LGBTQ inclusive plotlines.  Don't tell anyone in Moscow.

Horror:  Very effective scares and plot twists.

My Grade: B

Davy Crockett and the Coonskin Cap Craze

During the mid-1950s, there was a craze for "coonskin caps" among the first generation of Baby Boomer boys: a faux-fur cap, round and furry, with a long tail, striped like a raccoon.

The next generation of Boomers found them ridiculous, but remember, this was the era of the crewcut.  With your hair trimmed so tightly that there's not much left, the coonskin cap serves as a nice substitute in cold weather.

And it gives you a nice phallic symbol to play with (imagine putting over your crotch instead of on your head).

Girls had big hair in the 1950s, so crewcuts were a means of gender polarization.  They were so popular that they had their own advertising icons, such as Johnny Crewcut in Boys' Life.   Here he advises kids to "practice undressing fast before bed each night."  The optimal time is under 20 seconds.

I've gotten guys out of their clothes faster than that.









The coonskin cap craze was generated by Davy Crockett, five episodes of the Disneyland  TV series in 1954-55, based on the real Jacksonian-era politician and folk hero, who died at the Alamo in 1835.

Davy was played by 30-year old Fess Parker, who had a master's degree in theater history from USC, but found himself playing coonskin-cap frontiersmen for the rest of his life.  Here's a rare shirtless photo.

I've never seen the miniseries, but they give Davy a sidekick, played by Buddy Ebsen (later Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies), so there may have been some buddy-bonding gay subtexts.

He also hung out with such folk heroes as Jim Bowie (Kenneth Tobey) and Mike Fink (Jeff York), so there may have been some beefcake,

Davy Crockett has appeared in over 50 other movies and tv series, played by a surprising number of recognizable stars: Fred Gwynne, John Wayne, Johnny Cash, Billy Bob Thornton, Brian Keith, and John Goodman (on Saturday Night Live).

Jake Wynne (seen here at the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival) played Crockett in A Man of Reputation (2012), swapping tall tales with Mike Fink in a bar.

But none of them have ever come near the fame of Fess Parker, his coonskin cap, and "The Ballad of Davy Crockett"

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, 
Greatest state in the Land of the Free. 
Raised in the woods so he knew every tree, 
Killed him a b'ar when he was only three.

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....

Yokai: The Gay Goblins of Japan

Japanese movies and tv series often depict the hero fighting off a weird gibbering monster called a yokai.

The humans of Japan share their islands with hundreds of species of yokai, paranormal beings variously described as goblins, demons, and monsters.

Most yokai are indifferent to humans.

Like the gigantic terai oni, who stands upside down to wash his hands in rivers, and is only dangerous if he happens to step on you, or if you're caught in the stream when he takes out his giant penis to urinate.

But a few yokai hunt humans with nefarious, often erotic intent.

Multiple-tentacled yokai are eager to invade every orifice of any woman or man who falls into their grasp.

Every orifice.

There's a whole genre of pornography, shokushu goukan, dedicated to depicting the disgust, pain, and pleasure of the victim.

Turtle-shelled kappa lurk by the riverside to grab swimmers and invade orifices of their own, in the process pulling their victims to their deaths.

They probably believe that humans can breathe underwater.

Shiri me look like people bent over, except for the gigantic eye in their buttocks.  You think they're running away, but they're actually running toward you.

Some Japanese authors even make up their own yokai.  GeGeGe no Kitaro, a manga and anime series by Shigeru Mizuki, stars Kitaro, a yokai boy, son of a living eyeball, who is working for peace between the yokai and human tribes.

A 2007 film adaptation starred Eiji Wentz, who is the subject of gay rumors.

See also: Gay Manga of Japan; Japanese Tentacle Porn

The Big Men of American Tall Tales

In the mid-1980s, Shelly Duvall (fresh from playing Olive Oyl in the Popeye movie) hosted a Showtime series of Tall Tales & Legends, featuring live-action versions of Big Men (and Women) from American folklore: Pecos Bill (Steve Guttenberg), Johnny Appleseed (Martin Short), John Henry (Danny Glover), Davy Crockett (Mac Davis), Annie Oakley (Jamie Lee Curtis).

It was dreadful.  It brought back terrible memories of childhood, when those "colorful figures from our nation's past" were pounded into my brain through incessant classroom assignments and Wonderful World of Disney episodes.

Pecos Bill rode a mountain lion instead of a horse, used a snake for a lasso, and ate dynamite for a snack.

Davy Crockett was once swallowed by a bear, so he turned it inside out and escaped.

Paul Bunyan carved out the Grand Canyon by dragging his axe in the dirt.

Mike Fink (left) was half horse, half alligator, and half snapping turtle.

Who cared?  I much preferred Tarzan, Batman and Robin, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.  For that matter, Li'l Abner and Alley Oop from the comics page.

For that matter, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

And some of the tales weren't even very tall:

Casey Jones ran a railroad engine fast.

John Henry...well, he drilled a million holes in rocks, and then died.

Johnny Appleseed...um, well, he walked around planting trees.

But, on the bright side, they weren't given many heterosexual exploits.

Pecos Bill had a girlfriend, and I just discovered that Paul Bunyan had one, but she doesn't appear in any stories that I recall.

The other Big Men were portrayed without Big Women.

And there was a a lot of beefcake.  Big Men were by definition as muscular as Superman.

You could ask your parents for a Davy Crockett action figure, and then strip him out of his clothes.

John Henry was portrayed as a hard-iron bodybuilder, as in this 8-foot tall statue in Talcott, West Virginia.

 And Paul Bunyan?  Just think about the possibilities.  If he is 30 feet tall, then he must have a three-foot long....

See also: G.I. Joe and Ken; Roadside Beefcake