Scott Baio's Gay Fans

After a few failed tv series and execrable movies Scott Baio burst onto the teen idol scene in 1977, when he was hired to play "Cousin Chachi" on Happy Days (1977-84) and the execrable spin-off, Joannie Loves Chachi (1982-83).  He immediately pushed on with his long-runnng "boy nanny" vehicle, Charles in Charge (1984-90).










There's no doubt that Scott was dreamy (though many fans preferred his cousin Jimmy).  He was pleasantly muscular, though no bodybuilder. And he knew how to work a shirtless shot.

But the beefcake shots were aimed entirely at a female audience.  Scott gave no indication, on or off camera, that he was aware that he had male fans, or that he knew that it was even possible for a teenage boy to like him.  Or that he knew that gay people existed at all.

No gay characters appear in any of his movie vehicles, except for the 1986 Truth about Alex, in which a teenage boy discovers that his best friend is gay.

And there is no bonding.  Only two significant same-sex relationships occurred his entire film and tv career: with Lance Kerwin in The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980), and with  Willie Aames  in Zapped! (1982), which was remade into a Disney Channel movie in 2014. 

Over the years, Scott has made only one statement acknowledging the existence of gay people.  In 2010, his wife Renee got in trouble for tweeting that the editors of the website Jezebel were "lesbos," and explained that women become lesbians because they can't get a man.  Scott defended her statement as "freedom of speech" and "the right to disagree."

He disagrees with lesbians having the right to exist?

Scott Baio's fans have had happier days.

There are gay rumors about Scott on Tales of West Hollywood.

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

Star Wars: Admit it, you thought Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were boyfriends

Like Silver Streak, Star Wars (1978) is often read as a heteronormative fable. Luke Skywalker (25-year old Mark Hamill), an innocent, sleepy-eyed young man from the provinces, becomes involved with Rebel forces struggling to defeat an evil intergalactic Empire (in 1977, code for the Soviet Union), and, inevitably, meets a Girl. Except there’s no romance with the girl – in later episodes she turns out to be his sister. And there is a romance with the handsome space cowboy Han Solo (35-year old Harrison Ford).

Han is a loner (“Solo”), traveling with no one but a hairy, six-foot tall Yeti-like creature named Chewbacca (another animal sidekick to diffuse homoerotic potential), and unwilling to investigate potential human relationships.


At first he refuses to speak directly to Luke, and when he lets down his guard sufficiently to acknowledge Luke’s existence, he calls him by the diminutive “Kid.”


We wonder what he’s afraid of, and so does the Girl, brassy Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher): “Your friend is quite a mercenary!” she snaps at Luke. “I wonder if he really cares about anything. . .or anybody!”

Han finally warms up to Luke: they fight together, rescue each other, hug; at the end of the movie, Han asks Luke to go away with him (“I could use a partner”), and, when he refuses, decides to stay with Luke. But now Luke has competition in Princess Leia, who is “infuriated by” (that is, infatuated with) Han. She manages to insert herself into every shot featuring the two together.

When they are slamming against each other in a jubilant bear-hug, she squeezes between them, so they are actually hugging her.

When Han tries to walk off with his arm around Luke, she squeezes between them again.

Even in the last scene, when Han and Luke receive medals and then turn to receive the applause of the Rebel troops, the camera pans out to present the illusion that Princess Leia is between them (she is actually standing behind them).

Director George Lucas, not well known for accentuating the homoerotic potential of his films, worked very hard to ensure that Han and Luke never connect in any substantive way. What was he afraid of?

The Gay Werewolf of Steppenwolf

When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College in the early 1980s, I took three German classes with tall, gray-haired, constantly-scowling Professor Weber, who was obsessed with demonstrating that homosexualitat did not exist in modern Germany.

Stefan George, Thomas Mann, the Physical Culture Movement, Robert Musil, Magnus Hirschfield, the Kit-Kat Club of Berlin between the Wars?

"Posh!  Nonsense!  About friendship and the nationalist ideal, not homosexualitat!"

He would allow no discussion of current campus favorite Steppenwolf  by Herman Hesse: "Posh!  Nonsense!  A book of monsters!  Fit only for the Late-Late Show!"

So of course, I had to read it.

The cover illustration of two nearly-naked women nearly turned me away.

As did the clueless school librarian who kept trying to point me to the music section, insisting that the book was about the rock band Steppenwolf.

But finally I managed to get a copy.

I saw immediately why Dr. Weber forbade the class from discussing it.

The protagonist, Henry Haller, feels depressed, friendless, and alienated from the world he no longer understands -- what adolescent hasn't felt like that?  Especially gay adolescents.

The source of his alienation: he is a werewolf, a man with two natures, one civilized and stable and heterosexual, the other wild.

Wild, savage, untamed, homoerotic.

While wandering aimlessly through the city, he sees an advertisement for "Magic Theater -- not for everybody." (Or, in this Spanish sign, "for lunatics only.").

 Maybe in the Magic Theater he will find a way to reconcile his two natures.  Or maybe it will lead him to oblivion.  He resolves to seek it out.

En route, he meets two people.  Hermine nurtures his "civilized" side, introducing him to the pleasures and constraints of heterosexual normalcy, including sex with women.

Seductive saxophonist Pablo offers him a "walk on the wild side."

(In the 1974 film version, Henry is played by Max von Sydow, and Pablo by Pierre Clementi).

Eventually Henry kills his "civilized side," and Pablo announces that he is ready for the Magic Theater. He walks inside, through a narrow corridor into the future.

For the gay men of my generation, it sounds precisely like your first visit to a gay bar.  You circle the block a few times, then park, and walk slowly, terrified, to that door marked "Magic Theater: Not for Everybody."  Your future lies behind it.

Hesse envisioned several other close male "walks on the wild side," in Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and Magister Ludi (1943).  

See also: Death in Venice; and Male Nudity in German Class;