Lucas Black: Gay Subtexts in the South

In the movies, people from the South are homophobic even when they're not.

Take this speech from Sling Blade (1996), in which 13-year old Frank (Lucas Black) explains why his mom's best friend (John Ritter) can't do anything to protect her from her abusive boyfriend:

He's funny, you know. Not funny "Ha-Ha", funny queer. He likes to go with men instead of women. That makes him not able to fight too good. He sure is nice, though. He's from St. Louis. People who are queer get along better in a big town. I wish he liked to go with women, I'd rather he be Mama's boyfriend than Doyle.

So he's got an affliction that keeps him from being able to fight or become Mama's boyfriend.  Sure is nice, though.

But implicit homophobia in Southern characters doesn't prevent gay subtexts; in fact, it facilitates them, since "no one" will believe that a masculine-coded Southerner could possibly be "funny queer."

Check out the career of 30-year old Lucas Black:

1. All the Pretty Horses (2000).  He plays a teenager in the Old West who rides with cowboy buddies (Matt Damon, Henry Thomas) and doesn't get a girl.

2. Killer Diller (2004). Good old boys Wesley and Vernon (Lucas, William Lane Scott) start a band together.

3. Friday Night Lights (2004). About a struggling Texas high school football team, with the coach (Billy Bob Thornton) big-brothering star athlete (Lucas).

4. Jarhead (2005). Marine (Jake Gylenhaal) buddies around with his platoon.  Lucas has only a few scenes as Southern-fried Chris Kruger, but there's a lot of testosterone in the air.

5. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2007).  Alabama teen Sean Boswell (Lucas) moves to Japan with his Dad and gets a girlfriend, but buddies with  Han (Sung Kang). Han is killed, and the rage over his death leads Sean to become the champion drift-racer of Japan.

6. 42 (2013). Sports biography about baseball player Jackie Robinson.  Lucas plays Peewee Reese, Jackie's close friend.

Not bad for a Southern Baptist boy from Decatur, Alabama.

Roddy McDowall: Hiding in Plain Sight

Gay male actors born before Stonewall pretended to be heterosexual as a matter of survival.  They had "Hollywood marriages."  They brought heterosexual dates to events, and gave interviews about the type of woman they preferred.  Some, like George Takei and Richard Chamberlain, came out in old age, when their careers were over or almost over.  Some, like Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde, had such a fey stage presence that they figured it was obvious, no  need to come out. And some like Liberace, denied the "allegations" to their dying breath.

Roddy McDowall never denied anything, but he never said anything, either.  He "hid in plain sight," taking advantage of the homophobic myth that gay men don't exist, or if they do they're mincing, lisping pieces of fluff.

So, in this photo shoot, Roddy and fellow gay actor Tab Hunter cook weiners and cake in their underwear, and apparently no one in the 1960s had any idea.

Born in 1928, Roddy got his start as a child star, bringing wartime angst to the screen with boy-and-dog or boy-and-horse vehicles.  In his teens, he played Malcolm in Macbeth and David Balfour in an adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. 

He made the transition from child star to young adult seamlessly, playing prissy gay-vague characters, usually costarring with a more macho muscleman: Stuart Whitman in Shock Treatment (1964), Robert Redford in Inside Daisy Clover (1965), Dave Draper in Lord Love a Duck (1966).

His friends were usually muscular, too, such as Scotty Beckett and fellow gay actor Farley Granger. (There was originally a girl between them, but she's been photoshopped out).





During the 1970s, Roddy started making movies again, mostly playing fey, easily-ruffled characters, sometimes comic relief, sometimes villains. Sci-fi, horror, adventure, black comedy: The Poseidon Adventure, The Legend of Hell House, Arnold, Embryo, The Flood!, The Cat from Outer Space, Double Trouble, The Evil Inside Me....  Sadly, he may be best remembered for the gay-vague Galen in the Planet of the Apes franchise.

Occasionally guest spots on tv series, but only two starring roles, on The Fantastic Journey and Tales of the Gold Monkey, which I remember fondly because I dated one of the cast members.

Most of his characters in 261 movie and tv roles were gay-coded, but none were gay.

That's something gay actors of the closet generation would never do.

The key was to not say anything, and occasionally pose for a photo shoot entitled "Calling All Girls."

He died in 1998.

Paul Michael Glaser: From Starsky to AIDS Activist

Paul Michael Glaser was half of the quintessential gay couple of the 1975-1979 tv series, Starsky and Hutch (with David Soul): two cop partners who loved each other, a lot.

Although they didn't play up the gay subtext, they were ok with it, merely issuing an occasional wink-wink protest like "Anyone who watches the show can see that Starsky and Hutch like women."

After Starsky and Hutch, Paul starred in a few tv movies, but then his attentions were drawn elsewhere.  In 1985 he and his wife Elizabeth discovered that she had contracted HIV through an emergency blood transfusion, and unwittingly transmitted the virus to their children, Ariel (born 1981) and Jake (born 1984).

During the 1980s, when AIDS was being advertised as a "Gay Disease," people assumed that Paul was gay, and had infected his wife and children.  They experienced the same fear and homophobic harassment that gay people with AIDS were experiencing.

But they didn't let homophobia affect their relationship with the gay community.  They were always staunch supporters of gay rights.

After Ariel died in 1988, Elizabeth began the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.  She became a national advocate for AIDS awareness and research, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.  She died in 1994, and Paul took on the management of the organization.

Jake has grown up living with HIV.  He is now an AIDS advocate and actor.

The First Gay Kiss on Children's TV

The Cartoon Network's  Clarence (2014-) was on my list of potential gay-subtext programs to watch, but I wasn't hopeful.  The premise seemed sort of boring: boy with some friends.  Where were the fairy godparents, wizard academies, or superheroes?

Clarence is a chubby, optimistic kid with two friends, Jeff (his rule-spouting superego) and Sumo (his get-er-done id).  He lives with his single mom and her live-in boyfriend, and has the usual assortment of bullies, crushes, and martinet teachers.

I watched one episode, and turned it off: Clarence, about age 10, was going on a date with a girl!  Why does indoctrination into heteronormativity have to begin so darn early? At least my parents, teachers, and friends waited until I was in junior high to begin the "What girl do you like?" interrogation.

According to the Clarence wiki, several of Clarence's friends also date girls or have crushes on girls. Doesn't sound promising.

In July 2014, Skyler Page, who created the series and voiced Clarence, was fired after allegations of sexual assault by coworker Emily Partridge.  Other coworkers have since mentioned that Page often made sexist statements and behaved inappropriately.  Spencer Rothbell (left), one of the writers, became the new voice of Clarence.  

Maybe the second season will be a little more inclusive.

The gay characters:  Clarence's teacher is waiting for a blind date.  A cute guy shows up.  She thinks, "Great, this is the one!"  But the cute guy is actually meeting another guy.  They hug and kiss cheeks.  Her face falls as she sees that her real blind date is ugly.

Un-named walk-on characters, one second on screen, presented as a problem for a heterosexual character, in a situation where no child is present.

But in the boardrooms of the Cartoon Network, where "Children must never know that gay people exist!", it's a giant leap forward.

Of course, fans are bound to scream"They can't be gay!  Friends kiss each other on the cheek!  Or brothers!  They could be brothers!"

Anything they can think of to avoid acknowledging that there are gay people in the world.

See also: Cory Haim's Bubble Bath; and The First Gay Character on Children's TV