Tommy Kirk

In the 1960s, the room my brother and I shared was cluttered with the likeness of Tommy Kirk, on coloring books, comic books, Little Golden Books, games, and toys.  A former Mousketeer, Kirk was packaged as “the all-American boy” and “the epitome of young masculinity”  in such Disney products as The Hardy Boys (1956-57) with Tim Considine,  as Old Yeller (1957) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960), with James MacArthur and Kevin Corcorran.  Plus several movies with Fred MacMurray as his beset-upon dad or favorite professor.

 But he entered his twenties, it became apparent that he lacked the tongue-lagging heterosexual horniness necessary for masculinity in the Cold War Era.  Although his intense brown eyes and respectable physique were by no means repellant, he was bookish and shy, an “oddball” (that is, gay).

In The Monkey’s Uncle (1965), his last gasp for the Disney Studios, the 24-year old Kirk plays Merlin Jones, a “scrambled egghead” studying science at Midvale College, oblivious to the heterosexist world of girls and sports around him.   To demonstrate that he is nevertheless straight, director Robert Stevenson cast beach movie babe Annette Funicello as his girlfriend.

Annette spends the opening credits singing, accompanied by the Beach Boys, a hard look of defiance on her face as she dares us to disbelieve that “I’m in love with the Monkey’s Uncle and I wish I was the monkeys aunt!”  Otherwise we would never know: they behave precisely as best friends, not as persons in love.
  
Midvale College is oddly deficient in collegiate beefcake; standing in for football jocks are hefty, slack-jawed Norman (“Woo-Woo” Grabowski) and balding, befuddled Leon (Leon Tyler).  One wonders why a college set omits any trace of hunky extras; perhaps it is for the same reason that Merlin’s best friend is a chimp:  human men might bring homoerotic desire too close to the surface.

Merlin does bat his eyes flirtatiously at girls, but even that gesture seems transgressive, flamboyantly feminine.  Instead, the various plot strands of the movie continuously return to the question of kinship: how does one form intimate, permanent associations in the absence of heterosexual desire?

He finds two answers:

1. He adopts a chimpanzee.  A judge rules that he cannot become the chimp’s father; he must settle for an avuncular relationship, becoming a literal monkey’s uncle.

2. He joins a fraternity.  The "jock" Leon becomes his test case in a human-flight experiment and promptly crashes, forcing Merlin to grab him, cradle him in his arms, and whisper “Are you ok?”

At a pivotal moment, Leon begins to return his interest, expressing a shy, tentative, hand-on-shoulder affection: “All the brains I ever knew were snobs, but not you. You’re just like a regular stupid fellow. That’s why I like you.”  He adds coyly “Let’s go back to the [fraternity] house,” rather an odd suggestion, since it’s the middle of the day.  What precisely does he expect that he and Merlin will do there?  But Merlin flashes a knowing smile, and we recall that this is the last of Leon’s film roles; though only about thirty years old, he will never work again.  Did the adroitness of his hand-on-shoulder affection cause Disney to abandon him?

About halfway through the film, all of Merlin’s plans have failed, and dark-eyed from despair he wails to the chimp, “[Do] you know what it’s like when the whole world is against you?  Everyone on campus hates me.  I’m being expelled from Midvale. . .kicked out. . . disgraced. . . .”  Years later, I learned why Tommy Kirk left Disney so abruptly: Walt discovered that he was gay and summarily fired him.  Although he was asked to return to finish The Monkey's Uncle, he was being expelled, kicked out, disgraced, and most likely everyone at the studio did hate him (except for Annette Funicello, who continued to support him).  That was the penalty in 1965 for taking the next step beyond fraternity, for falling in love (something similar apparently happened to Peter McEnery).

After some beach movies and teen horror like Village of the Giants (1965), Tommy was abandoned into a ghetto of drug abuse and late-1960s sleaze movies like Mars Needs Women and It's a Bikini World.  Eventually he pulled himself together and started a carpet-cleaning business.

Wreck-It Ralph and the Loss of Gay History

I read an article written by a gay guy who was totally traumatized by the homophobia of Wreck-It Ralph (2012).  

The limp-wristed, lisping Candy King, who lives in a hot-pink castle (("it's salmon!", is beat up by the macho, all-man hero, and  called a "nelly wafer."

So of course I had to watch the movie.

The premise: Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in an antiquated video game, wrecking an apartment building so Fix-It Felix Junior can "fix it." He wants to become a good guy, so he leaves his game, and eventually ends up in a candy themed video game.  He helps a young girl win a candy-themed race, while the sinister Candy King tries to thwart them.  There are a lot of plot twists, some scary scenes, and a bit of Disney treacle.

It wasn't great.  I would have preferred a grand tour of other video games (we see three), and some greater exploration of the video-game characters' world. But...I kept waiting and waiting for the "nelly wafer."

Sigh.

1. The Candy King is not a gay stereotype.  He looks and talks like famous comedian Ed Wynn, specifically his performance as the Mad Hatter in the Disney Alice in Wonderland.  Wynn's distinctive delivery was endlessly imitated; anybody over age 40 will recognize it instantly.

2. Ralph is no macho he-man.  He is a dimwitted ogre, an anti-hero, a bad guy who wants to be good.

3. The Candy King's palace is pink for a very important plot point that has nothing to do with him being effeminate: it's not his palace!  He's a usurper.  The true ruler of the Candy Kingdom is...well, watch the movie.

4. Ralph does not best the Candy King in a fight until the end of the movie, when he has transformed into a giant spider-creature, and even then, it takes a lot of people working together,

5. Among many other candy-themed insults, Ralph calls Candy King " a vanilly wafer."  It is conceivable that Ralph said "vanilly" instead of "vanilla" to make it sound like "nelly," an old term for gay men, but rather a stretch.  He doesn't say anything else to imply that Candy King is gay.

Earlier, Ralph appears to call Pac Man a "cock gobbler," but actually in the video game Pac Man eats dots, so the slur is probably "dot gobbler."

Sheesh.

Has the author seen any other Disney movie?  They're loaded down with sleeky,sophisticated, gay-stereotype villains.  How about Jabar? Shere Khan?  Captain Hook?

Or any movie from the 1980s?  "Fags" and "homos" litter the dialogue. Just a sample:

Teen Wolf: "I'm not a fag, I'm a werewolf."
Adventures in Babysitting; "Thor is a homo."
An American Werewolf in London:"Prince Charles is a fag."
The Breakfast Club: "Stay out of my locker, fag."

 A single misheard line that could be a gay slur is nothing.  Grow a pair!

By the way, Ralph displays no heterosexual interest, ever.  He hangs out with other male villains, changes clothes with an army guy in a patently homoerotic scene, and buddy-bonds with Fix-It Felix.  Gay subtext is rather obvious.

When you don't remember your own history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Mr. Student Body President: Finn the Human Rules the School

You're probably wondering what the extremely bicep-gifted Jeremy Shada has been doing during the two years since Adventure Time ended, sending Jake the Dog and Finn the Human into Ooovian history.

The answer is: running for student body president at Beringer High, a position of unlimited power and prestige.

Mr. Student Body President is a rather awkward title; we're apparently supposed to read it as Mr. President, with "Student Body" in parenthesis.

The 15-minute long episodes are called "Clips." I watched the first.

1. Teen operator Tyler Prendergast (Jeremy) and his entourage (cheerleader girl on one side, smart clipboard holding girl on the other, nonbinary person carrying his coffee) discuss his morning schedule and the new principal's hassles over the upcoming pep rally. He hyperbolizes: "This pep rally will be the most important thing any of us will ever do."  It will be big, with fireworks and live music.

2. He argues with Principal Helfrick, who is young enough to be a student, but a stick-in-the-mud.  She makes a reference to Van Halen, and Smart Girl explains: "It's something old people are into, like Twilight or email."

3. He negotiates with his Vice President, Jenna, and Lance, the Spirit Chair (whatever that is).

4. The Student Council deals with the crisis of the day: Star quarterback Damion was suspended for appearing with a red cup in an instagram post, so now he can't play in the Big Game. 

Other players and cheerleaders are getting suspended for social media posts where they use terms like "get turnt," which the oldsters don't understand but think must refer to sex or drugs.  To try to defuse the situation, Tyler decides to cancel the party being held by Cheerleader Natalie tonight.  He can do that?

Unlimited power.

5. Tyler tries to use his executive privilege to grant clemency to the suspended students, but the Principal vetoes him.  She assures him that it doesn't matter: once you graduate, you move into the world, and never think about high school again.

Wrong!  The memories of high school stay with us forever.  High school defines us, Tyler explains.

But...no one cares except for football players and cheerleaders: there are many other groups pursuing their own interests, like the ecology club and the honor society.

6. So Tyler invites them all to Natalee's party and has them post contraband or bad words to social media, so the whole school will be suspended.

The Principal can't suspend them all, nor can she suspend just the football players and cheerleaders and not the honor society president and chief cellist, so she backs off.

7. Tyler gets his vast, expensive home coming, with the theme "The Sexual Awakening of Miley Cyrus."  Dancing in Miley Cyrus drag, Tyler waves at the Principal.

She says: "You want a war, Tyler, you got it."

Beefcake:  None.  They're all at school all the time.  I  got these photos by googling "Mr. Student Body President" and "shirtless" or "nude," so there are apparently shirtless shots later on.  Gabriel Conte (3rd photo) appears in 36 episodes, Spencer Watson (4th photo) in 17. and Michael J, Murphy (2nd photo) in 8.

Location Shots: None.

Gay Characters;  None specified.  There's a lot of drag in the last scene, suggesting that these people are mostly post-gay  "you like guys, whatever."

The non-binary person in Tyler's entourage is Rory, played by Caelan Scrivener.  According to his Facebook page, he identifies as male in real life.

Heterosexism: None.  No one mentions or engages in heterosexual activity, even at Natalee's party. No "Girsl are the meaning of life!" rhetoric

Will I continue to watch:  I've seen it all before, many, many times.  There are similar premises in Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Saved by the Beill, and even Our Miss Brooks. But it might be interesting to see a kinder, gentler, non-bullying, non-homophobic take on the old Principal vs. Golden Boy trope.  Sure, why not?

The History of Peter Pan Nightmares

Peter Pan has a long, sinister, and disturbing history.  He began in the grieving imagination of 8-year old J.M. Barrie, when his brother David died in a skating accident the day before his 14th birthday -- tragic, but at least a dead boy would stay a boy forever.  

He took shape in Barrie's early novels about dead and dying boys, Better Dead (1888) and Sentimental Tommy (1896), and in stories Barrie told to the five Llewelyn-Davies boys, whom he met while walking his St.Bernard in Kensington Gardens in 1897.  

And when his wife, actress Mary Ansell, left him for a mere boy, 24 year old Gilbert Cannan, in 1908 (by the way, Cannan published a novel called Peter Homunculus in 1909).

There is no indication that Barrie had any pederastic intentions with the Llewelyn boys.  Boys and men mingled without suspicion in those days.  In the stories, however, Captain Hook has an arguably homoerotic love-hate relationship with the Dead Boy Peter.  When one considers that Barrie's Captain Hook and Daddy were played by the same actor, one wonders about the elder Barrie, a strict,conservative Calvinist.

The baby who leapt from his tram in Kensington Gardens and lived in trees like a bird (that is, died) first appeared as a named character in J.M. Barrie's very Victorian childhood-equals-death novel The Little White Bird (1902).  

Next came a stage play, Peter Pan, Or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904), based on the pantomime tradition, which is why Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were all played by women, and there was a dying fairy (the Edwardians loved long, slow, sentimental death scenes as much as we love things blowing up).  

George du Marier, uncle to the Llewelyn Davies boys, played both Captain Hook and the Darling kids' father.  Hints of child abuse, anyone?

Next Barrie adapted the stage play into a novel,  Peter Pan and Wendy(1911).   Both play and novel became sensations, especially during World War I, with so  many boys dying in the trenches of Europe -- but they were forever young.

And adaptations began: news plays, movies, novels, cartoons, stories, songs, statues, with the dead boy becoming more playful, less sinister to keep up with the changing times.  

My favorite is Malcolm, the evil Peter Pan of Once Upon a Time (Robbie Kay, shown with some of his Lost Boys in the top photo).  

My least favorite is the 2003 movie version,  with a barely-pubescent Jeremy Sumpter in a pedo-dream costume, and a hetero-romance "girls are the meaning of life" conclusion.

A 1954 Broadway musical Peter Pan stayed true to its pantomime roots by casting a woman as the Dead Boy, and an older woman at that: 40-year old Mary Martin, who had previously starred in Annie Get Your Gun and South Pacific.  Cyrill Richard played both Captain Hook and George Darling  for more Freudian nightmares.  Although it was the exuberant 1950s, some other disturbing elements were retained:

1. The family is called "Darling," which is ridiculous.

2. The nanny is a dog in a nanny's cap played by a man.

3. Wendy sews Peter's shadow onto his feet. Imagine how painful that would be!

4. Blackmailing the audience to clap in order to keep a fairy from dying.

5. Amputation, mutilation, bombing, death, and near-death everywhere you turn.  Fun!
6. Growing up means dying.

Nevertheless, Neverland returned to Broadway in 1979, 1990, 1991, and 1998 (with Peter Pan played by Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby). 

The entire cast except for the children reprised their roles for a 1960 tv version -- restaged, so you were actually watching and hearing a stage show. This version was rebroadcast in 1963, 1966, 1973, 1989, and 1991. 

Photo: Kent Fletcher, who played Michael in 1960, forever a child in his only other film role, The Lord of the Flies (1963).

I think I saw part of 1966 rebroadcast.  I would have been 5 or 5 1/2 years old, too young for bizarre dog-human hybrids, shadows sewn onto bare flesh, murderous pirate-fathers, dying fairies, and growing up as the equivalent of death.  Since then Peter Pan has often appeared in my nightmares.

See also: Jeremy Sumpter's half-n*ked Peter Pan gave a generation of boys their gay awakening. But has he done anything gay lately? Or n*ked?