Kurt Russell: Teen Idol Turned Man Mountain

Few actors make the difficult transition from child star to teen idol, and fewer still survive as adults in show biz.  Kurt Russell did it, but he lost something along the way.

Born in 1951, Kurt first became a star on The Travels of Jaimie McPherson (1963-64) , about a boy traveling through the Old West who bonds with a gruff wagon train operator (Charles Bronson).

Later in the 1960s, he became a familiar sight on tv, often playing oddball outsiders -- a jungle boy on Gilligan's Island (1965), an alien warrior who bonds with Will Robinson on Lost in Space (1966), an Indian boy who bonds with William Smith on Laredo (1966).  His physique became a familiar sight, too, as many gay preteens of the era could attest.

As a teenager, Kurt's impish smile and slightly confused expression made him unsuitable for Disney Adventure.  He made only one Adventure Boy movie, The Secret of Boyne Castle (1968) -- as American exchange student Rich who fights spies in rural Ireland, along with his boyfriend -- but unlike other Adventure Boys like James MacArthur and Peter McEnery, he never dropped a button.  He had many more shirtless, underwear, and semi-nude shots as a boy than as a teen.

After that, he concentrated in comedy, taking over the oddball genius roles left behind by the fired Tommy Kirk -- The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), The Barefoot Executive (1971), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), The Strongest Man in the World (1975). With one major exception -- Tommy Kirk wasn't very good at displaying believable heterosexual interest, but Kurt's comedy characters were indefatigably girl-crazy.

As a young adult in the 1970s, Kurt moved into serious dramatic roles, playing Charles Whitman, the University of Texas sniper, in The Deadly Tower (1975), and Morgan Beaudine, who travels through the Old West bonding with his estranged brother Quentin (Tim Matheson) in The Quest (1976).

And from serious dramatic roles to gnarled, surly Snake Plissken, who negotiates Manhattan as a maximum security prison in Escape from New York (1981); R. J. Macready, who fights a monster escaping from the Antartic ice in The Thing (1982); Reno Hightower, who longs to regain his former football glory in The Best of Times (1986).

His list of memorable buddy-bonding roles is practically endless: Detective Cash, who gets naked in the shower with Sylvester Stallone's Tango in Tango and Cash (1989); firefighter Bull McCaffrey, who rescues his brother Brian (William Baldwin) in Backdraft (1991); Michael Zane, who tracks down his former partner during an Elvis convention in 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001).

But subtexts only work if the actors are utterly unaware of the homoerotic potential of their on-screen friendship, or are completely aware and ok with it.  The adult Kurt Russell is aware, but not ok with it; he uses homoerotic potential as a source of squeamish laughter or disquieting menace.

All Hail King Julien: Mort Still Has a Foot Fetish

Remember King Julien, the androgynous, booty-shaking lemur king from the Madagascar movies (2005, 2008, 2012) and the tv series Penguins of Madagascar (2008-2015)?   Dreamworks has produced a prequel, All Hail King Julien (2014-2017), which depicts the adventures of King Julien XIII beginning with his ascension to the throne of the Lemur Kingdom.

Since it's a prequel, taking place before the events of Madagascar, it's rather odd to watch Julien mature from a crazy party monster to a brave, resourceful leader (although still booty-shaking).  He must have regressed.

Maurice, the "that's not a good idea" advisor, and Mort, the squeaky-voiced mouse lemur with a crush on Julien's feet, develop as characters also.  Especially Mort: not a child, actually infinitely old, a mysterious traveler through multiple universes, who still has a crush on Julien's feet.

Countless new characters appear, including dozens of lemurs with varying personalities, a newscasting toucan, a psychic chameleon, a tenric scientist, rats, crocodiles, foosa, dolphins, sharks, allies and enemies, enemies who become allies, in exhaustingly complex plotlines.

Clover, the king's bodyguard, who writes fantasy-world fan fiction.

Sage Moondancer is the pacifist, faux-Eastern wisdom quoting hunk.

Karl, a fanoloka antagonist who is dating a cockroach named Chauncey.

Here is a fan art anthropomorphic version of the characters.

It's also frustrating that passionate same-sex relationships abound, but they're always subtext. The closest we come to an open depiction of a gay relationship is when Julien notes that Karl and Chauncey are "together or something."

When Clover announces that she's getting married, Julien assumes that she's marrying a woman, but she's not.

When Mort is imprisoned, he flirts with the guard to get released.  We think that the guard is male, but she turns out to be "all woman."

The lemur Ted is "Hollywood gay," with feminine traits and interests, a nasal voice, and a fear of intimacy with his wife Dorothy.  In one episode, he is made to believe that Dorothy is imaginary, and responds with unabashed glee "You mean I'm not married?"  But nothing comes of it.

It goes on like that, character after character bringing up same-sex potential only to back off at the last minute.

I also find it frustrating that they continually depict Madagascar as a small island with no human residents (the lemurs have never met a human, but they get a lot of our stuff that washes up on the shore.)

It's the 4th largest island in the world, with 12 million humans.

It's hard to suspend your disbelief when you keep shouting at the tv screen "You lemurs should be speaking Malagasy, not English!"

Bill and I Fall Asleep Reading Uncle Scrooge

When I was a kid in the 1960s, it was hard to find comic books.  I didn't get a regular allowance until junior high, and when I did manage to earn a quarter or a dime, Schneider's Drug Store would be out of my favorite titles. I depended mostly on gifts from my uncles, or hand-me-downs from my cousin or the big kid down the street.

So one of my fondest childhood memories is of the summer of 1971 -- a few weeks before my Aunt Mavis took us to see The Time Machine.  My boyfriend Bill, my brother, and I went to the Denkmann Elementary School Carnival, and  I won a whole box of Disney comics that somebody donated-- Donald Duck, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, Uncle Scrooge --  over 20 in all.

In those days new comics cost 15 cents, so that was quite a score!

I could do without the Donald Ducks, with Donald being forced to sit on a chair at the Bon Ton while Daisy tried on hats, and the Walt Disney's Comics and Stories were uneven, but each of the Uncle Scrooges was a gem.

In each issue Uncle Scrooge traveled to a far-flung corner of the world with Donald and his grand-nephews (Huey, Dewey, and Louie) to manage his various business enterprises or acquire more wealth.

They are captured by the Harpies while searching for the Golden Fleece.
They rocket to a solid gold moon created by a Venusian explorer.
They find the Mines of King Solomon.
They visit the kingdom of Tralla-La in Tibet.

History, astronomy, mythology, chest-pounding adventure, either before or at the same moment that I was discovering Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, Coral Island, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and the books in the Green Library!

It was a male-only world, with no damsels in distress to be rescued and no girls waiting back home at the adventure's end.  Uncle Scrooge is elderly, his life nearly over, and he has never expressed the slightest interest in a woman.

But my memory has another layer:

I did not read the comics alone.

Bill invited me to stay over at his house so he could "help me" read, squeezed into his small bed in the room down the hall from his big brother Mike.

I read long into the night, long after Bill loosened his grip on a comic, his eyelids fluttered shut, and he began to snore. Once he shifted position until we were pressed together, his soft chest rising and falling, his lips parted slightly, his face illuminated in the golden light of his cowboy lamp.

When I was ready to sleep, I lay against his chest, and he put his arm around me.

I had slept over with Bill many times before, and I would sleep over again, but that was the only time we slept in each other's arms.

Kon-Tiki: 6 Guys on a Boat

Boys growing up in the 1960s were encouraged to read High Adventure, tales of exploration and conquest: Robert Peary's expedition to the North Pole; Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole; Edmund Hilary's ascent of Mount Everest; Stanley Livingston's trek into Darkest Africa.  

All of this was somehow supposed to prepare us for a future confined to small square offices by day and small square houses by night.

The only tale of High Adventure that I actually liked was Kon-Tiki, about Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's quest to prove that Polynesia was settled by the early Incas -- or could have been.

So he and five companions built a raft of balsa wood, the only material available to the native peoples, and set out from Callao, Peru on April 28, 1947.  Four months and 4,000 miles later, they ran aground on Raroia, near Tahiti.  To international acclaim.

Who cares that contemporary anthropology disputed his theory?  He had been on a High Adventure.  Every boy I knew read the book, named his toy boat Kon-Tiki, and planned extravagant sailing adventures.  Mine started down the Mississippi, across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, and then followed the Gulf Stream to Europe.

I especially liked reading about six guys together on a small raft, their bodies nude and bronze in the sun, helping each other, rescuing each other, learning to care for each other.

Many more recent expeditions have attempted to recreate the journey, such as the Tangaroa in 2006, with Heyerdahl's grandson Olaf in the crew.

Naturally the 2012 movie ruined it!  What is this obsession for making every movie scream "Gay people don not exist!"   I know heterosexuals hate us, but still, can't they leave one moment of our childhood alone? 

Thor Heyerdahl was married to women three times, but he wasn't married in 1947, and there was no mooning over half-naked babes.  This was a gay men's adventure, like Donald Duck and his nephews seeking out the Seven Cities of Cibola.

See also: Donald Duck's Double Life.