Green Hornet: Batman Lite

The Green Hornet appeared on Friday nights in the fall of 1966 with guns blazing, ready to take the kid world by storm.  There were coloring books, comic books, action figures, viewmasters, Green Hornet costumes for Halloween (apparently he was a revision of an early pulp hero).

  But he turned out to be Batman lite, reviled or ignored by everybody at Denkmann Elementary School, especially the boys who liked boys.

1. Instead of spandex costumes that beautifully displayed muscles and bulges, crime-fighting vigilantes Green Hornet (Van Williams) and Kato (Bruce Lee) wore silly green business suits and overcoats.  Ironic, considering that Van Williams, formerly of Sunset Strip, was well known for his muscular physique.

And Bruce Lee's beefcake posters would soon be plastered on the bedroom walls of millions of gay and non-gay kids.

2. Instead of cool villains like the Joker, the Riddler, and Catwoman, the Green Hornet and Kato fought crooked insurance companies, construction contractors, and local politicos.  And they expected kids to watch?

3. People actually died on The Green Hornet. And they expected kids to watch?

4.Robin was Batman's "youthful ward."  I didn't know what a ward was, but apparently it involved living together, emotional connection, and lots of nick-of-time rescues.  Kato was the Green Hornet's valet.  They lived together, sort of, but no emotional connection and no "my hero!" moments.  Ironic, considering that Van Williams was one of Rock Hudson's associates and rumored to be gay, and the liberal Bruce Lee would probably be a supporter of gay rights.

Facing strong competition from The Wild Wild West and Tarzan,  the series crashed. Guest appearances on Batman in September 1966 and March 1967 didn't help.  After 26 episodes, it vanished, never to be seen again -- until Seth Rogen and Jay Chou starred in a comedy version in 2011.

Oddballs: A Ghost and an Alligator Have Surreal Problems in a Netflix Adaption of a Web Comic

 

Netflix usually does a good job at inclusivity in its children's programming, and the promo of Oddballs showed several girls and a boy going wild over a boy band, so I gave it a try.  The boy band was not mentioned in the episode guides, so I went with "Emo Like the Wolfstank" (no idea what that's parodying).

Scene 1: Dirt School (where you learn about dirt, or is that the name of the town?). Max (Julian Gant, below), an alligator, is in the locker room by himself, when James (James Rallison, left), who looks like a round-headed ghost, comes in.  His arm is in a cast: he was injured during chess club try-outs.  Why chess club?  Because he's the only one in the school without "a thing."

James is so upset that he's starting to sweat, which has never happened before.  Max lends him his "Viking Mist" deodorant, but he applies it to his face, and begins sweating from his eyes.  Gross!  

Scene 2:  The class consists of three humans, with racial and religious diversity, a cat-person, and two blobs.  The teacher is a human-sized fly.  When James enters, the green blob ridicules him for losing at chess tryouts.  James responds snarkily, but it looks like he's crying, thus confusing the bully blob.  Teacher congratulates him on his expert use of conflicting emotions, and suggests that he join the Competitive Feelings team (they''re down a member due to a sprained tear duct).  

His alligator friend Max is the team's MCBV (Most Valuable Cry Baby), and Smooth Jason is his biggest rival.

Scene 3:  Competitive Feeling Team practice.  A unicorn and a guy with hearts for eyes.  Teacher asks James to demonstrate his crying ability, so he applies the deodorant to his face and starts sweating from his eyes.  Wouldn't the rules forbid using an artificial agent to induce tearing?  "Impressive!" Teacher exclaims.  "You'll totally crush Smooth Jason."

Scene 4:  Out in the hallway, Max complains: "This is my thing.  It can't be your thing."  Why can't two friends have the same interest?  "Besides, those aren't real tears.  You're cheating!"  But James, basking in the acclaim, ignores him.

Scene 5: The Competitive Feelings Championship in the school gym.  The audience consists of a boy wearing a hoodie, a girl wearing a hijab, a frizzy-haired girl, and a cat.  Teacher points out the rival school's team, "with their preppy clothing and houses with stairs": three Beatles (the rock group, not the insects), and the teen-dream Smooth Jason.  He sniffs a flower, lets a tear drop, and explains "I was just thinking of a puppy seeing his first sunrise"  The audience goes wild (that's the "boy band" scene from the promo!).  Hijab Girl and Hoodie Boy swoon.  

Scene 6: The first round, a Mawkish Debate on "Honesty in Sports."  The team that moves the audience the most wins.  Max is fuming over James cheating, so his speech is angry, not mawkish.  Smooth Jason asks "What is honesty?" and snifs a flower and lets a single tear drop, pulverizing Max.  James takes over, "tears" rolling down his face, and gives a speech supporting cheating in sports.  Everyone is shocked, which counts as emotion, so he wins the round!

Scene 7: Next round: Musical Tears, Heart-Eyes vs. one of the Beatles.  While listening to a sad song, whoever fills a bucket with tears first wins.  James takes over for Heart-Eyes, enraging Max.  The Beatle gives up, so Smooth Jason takes over and sniffs his flower, and the tears start flowing.  Hey, I think he's using an allergin to cheat!  

Scene 8: Hug-a-Thon.  Whoever hugs his opponent into an emotional collapse wins (only "clean hugs," the referee warns.  So keep it above the belt?).  This is Max's speciality, but James takes over, with Smooth Jason as his opponent.  They evade each other's hugs for awhile, but soon they are both grabbing and hugging and being hugged, and swooning with non-erotic ecstasy.  James applies the deodorant to his arms, increasing their emotional appeal somehow, so Smooth Jason finally collapses, defeated.

Scene 9: One round left for the championship, but Max has stolen James' deodorant!  He can't "cry" without it!  He rushes to the locker room to get more.  They argue:  "As long as you use the deodorant to cheat, competitive emotion can never be our thing!"

Scene 10: The last round: an emotional debate on "Stealing Your Best Friend's Thing."  How apropos!  James comes clean about his cheating, and give an emotional speech about how he hurt his friend and wants him back.  They hug.  Everyone is overcome with emotion, but James is disqualified, so Smooth Jason wins -- until his flower falls out of his pocket.  It's attached to an onion! Called it!

They are both disqualified, so no one wins.  Teacher, distraught, has a tantrum, rolling around on the floor crying.  The Referee declares him the winner.  Wait -- he's not on the team, and he's not giving a speech.  This doesn't make sense.  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Heterosexism: None.

Gay Characters:  Maybe Hoodie-Boy, who goes wild over Smooth Jason along with the girls. No noticeable gay subtext in the ghost-alligator relationship, in spite of their frequent hugs. 

Background: After reviewing this episode, I discovered that the "marshmallow people" also appear in James Rallison's extremely popular web comics and youtube videos. There is also a series of spin-off books.  

My Grade: B

Hippolytus, the Gay Charioteer of Greek Myth

In Greek myths, Hippolytus, a chariot devotee (similar to today's auto racers), was the son of Theseus (who killed the Minotaur).  After he rejected the advances of his stepmother Phaedra, she told Theseus that he raped her, whereupon Theseus asked the god Poseidon called up a sea monster to terrorize Hippolytus'  horses and drag him to his death.

In the Euripides play Hippolytus (428 BC), we learn why Phaedra was so interested in the lad.  He rejected Aphrodite, the emblem of heterosexual love, for Artemis, the "chaste" goddess of the hunt.  Angry at the slight -- how dare there be any non-heterosexuals in the world! -- Aphrodite caused Phaedra to fall in love with him, thus leading to his death (this is a scene from a performance at the National Theater of Athens).

Jean Racine's Phèdre (1677) gives Hippolytus a girlfriend, Aricia.  This ballet version stars Slovenian dancer Tadej Brdik (left)

The 1962 film version, directed by Jules Dassin, stars gay actor Anthony Perkins as the son of a shipping magnate (Raf Vallone) who has a consensual -- but doomed -- romance with his stepmother (Melina Mercouri).

Several artists have depicted the death of Hippolytus, so they can show straining muscles and minimal clothing.  Peter-Paul Rubens (1577-1640) shows us a beefy specimen, part of his cloak transformed into a faux phallus.

Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749) depicts several guys thrown from the chariot.  Hippolytus must have been riding with a coterie of boyfriends.

I don't know why his wrists are tied.

(Photo has been removed at the request of a reader.)

Joseph Désiré Court (1797-1865) goes about as far as he can go.  I think it's hidden by a stirrup.

Mickey Rooney: Gay-Vague Teen Hunk of the 1940s

Mickey Rooney, who died in 2014 at the age of 93, played elderly men for so long that it's hard to remember that once upon a time he was the biggest teen hunk  in Hollywood.

Born Joe Yule in 1920, Mickey got his start as "Mickey McGuire," a preteen rapscallion in a popular series of silent movie shorts. In the mid-1930s, he moved on to teenage dramas, many with the strong gay subtext common in the era.

In  Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), his rough street kid Dick falls in love -- quite literally -- with the upper-crust Ceddie (Freddie Barthlomew).

In The Devil is a Sissy (1936), his rough street kid Gig is torn between regular guy Buck (Jackie Cooper) and upper-crust Claude (Freddie Bartholomew).

In Captains Courageous (1937), his rough ship mate Dan falls in love wih upper crust Harvey (Freddie Bartholomew).

Audiences never tired of two teenage boys gazing into each other's eyes.

But Mickey -- and MGM -- hit paydirt with the Andy Hardy series, 16 movies (1937-1946) about a rambunctious small town teenager.  Who was girl-crazy, a new and bizarre characteristic for teens in mass media of the day (previously boys were expected to become interested in girls at the end of adolescence, not at the beginning).

At first parents and peers -- and audiences -- disapproved of Andy's interest in girls, thinking it made him effeminate.

The producers countered by displaying Andy's muscles as much as possible.  He strips down for bed; he bounces down the stairs shirtless; he goes swimming, even in winter, and in a revealing Speedo-style swimsuit.  As much as 30% of each Andy Hardy movie is devoted to beefcake shots of Mickey's body and bulge.

Here Jackie Cooper (left) is a little more obviously bulgeworthy.

The strategy worked.  The Andy Hardy movies hit the top of the box office, and Mickey Rooney was named the most popular star in Hollywood three years in a row.

He also starred with Judy Garland in three popular movie musicals about kids winning or saving things by putting on a show. 

Plus he continued the male-bonding romances in Huckleberry Finn, Boystown, A Yank at Oxford and Men of Boystown.

Mickey Rooney was always nonchalant about gay people, even in the 1940s, perhaps because his own heterosexual interests were so very obvious, with nine wives and innumerable affairs. 

In the 1950s, when gay beefcake hunk Rock Hudson hit on him, he was bemused but not offended: "I like girls," he said.  "I thought everybody knew that."


Mickey Rooney kept working into his 90s, with starring roles in such movies as Wreck the Halls (2008) and The Empire State Building Murders (2008), and small but memorable roles in The Muppets (2011), Driving Me Crazy (2012), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2014).