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"Rebelde": Lies and Secrets at an Elite Private School, Yet Again
I'm still sick, so the reviews are coming fast and furious. Next up: Rebelde (Rebel), which started life in 2004 as a Mexican teen telenovela about students in an exclusive music school (so,...
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"Rise of the Guardians": "Peter Pan" Saves the World from Voldemort
Continuing my nonstop movie and tv show reviews, I latched onto Rise of the Guardians on Netflix. The icon shows a teenage boy being assaulted by a grinning bird-woman, so maybe he isn't interested in...
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A Show about Straight People Called "Breeders."? What's Next, a Show About...
Breeders! What a tone-deaf title for a sitcom! Surely someone somewhere in production knew that "breeder" is a derogatory term for heterosexuals, not as bad as the f__ word for gay people, but still...
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A 4:00 Foray into the Dark, Complex World of Heterosexual Storytelling
I clicked on Being the Ricardos on Amazon Prime, about the tensions between Lucy and Desi on the set of the old I Love Lucy show, and instead got Dylan O'Brien with five o'clock shadow getting visions...
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"The Year of Spectacular Men": Entitled College Graduate and a Varying Number...
The Year of Spectacular Men, on Amazon Prime. Sounds 1996-1997, when I was newly single and living in Gay Heaven. It's actually a vanity piece written by and starring Madeleine Deutsch, also...
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"The Tender Bar": Gay Tease Hides a Homophobic Exterior
Speaking of gay teases, The Tender Bar, on Amazon Prime,claims to be about a man works on his professional and romantic life at his uncle's bar, while the 5-second long icon trailer displays two guys...
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R. Crumb: From Fritz the Cat to Gay Marriage (Sort of)
Growing up in 1950s Philadelphia, Robert Crumb was a sissy -- he hated sports; he was scrawny; he liked comic books, especially girls' comics like Little Lulu. According to a 1998 sketch, he "almost...
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The Best Week of TV Ever
December 5, 1966. I am in first grade at Hansche Elementary School in Racine, Wisconsin. Two weeks ago I had my sixth birthday, so I am old enough to stay up until 9:00 pm, but too young for...
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Doc Savage: The First Gay Superhero
When I was a kid, I never cared much for Marvel comics, other than the gay-subtext heavy Werewolf by Night, but in the summer of 1972, my eyes were drawn to the gleaming hard-muscle physique on the...
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"Ladhood": Competing with Boys, Gazing at Girls, in 2000s Leeds
Hulu has been heavily pushing The Lads (2019-) an autobiographical series (ugh!) about the adolescent experiences of comedian Liam Williams. Ten to one Liam and the lads are homophobic. But maybe...
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"The Colony": An Alien Invasion Begins...Slowly, and A Teenage Boy Morphs...
A friend from L.A. recommended The Colony (2021) on Netflix: "A mashup of Waterworld, Mad Max, and The 100."Scene 1: A nuclear family at breakfast: Mom cooking, Ponytail Girl doing girl-coded stuff,...
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Bamm-Bamm's Muscles: Gay Promise on "The Flintstones"
Quick, name a cartoon character who came from outer space, was adopted by a human family, and has superpowers?Right, Bamm-Bamm Rubble.In an October 3rd, 1963 episode of The Flintstones, about "a modern...
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"Everyone is Doing Great": Gay Couple or Gay Tease? You Have Just Eight...
Everyone Is Doing Great: Seth and Jeremy were the stars of a vampire drama. Five years after the show ended, "they lean on each other as they awkwardly navigate the perils of life and love in a late...
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Enlisted: "Gomer Pyle" meets "MASH," with Beefcake
Last night Bob wanted to check out the show on Hulu that stars "Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) from Riverdale and the guy from Imposters." He meant Enlisted, which originally aired on Fox in the spring of...
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"Grand Blue Dreaming": A World Where Boys Who Like Girls are "Perverts"
Grand Blue Dreaming is a Japanese anime series about a boy who joins a diving club called Peek-a-Boo. I'm not joking. And check out the Episode 5 plot synopsis: Iori and Kohei attend class in their...
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Trans and Nonbinary Inclusivity on Nickelodeon's "Danger Force"
I reviewed the Nickelodeon teencom Henry Danger, about a teenage superhero-in-training, back in 2014, and called it a "gay subtext classic." It stayed on for five seasons and 121 episodes, but I...
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The Man on the Flying Trapeze: William Saroyan
During my first year in college, the drama club performed The Time of Your Life (1939), William Saroyan's Pulitzer-prize winning play about the lost and wounded denizens of a seedy San Francisco bar....
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Walt Whitman, The Good Gay Poet
When I was in high school and college it was customary to closet gay writers. The professor might have known, but it was assumed unseemly (at best) to tell a class full of "impressionable youth" that...
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"October Road": Gay Tease or Gay Couple in a 2007 Soap Opera?
The soap opera October Road appered in the spring of 2007, in a Thursday night time slot with hit lead-ins Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. A sure-fire hit, right? It lasted for six episodes. A...
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Can You Say that a Teenager is Hot?
Pedophilia refers to adult erotic or romantic interest in prepubescent children. In previous generations it was condoned or even celebrated. As late as the 1970s, tt was considered only moderately...
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