"Pretty Dudes": Gay Asian erasure, Spiderman, a car hookup, and hamburger sex. All in11 minutes. With some pretty nude dudes

 I wanted to know how Carlin James, who is apparently straight, got cast on  Pretty Dudes, a webseries about a group of  gay guys sharing a house in West Hollywood and negotiating life, love, sex, and race.  He appears as CJ in four episodes.

Now the craziness begins. Amazon Prime lists 21 episodes, the IMDB 29, and Wikipedia 39, with different numbering and chronological order. Some titles appear in just one list. Some have been repackaged into other projects. You'll need an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them all. 

But unless the titles have changed, only one of Carlin's episodes is streaming on Amazon Prime: 1.9, "All American Type."

Above photo: A show about gay guys, and the actors; nude photos are stuck behind paywalls.  So I just googled "Gay Asian actor"

Scene 1:  Hustler Jay (Tae Song) and photographer Zario (Brian Michael Nunez) are playing video games when a shirtless Spiderman approaches, announcing that he has super powers now, and can protect the queens.  How special, girlfriend.

Scene 2: Flashback to the day before. We hear Elijah (Carlin James) saying: "This is going to taste so good in my mouth.  I can't wait to shove it in there."  Psych!  He's talking about a hamburger.  Not a hot dog?

Gregory  (Leo Lam, left) enters from the kitchen and, annoyed, tells him to just eat it, but he continues making sexy sounds.  Wait --according to his page on the IMDB, Carlin plays CJ, but according to the tv series page...heck with it. 

Scene 3: Reality tv confessional room.  Model Sunji  (Yoshi Sudarno, left) confesses that he doesn't understand photographer Zario because he doesn't act gay.  But he'snot normal, so Sunji just tries to be a good friend.

Cut to photographer Zario getting ready for his first job "since the breakup," filming a podcast hosted by artist Kito (Chance Calloway). 

In 2024, Chance published Anatomical Iconography, featuring the Pretty Dudes paying homage to classic male nude art.  It sells for $43 on Amazon.  I had no idea the show as so popular.  How do fans figure out the episode confusion?

Scene 4: Model Sunji cooking shirtless.  He sees a spider and freaks out. 

More after the break

In another room, the podcast has begun.  From left to right, the hamburger oral sex guy CJ/Elijah; host Kito; and Samuel.  Out of the shot, Gregory, the "just eat it" guy, and Zario, filming them.

 They get high, giggle, and discuss the gay Asian-American experience:  

The problem is, in school, people of color are taught as relics of a bygone era.  Marco Polo visits China,  Japanese-Americans are sent to internment camps during World War II, and that's the last you hear of any Asian person.  They cease to exist. "So Hollywood can't acknowledge us in contemporary roles.  They think of us as relics." So is it the gay Asian-American actor experience? 

Scene 5:  Business law student Ellington  (Xavier Avila) sits in a car. His date, pretending to be a prostitute, asks "What you looking for, Handsome?" 

"Just get your butt in the car," Ellington says, annoyed.

So, what should they do on their date?  First they have to rush over to the guys' house: "I got a text saying that Sunji was trying to burn the place down,"   He's still trying to swat the spider in the kitchen?

Back to the podcast: If a role is described as "an all-American type," don't even bother. to audition. They want a white guy.

Back to the kitchen: Hustler Jay comes in, hears about the spider, and jumps onto a counter. 

Scene 6: Back to the podcast.  Instead of watching Friends, you could be watching Living Single, but you don't, because you are programmed to identify with white people. Or you could watch something from this century.

Samuel continues: "We are all able-bodied straight males, so we could be cast in The X-Men, but we won't be, because Hollywood thinks only white guys can be heroes."  Wait -- I thought these guys were all gay. Maybe it's a podcast on the Asian-American acting experience, with some straight guys who don't actually live in the house.

Gregory  points out that he's gay, "So your assumption of privilege is already faulty." He continues: we can be privileged in one identity and marginalized in another. 

CJ/Elijah agrees:  We've been programmed to believe that we can only concentrate on one injustice at a time.  So you can be Asian or gay, but you can't be both. But we need to work on all forms of oppression.

Scene 7: Meanwhile, at a coffee shop, their female friend Eagle keeps staring at a hot woman, but she's afraid to approach. A Stranger notices and advises her to say something. She doesn't like approaching strangers.  "Why compartmentalize strangers and friends? The line is artificial. " 

He continues to push. Eagle wonders why he cares so much. "Because I'm a bitter old queen. One day you're gonna wake up, and all your chances will be gone."  Hey, we don't see her approaching the woman.,

Back to the podcast.  Concluding thoughts: CJ/Elijah wants more Asian representation in mass media. Samuel wants to see an Asian superhero movie.  Gregory wants the revolution to be intersectional. 

Scene 8: Gamer Alexander (Kyle Rezzedy),enters the kitchen. Now there are three shirtless guys cringing in fear of the spider. He must be the one who got bitten, and thinks, or pretends to think, that it gave him Spiderman-type powers "to protect the queens." And it cleverly ties in the "Asian Superhero" reference in the podcast. The end.

Beefcake: The guys have their shirts off most of the time. No nude photos outside paywalls except for "coyly covering the penis" shots.

Diversity: All but one of the guys is Asian.

West Hollywood:  No exteriors. 

Gay Characters: I thought this was about gay guys sharing a house, but according to the fan wiki, hustler Jay, the one fighting the spider, and business student Ellington, the one whose date pretended to be a prostitute, are straight.   

What about CJ/ Elijah:  He doesn't live in the house; he just came over for the podcast. But Gregory cooked him a hamburger, so they must be boyfriends, right?  Or it's a misdirection:  Cj/Elijah got the burger somewhere else, and he's messing with Gregory by acting like it's a penis that he intends to go down on.  I can't tell.

My Grade: Hearing about the experiences of Asian-American actors was interesting, but a spider in the kitchen seemed a little weak for a B plot, even in an 11-minute episode. And there were too many misdirections.  Do straight guys really spend a lot of time pretending that they want to have sex with their gay friends?   The guys being shirtless throughout was a plus. B

See also: Lee Doud: "I'm Fine," random nude dudes, and anti-Asian racism in the gay community

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