Steve Antin: radical gay representation and beefcake, from "The Last American Virgin" to "Girlicious." With lots of bulges and butts

Steve Antin's bio on the Internet Movie Database claims that he "broke all the girls' hearts" in The Last American Virgin (1982).  Same old story: gay people don't exist, so all girls and no boys swooned over his character.

Spoiler alert: Steve is gay.  

Born in 1958, Steve broke into film playing the Jesse whose girl Rick Springfield longs for in "Jesse's Girl" (1981).  Next came The Last American Virgin (1982).  In his first major screen appearance, he plays high schooler Rick, who has sex with dozens of girls, like "every high school boy" in the 1980s -- except for his his buddy Gary (Lawrence Monoson, below), the "last American virgin."  So he and a third buddy, David (Joe Rubbo), strive to get Gary laid.  

This is not the typical 1980s "sex with girls is the meaning of life" teen comedy. Horndog Rick gets Diane pregnant and dumps her, so Virgin Gary pays for the abortion and falls in love with her, but Diane dumps him!  Then Gary dumps Rick and drives off in tears. Rather a downbeat ending. 

But there's a obvious gay subtext relationship between Gary and Rick: Gary seems to like Diane only because Rick was intimate with her.

And there's a lot of beefcake.  Far more semi-naked male bodies than female bodies.  Muscle hunks in their underwear. Jocks stripped down in the locker room. Steve with a boner (left).

There is even a penis size contest, with the boys gleefully evaluating packages while their classmates parade by naked.

When was the last time heterosexual male teenagers were so happy to gaze at a row of naked men?

You might almost think that this movie with a gay star had a gay audience in mind.

Steve went on to play some teenagers on tv, the spoiled rich kid/horndog in The Goonies (1985), and some action/adventure and dramatic roles, all heterosexual.  But when he became the boyfriend of mogul David Geffen, he got some gay-positive roles.

He wrote, produced, and starred in the dramedy Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), as a retired child actor turned screenwriter who lives with his overbearing mother and wacky/sad relatives.  He's straight, but he is friends with a gay man (Rupert Everett) and a lesbian posing as a married couple.  They are plotting to bomb an insurance agency that is denying coverage to people who are HIV positive. 

It's My Party (1996), although extremely downbeat, was a classic of gay representation.  Nick (Eric Roberts) is dying of AIDS, with only a few days of mental awareness left, so he decides to kill himself.  His family and friends come to his "going-away party," including ex-boyfriend Brandon (1980s tv hunk Gregory Harrison).  Steve plays one of their friends.  Christopher Atkins, one of my friends in Los Angeles, also appears.

Brian To appears nude.

Bonus butts after the break

Blair's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 1: Wicked Lips, Fierce Friday, and what happened in Australia in the summer of 2016

This is a collection of hot/hung or humorous photos of actor/model Blair Jackson, who becomes Kelvin's nemesis in Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.4, "Wicked Lips." I'm only sure about one of the nude photos.

1. "It's ok. My roommate says you can spend the night."

2. Beach boys.

3. "What do you mean, I have to wear a shirt to be served?  I usually take off my shirt whan I want to be...um..."

4. What happened in the summer of 2016, stays in the summer of 2016.

5. What happens in the library, stays in library.

6. Thai dreams of thighs.  And shoulders.  And....

More Blair bod after the break

Chris Messina: "The Sinner," "Birds of Prey," "The Mindy Project," and lots of movies with dicks and angst

 

Awhile ago I reviewed The Sinner, but didn't get many page views, so I decided to repurpose the nude photos of star Chris Messina into a profile.  Who is this guy whom I never heard of before, who lacks a standard gym rat physique yet manages to tear his clothes off in practically every screen appearance?

He doesn't have much of a social media presence.  This Chris Messina looks like him, but must be somebody else, since he has a boyfriend, and our guy has a wife and an article in Forbes proclaiming "Chris Messina loves women!"  Wow, a heterosexual, how bizarre! I've heard of men like that, but I've never met one in real life. What could they do in bed when their partner doesn't have a penis? 

Our Chris, who loves women, was born in 1974  He grew up in New York City, dropped out of college after one semester, and moved onto Broadway, then tv. He has 75 acting credits on the IMDB, including substantial roles in Damages, The Newsroom, The Mindy Project, and Based on a True Story.   I've only seen him in Argo and Birds of Prey.

Not a lot of gay roles.  In an interview, he says that his villain Victor Szaz in Birds of Prey is "probably gay." and in Based on a True Story, his character is married to a woman, but makes out with a guy during a fantasy orgy.

Our first glimpse of Chris's private parts comes in the tv series Six Feet Under (about a mortuary).  His Ted Farwell, an attorney who dates some of the ladies, walks through his house nude.

28 Hotel Rooms (2012) features a Woman and a Man (Chris) hooking up in hotel rooms every time they are in the same city on business.  It sounds artsy, pretentious, and heterosexist, but apparently Chris walks around nude a lot.

More Chris dick after the break

The Sinner, Episode 3.1: Retired cop, sleazoid prof, and predatory chum, in Australia or New York. But at least we see Matt Bomer

 

I was recommended Season 3 of The Sinner, a crime drama anthology starring Bill Pullman as a cop drawn into different adventures every season.  I'm not much into crime dramas, but there are reputedly gay subtexts, so here goes: Episode 1.

Scene 1: Jamie (Matt Bomer) a guy in a scruffy suit, sits in a toilet stall, smoking marijuana. He walks through a ritzy private school, getting drooled over by all the coeds.  They need another chaperone for the LGBTQ  Alliance field trip.  "Sure, I'm happy to do it."  So he's bi?   

Then he teaches his class -- something about the Treaty of Versailles --in a small, crowded conference room.  Only female students?.  Is this a girls' school, or are we emphasizing that he's a hetero horndog?

After class, a girl hangs back to flirt while her friends glare jealously from the door.  Don't worry, you'll get your turn.  She's decided to apply to Brown, and she needs a letter of recommendation.  "Sure, you write it and I'll sign it."   Sleazing on co-eds, and now forgery?  This guy is a jerk.

Scene 2: The Big Boss congratulates elderly cop Harry (Bill Pullman, left) on his retirement, although his replacements, Soto (Eddie Martinez) and McCafferty, are awful.  They have verve and energy, but no experience. 

Scene 3: A train chugging by a river.  Inside, Jamie the Sleazoid Prof is staring angrily at the other passengers as they scroll through their cell phones.  He gets off and chases after one, a bald guy in a business suit.

Meanwhile, Harry the Retired Cop, at the same station, greets his daughter and grandson: "Welcome to the Northern Territory." So this must be Darwin, Australia.  They drive to the creepy, isolated house that he bought to retire in -- a former army barracks.  Daughter disapproves -- what if he need help? Cell phones don't even work out here.  "I can get bars in the front yard." 

She also disapproves of her son's interest in reading.  "That's all he does.  He's got no friends."  Especially that one fantasy novel -- he won't put it down. Plot dump: she's recently divorced, and ex Andy has vanished to London.

Scene 4: Jamie the Sleazoid Prof is barbecuing, while his wife Leela complains about the customers in her shop.   Wait -- what happened to the guy he was chasing?  I thought he'd end up dead.  Suddenly Jamie has the urge to stick his hand onto the barbecue grill, but Wifey interrupts him.  They smooch.  .

Doorbell rings: Amazon Delivery.  Jamie is shocked and horrified. "What are you doing here?  I told you not to come here." So he prefers brick-and-mortar bookstores?  

Nope, the Amazon stuff was a misdirection.  It's actually Nick (Chris Messina), whom Jamie knows but hates.  Maybe a downlow hookup?  They argue and sputter at each other, but when Leela shows up, Nick is all smiles, and gets a dinner invitation.

Scene 5: Jamie the Sleazoid Prof and Hookup Nick glaring at each other across the dinner table, while Leela drones on about her shop. I don't really understand what she sells, but there are candles and  "essential oils"  Nick criticizes Jamie for forcing his wife to move to Australia, when she wanted to stay in Brooklyn. He makes more ominous, threatening statements, but Leela is oblivious. Not very smart for someone named after a space pilot on "Futurama."  

Scene 6: Night.  Harry the Retired Cop is asleep on the couch.  He gets a phone call. Hey, no cell phone reception in the house, remember?  There was an accident off Route 9, so he has to go investigate.  Hey, retired, remember?

And now he's driving on the right side of the road.  This can't be Australia!  But the only Northern Territory I'm familiar with is in Australia.  There's a Northwest Territory in Canada, but I don't think Yellowknife has that huge train station.  Maybe he was riffing on the remoteness of his community, and expected viewers to have the sound on, so they could hear the accents. 

Accident scene: The driver crashed into a tree. "He's ok -- at St. Emilia's getting checked out."  But he got splattered all over the car.  WTF?  Lady, you just said he was ok! Are we watching events in parallel worlds simultaneously?

What was the driver doing on private road that leads to just one house, where the owner wasn't expecting him?  The cops scratch their heads, baffled by this mystery. Harry checks out the driver -- it's Hookup Nick!

Scene 7:  The other "he," the one that's ok, is Jamie the Sleazoid Prof.  He sits on an examination table, looking sinister, staring at his hands.  

Scene 8: Retired Cop Harry works while his replacement, Soto, glares at him.  He calls a lady to tell her that the cops have some of her father's stuff.  Does she want it?  "No. Ok, I'll give you my home address."  Now he says he's in Dorchester, New York 11332.  The zip code is Flushing, Queens.  I was not aware that Queens was called the Northern Territory.  So when Nick got angry because Jamie forced his wife to move to the other side of the world, he meant ten minutes by subway? 

Jamie the Sleazoid Prof comes in for the insurance interview. After dinner, they went out for a drink at Nick's hotel. On the way back, Nick was driving too fast, and crashed  No big mystery.

"But where were you going?  You were nowhere near your house or his hotel. "Um...um...we were looking for an overlook, and got lost."  An overlook in the middle of the night?

Gay subtext: "I saw Nick die.  It was like seeing him for the first time.  The way he looked at me..."  This makes Harry suspicious.  So what if Nick and Jamie were boyfriends?  How would that affect the case?

More Bomer after the break

Revisiting Brideshead Revisited: Does the groundbreaking portrayal of (temporary) gay love hold up after 40 years? With bonus dicks.

A Monday night, the second week of classes in the spring semester of my senior year.  I'm lying on the bed in the attic room my brother and I share, reading a book for my Advanced Spanish class.  Significantly it's Ciro Alegria's El mundo es ancho y ajeno: Broad and Alien is the World.  

I always watch tv while studying, and tonight there's  something called Brideshead Revisited on PBS.  It turns out to be an adaption of the Evelyn Waugh novel about 1920s Oxford undergrad Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) falling in love with the flamboyant, decadent, teddy bear-toting, alcoholic Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews).  

They run away to Venice together. They go slumming in Soho, along with Sebastian's sister Julia.  Then Ryder begins a romantic entanglement with Julia, and the outraged Sebastian dumps him and runs off to Morocco. 

 Later Sebastian hooks up with a sleazy German guy named Kurt (Jonathan Coy), and later still he dies.  Ryder can't marry Julia because she's Catholic and he's an atheist, so they just live together.  Later he becomes Catholic.

I'm mesmerized.  In 1982, surrounded by the hetero-horniness of workplace sitcoms, my parents demanding "What girl do you like?", and the preacher at church bellowing about homa-sekshuls, just seeing two men involved in a romance is a revelation.  Sure, no one says "gay," Ryder turns straight, and Sebastian dies, but they walk arm in arm, cuddle, even go nude sunbathing!  And everyone around knows! Even Sebastian's mother.  Even Julia, who tells Ryder that "all our loves are hints and signals," leading us to God.  A same-sex romance leads us to God?  Hear that, Preacher?

40 years have passed.  I've studied a lot of LGBT history and literature, and watched a lot of gay movies, published a lot of books and articles on queering fictional texts, and recently I decided to revisit Brideshead Revisted.

You can't go home again.  Rewatching today, I strongly dislike Brideshead.  Sebastian is a decadent, flamboyant stereotype who ends up dead.  Ryder may fall in love with him, but then he moves on to Julia.  Evelyn Waugh, like Freud, believed that gayness is a phase -- adolescents, newly potent but forbidden access to the opposite sex, turn to each other.  Their brief period of quasi-romance ends when they move on to "mature" heterosexual love.

In 2008, the BBC aired a new version of Brideshead, with Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder and Ben Whishaw as Sebastian.  This time there's no subtext: Sebastian is gay.  But there's also no romance: Ryder is heterosexual but pretending to be interested in Sebastian to gain access to his vast wealth.

 It's more honest -- and there's a lot more nudity -- but nothing can match the joy of seeing same-sex romance on screen for the very first time.

Bonus dicks after the break:

Under the Banner of Heaven: Murder and crisis of faith in a fundamentalist Mormon familiy with five brothers (and five dicks)

 Under the Banner of Heaven, a Hulu series about corruption in the LDS Church, was written and produced by Dustin Lance Black, who is gay, so there's bound to be some gay characters or subtexts.  Besides, who isn't interested in cute Mormon missionaries?  

Scene 1: Establishing shot of Salt Lake City.  Jeb (Andrew Garfield), a super clean-cut nuclear family Dad, is listening to "Let's Hear it for the Boy."  A gay anthem!  So the protagonist is gay?   His preteen daughters, who wear long pioneer dresses, ask him to do loving-father activities, like lasso them.  Wife, who wears a modern t-shirt and cut-off jeans, calls him to the phone.  He has to go to work, so everyone has to do the evening prayers early.

We hear all the prayers: for the Mormon missionaries (how about a visual?), for Church President Kimball, for Grandpa in heaven, and for an Easy-Bake Oven.  "Let's Hear it for the Boy" came out in 1982, and Spencer Kimball died in 1985, 

Scene 2: Continuing to pray, Jeb the Cop puts the siren on his car and heads to a house surrounded by yellow tape and police cars.  Inside: the tv on, bloody footprints, scattered toys, a dead lady, and something in a basinet that makes him say "Evil."  The dead lady's murder was not evil?    He goes out to the yard and arrests the bloody young man who happens to be walking around.

Scene 3:  At the police station, Jeb the Cop and his Gentile (Non-Mormon) Partner do the good cop-bad cop routine on the blood-splattered suspect, Allen Lafferty (Billy Howle), who happens to belong to one of the most important familiies of the Church.  He claims that for the last year, "peculiar men" dressed like Mormon prophets have been stalking his family, so no doubt they did it.  They are probably after his brothers and their wives and kids, too.

Left: Billie Howle, Dick #1

Scene 4: While they book and strip Allen, Jeb watches, flashing back to someone he saw at church (was this a flash of same-sex attraction?).  They send a squad car out to check on the only brother whose address Allen knows: the others all moved to hide from the humiliation of having a brother who left the Church.

Scene 5: Jeb is too disgusted to continue the interrogation, so his Gentile Partner continues alone.  Stunt casting: he's played by Gil Birmingham, a bodybuilder who appeared in Diana Ross's music video "Muscles" in 1982.

Allen: if you want to know who did, check out the Mormon saints.  

Flashback to his future wife Brenda winning runner-up in the Miss Twin Falls, Idaho contest in 1980, then going to Brigham Young University, to stay away from the "Democrats and crazies," and studying broadcast journalism.  She meets Allen at church.  

Back at the interrogation, Allen blames the Church on his wife's death: "My only regret is that I didn't drive her out of Zion (Salt Lake City) to protect her from our people."  

Scene 6:  Jeb the Cop continues to ruminate about how evil Allen is, to do that to a baby (and an adult?).  They're still having trouble tracking down the addresses of his brothers and their wives/kids, so Jeb calls his wife -- they went to church with the Lafferty family, so maybe she has some of the brothers' addresses.  

He returns to the interrogation: Jeb: "So, you despicable monster, was there anyone besides you who hated Brenda enough to do it?"  Allen:  Everyone hated her because she was so perfect."  Yeah, I heard that a lot in high school.

Scene 7: Flashback to Allen introducing Brenda to the family at a picnic. "Just don't say much," he warns. Patriarch Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl, Dick #2) wants to know why she abandoned Twin Falls, Idaho for the evil Big City (Provo, Utah?).  There are an endless number of boisterous brothers, Stepford wives, and staring kids to meet. 

More Lafferty boys after the break

Northern Exposure, Episode 1.2: Progressive homophobia, three guys in a sauna, and much ado about a toilet.

 

With new content still limited by the writers' and actors' strikes, we're watching old shows that we missed back in the day, like Northern Exposure (1990-95), about a young doctor forced to relocate from New York City to Cecily, Alaska, population 814.  It received 39 Emmy nominations and two Golden Globes, but I never watched back then because I figured it was just another "disease of the week" drama, and because of the opening: an ear-grating harmonica plays while a baby moose ambles down Main Street.

Three episodes in, and it turns out I was correct: it's a "disease of the week" drama with laconic jokes. Trigger warning: the first three episodes feature gunshot wounds,  cancer, death, and suicide.  And two different old guys who refuse to follow the doctor's instructions because they've always been independent.  The jokes are mostly of the "this town is so small!" and "it's so isolated!" sort.  

Joel (Rob Morrow, left) thought he was being sent to Anchorage, and  complains bitterly about being tricked into moving to a "hellhole" where you have to chop your own firewood and no one has ever heard of a bagel.  He does this in front of townsfolk, but it's ok, many of them are refugees from the Lower 48. Some came to escape from big cities, and some came for a visit and got stuck.  It's like "Hotel California": you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Episode 2 does something unheard of in 1990, in the heart of the AIDS pandemic and homophobic backlash: it mentioned LGBT people! Actually, 18 tv episodes in 1990 featured gay characters, but they were usually AIDS patients, murderers, or making a pass at a straight person. This episode was praised for its "progressive, gay-positive" message. Let's see how well it holds up in 2024.

Plot 1 features Ed (Darren E. Burroughs), an Indian youth, who is trying to be Joels' best friend, even though Joel treats him with unabashed contempt (but Joel treats everyone in town with unabaslhed contempt, so how could he tell?)..  His problem: Uncle Anku has blood in his urine, but refuses to see a Western doctor. He was a medicine man for 40 years; he believes in traditional Indian medicine.  

 Ed invites Joel over for dinner (KFC, flown in from Anchorage) and a sauna, hoping that he can convince Uncle Anku to get an examination.  Nope.  Joel visits several more times -- maybe he just likes being half-naked in the sauna with other guys?  Still no.  Finally he lays down the law: come in for an examination, or no more visits.  Psych!  Uncle Anku has seen a specialist in Anchorage!  Why keep it a secret, and put Joel and your family through so much anxiety?

This plotline has some gay subtexs.  Ed's interest in Joel seems more profound than "I'm lonely, and need a friend."

Plot 2: features Joel's toilet.  It doesn't work, but his landlord/love interest Maggie is still in the "I hate you!  You're arrogant!" stage, and refuses to fix it because what idiot doesn't know how to fix a toilet?  Oh yeah, prissy, elite, entitled, arrogant, sexy...um I mean arrogant New York snobs.  Joel tries to hire someone, reads a book on plumbing, and so on.  Eventually Maggie gives in.  Tenant law: you have to provide a working toilet. 

Plot 3: Chris in the Morning (John Corbett, left), the radio DJ, tells us that when he was 15, he broke into a house intending to steal stuff, and found a book that changed his life: Walt Whitman's poetry.  Later, in juvenile hall, a guard beat him up for reading it, yelling that "unnatural, pornographic, homoerotic poetry" was forbidden. Chris hadn't realized that Whitman "enjoyed the pleasures of other men," and had to rethink his habit of beating up "queers."

Minnefield (Barry Corbin), who literally owns the town, hears the broadcast, and is irate. Making disgusting accusations about America's greatest poet!  He throws Chris through a plate glass window and fires him. Hey, that's criminal assault!.  He takes over the morning radio himself, and devotes it to "normal" music, like the soundtrack to Kiss Me, Kate (hey, Cole Porter was gay!).  Then Oklahoma! and Carousel.  The townspeople hate it; they prefer Chris's philosophical musings.  So the macho, homophobic guy likes gay-coded show tunes, har har.

Interestingly, a review of the episode calls Barry Corbin a "Broadway Superstar," but I can't find him listed in anything but Henry V.

At a town meeting to complain about the new radio format, Minnefield stands his ground: "Chris made a mistake, and he has to pay for it.  A breach is a breach." Seriously, why doesn't anyone call Minnefield out on his homophobia?  Do they all agree that it's wrong to mention gay people on the radio?  They demand that Chris be re-hired.  Nope!

After consulting with Joel, Minnefield gets back on the radio to explain.  "Whitman was a pervert, but he was the greatest poet America ever produced," and we shouldn't try to destroy him.  He mentions several other American heroes with personality faults: alcoholic, gambler, crossdresser...but we aren't allowed to discuss the terrible things they did.  We need to concentrate on the positive.  We need heroes.   "If Whitman were standing here today, and someone called him a fruit or a queer, that person would have to answer to me." So you're saying that it's ok to know that he was gay, but not to disrespect him by aying that he was gay?  

This, by the way, is a heartfelt speech, telling the audience what they should take away from the episode: being gay is horrible, but we should ignore it, because "we need heroes."   From the vantage point of 2024, it seems incredibly homophobic, but in 1990 it was a plea for tolerance.

Chris in the Morning apologizes. He didn't mean to defame Walt Whitman, but now he understands that it was wrong to mention that he was gay.  He gets his job back.

And the town library/general store has a run on requests for Walt Whitman's poetry.  

Beefcake: Joel, Ed, and Uncle Anku in the sauna.  Joel in the shower.

Gay Characters: Of course not, although in a few years, the town will host the second gay wedding on network television.

Homophobia:  Everyone seems to agree that calling someone gay is a defamation.  Even Joel the New Yorker.

My Grade: Even taking into account its historic context, this was a very difficult episode to watch.  And that grating harmonica solo opening!  D.

Above: Rob Morrow's butt in Private Resort. Left; Grant Goodeve, who plays Maggie's boyfriend (before she dumps him).

Set in the same time period:

The Feast of the Seven Fishes: all the tropes I hate, but I still liked it.

Wet Hot American Summer: Skyler in a satyr costume, gaslit gay guys, and how to use your penis