Having had a Jewish partner for ten years, I get sort of nostalgic for Jewish culture, so when a cute guy appeared on the icon of Bad Shabbos (2024), I clicked without doing any research. I found three siblings and their partners preparing for Shabbos dinner with their upscale New York parents.
1. David (John Bass, seen here nude in Baywatch) and his shiksha-but-converting girlfriend Beth. Her parents from Ohio are coming, too, and he is worried that they will "freak out." It's dinner with prayers, what's the big deal?
The security guard downstairs tells the girlfriend to be sure to sit next to Ritchie, because "He's the shit." So I kept waiting for Ritchie to arrive. But no such person appears in the cast list.
2. Abby and her boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman), who hate each other. He actually hates and insults everything.
3. The third sibling, Adam (Theo Taplitz), is still a teenager, in his room, working out to strobe lights and techno music. David cautions that his future in-laws are from Wisconsin, not used to families arguing, like New York Jewish families do, so play it cool.
"But what about Benjamin? The way he insults me! Do I have to be polite to that slimy cocks*ck?"
"Yes, even to that...um...cocks*ck."
"Ok, I'll try. But if that cheating cocks*ck starts something, I can't promise that I won't defend myself!"
Ok, three homophobic slurs in ten seconds. I'm out. But I wanted to know about Theo Taplitz, who so easily agreed to batter around homophobic slurs and insult LGBT viewers.
An article in Adroit gives his biography: Born in Laurel Canyon in 2003, attended the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, became a Scholastic Art and Writing National Gold Medalist twice, graduated in 2021.
He's got 15 writing/directing credits on the IMDB, beginning when he was 13. Quite a prodigy, but.....
True Places Never Are (2015): A boy trapped in sadness...next!
Requiem for Mr. Cromwell (2016). A boy trapped in sadness...again?
Dybbuk (2017): his little brother plays the dybbuk
Goodbye, Sam (2018): Sam is a dead parrot.
This House Has Eyes (2019): The eyes are watching a father and son at the end of the world.
Grey Heart (2019): After the death of... When I was studying Creative Writing, they told me that the first rule of short fiction is: someone has to die or be dead.
Gable (2023): A young man uses the voice of Clark Gable to communicate with his catatonic grandfather. Darn, I thought it would be about the House of the Seven Gables.
I'm getting depressed. Let's get Theo's butt in here. And there's nothing particularly homophobic about the content so far.
Theo has 17 acting credits on the IMDB, but they are mostly the shorts he wrote and directed. Only a few other projects:
Little Men (2016): After the death of -- well, who cares, all fiction must have someone dead -- Jake (Theo) and his parents become the owners of an apartment building. He becomes friends with Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose mother has a dress shop downstairs. They help each other out; Tony even defends Jake when bulllies "insult his sexuality." Of course, being called "gay" is a horrible insult, because gay people are so horrible, right? But Jake's dad decides to triple the rent; Tony's mom can't pay, and is evicted. And of course the boys can no longer be friends.
Wyrm (2018): Theo plays the titular teen, who lives "in an alternative 1990s equal parts Yorgos Lanthimos and Todd Solondz (never heard of them)." Every kid wears a leather collar that comes off when they have their first boy-girl kiss (sounds like my high school). The problem: Wyrm is mourning his dead brother (Lukas Gage), so he's not in the mood. First rule of fiction...
You're Doing Great (2024): After the death of...we're using it so often, in 100 years it will collapse into a single word, like "God be with you" became "goodbye." A young man (Aidan Dorn) tries to get a job to help take care of his ailing younger brother. Theo plays a corpse.
Some heteronormativity, but nothing particularly homophobic here.
Theo doesn't have a social media presence, so I only found one shirtless photo and one potential nude (below).
And when I searched for "Theo Taplitz" and "gay," I got two links. The firstt leads to a site full of trojans and the phrase "Day 11. It's all over now TEDDY BLUE. #Teddy Award."
No idea what any of that means, but the phrase appears in about 30 other places. Here's one: "Sad but true: Today is the last day of Berlinale and the last day for you to have the opportunity to watch the queer programme."
One of the programmes is Theo's Little Men (2016). Wait -- the synopses on wikipedia and the IMDB don't mention that the boys become boyfriends! They are presenting the two as platonic buddies. But here they are shown kissing. I'm confused.
The second photo leads to a paywall, do I couldn't get in. It shows a sleeping boy in his underwear, with maybe someone approaching. The headline is "Queer Horror," and then "Director Eugen Jebeleanu's..."
Eugen Jebeleanu has directed two movies: Poppy Field (2020), about a gay cop facing homophobic harassment; and Interior Zero (2025), about a young woman whose humdrum life is being portrayed by actors on stage (shades of Ionesco!). They're both in Romanian. Theo does not appear in either.
Amd none of this explains the casual homophobia of his character in Bad Shabbos.
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