Several years ago, I reviewed the Nickelodeon teencom Bella and the Bulldogs (2015-16), about a girl on the previously all-boy football team. The premise sounded like a critique of gender polarization, acknowledging that sometimes boys like to cook and date other boys, but, at least in the episode I watched, there were no queer codes at all. Even the obviously gay boy had a crush on a girl.
Now I'm profiling some former Nickelodeon/Disney teencom stars who informed our childhoods. Should I go with the Bella cast member who is gay but has no adult videos online, or the one who is straight but shows us his stuff?
Buddy Keaton (née Handleson), the gay guy, played Newt Van der Rohe, a geek with an unrequited crush on the geek-hating Sophie. Eventually she warms up to him.
I believe that the expression is "woof!," not "bark!"
Matt Cornett, the straight guy, played Zach Barnes, a player from a rival team who invited Bella to the homecoming dance, but uninvited her when his teammates disapproved (Two houses, both alike in dignity....). After a few more "are they or aren't they?" episodes, they kiss.
Ok, Buddy with just some beefcake, or Matt with the Full Monty?
That's what I thought.
After Bella, Matt Cornett did the guest-spot circuit, playing girls' crushes (in Speechless, Game Shakers, and The Goldbergs), a girl's boyfriend (in Life in Pieces), a girl's friend (in the Middle), and for a change of pace, a bully murdered by one of his victims in Criminal Minds
Also A-Lan in Disney's Zombies 3, which adds aliens to the already crowded world of zombies and werewolves. He is dating the female alien A-Li.
But Matt is best known as jock-turned-thesbian E. J. Caswell in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019-23). The rationale for the clunky name: it's a tv series about high school students putting on the musical based on the movie High School Musical (which starred Zac Efron as the jock-turned-thesbian).
In later seasons, they put on musicals based on the Disney films Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, and High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
Anxious to get to Matt's junk? After the break. Caution: Explicit