"Caravaggio's Shadow": As time goes by, the gay Baroque painter becomes more and more straight. With nude Italian men

When my generation was growing up, teachers, reference books, and movies always presented historical figures as absolutely, undeniably straight.  My paperback copy of The Importance of Being Earnest said that Oscar Wilde was imprisoned "on scandalous charges."  I asked the teacher what those charges were. She said she didn't know.

In the 1980s, we started to uncover the "lies, secrets, and silence," reveal the gay men and lesbians of the past who had been denied us.  We collected them like beacons of hope in a homophobic world: Plato, Aristotle, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein, Michelangelo...and Caravaggio (1571-1610), who introduced the Baroque style of bright, naturalistic color to Italy, who scandalized the art world by using thieves, beggars, and prostitutes as models for religious-themed paintings.  And who was gay.

Everybody in West Hollywood went to Caravaggio (1986), by filmmaker Derek Jarman (who announced that he was gay later that year). We were expecting a lot of cute Italian guys (there are some), and hoping that they would be nude (no). 

We were also hoping that Caravaggio would be presented as gay, but resigned to the likelihood that he would be straightwashed: turned heterosexual, or mostly heterosexual (a few men as trivial dalliances as he pursued the Woman of His Dreams).  

He was straightwashed.

As a child and teenager, the artist (Dexter Fletcher, left), is the victim of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.  This "turns him" gay, or rather pansexual. 

As an adult (Nigel Terry), he is a decadent figure like something out of a Pasolini film, consorting with men and women, although he prefers women.   He seduces both Raduccio (Sean Bean) and his girlfriend Lena.  But Raduccio is just a dalliance; the heterosexual romance is True Love.  Then Raduccio kills Lena, and a distraught Caravaggio kills him.  Gay lives must always end in tragedy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"Goosebumps: The Vanishing": Ross from "Friends" as a crazy botanist, some gay teens, a monster, and Sam McCarthy's....

 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing has dropped on Hulu, the second season of the Goosebumps series, based on the popular children's books.  I can't tell if it is episodic or not at this point, so I just clicked on Episode 1, which stars David Schwimmer, Ross from Friends; and teen idol Sam McCarthy.

Scene 1: Brooklyn, 1994. Bill Clinton is in the White House, I'm in West Hollywood, Mariah Carey is topping the charts, and Friends premieres on CBS: 

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A

 Four teens (Sameer, Matty, and two girls) descend into eerie catacombs, until they come to the room where "they conducted medical experiments."  They're doing a "truth or dare" thing where they have to spend the night.

Sameer: "I'm not scared.  I just like to sleep naked, and it could get a little awkward."  

Uh-oh, Matty's younger brother Anthony followed them!  Mom's going to be furious.  Matty forces him to leave.

Suddenly a machine switches on, gas squirts out, and Matty's face dissolves.   A gruesome image.

Scene 2: Brooklyn, 2024.  Teen twins Devin and Cece (Sam McCarthy, Jaden Bartels) exit the subway and complain about having to leave their friends in Manhattan to live with Dad, the grown-up Anthony (a craggy, dissolute-looking David Schwimmer). He picks them up in a car.  Are you sure this is Brooklyn?

At home, Dad Anthony yells at neighbor Trey, also called James Junior, for blocking his driveway. "But your mom always let me park there."

"She didn't have a car."

Inside, the living room is crowded with boxes.  Back story: Dad has moved into this house after his mother went into assisted living with dementia, and he's going through her stuff.

In other news, "I've really been looking forward to your aunt's brain surgery."  WTF?  Who looks forward to that?  He means because then they can come live with him.  

Wait -- the twins are living with their aunt, not their father?  What's wrong with him?

The micromanager passes out his extensive list of rules, but emphasizes that the main rule is: "Stay out of the basement." He gives them a tour: he's a botanist, working on a lot of plant types that will revolutionalize the botany world.  Shouldn't you be working in a lab somewhere?   But stay out!

Scene 3: Dinner at Gwendolyn's restaurant.  Gay couples at the tables behind and in front of them. Back story: Cece is starting debate camp tomorrow. She hates it, but you need "a thing" to get into college. 

Next up, Devin: He claims to be ok, given "everything that happened," but he was suspended for getting into a fight.  Nope, not gay.  

CJ drives up on his motorcycle.  Dad introduces him to the twins. Back story: he's working here, at his parents' restaurant, for the summer.  Dad suggests that maybe Devin would like to work there, too.  Playing matchmaker, buddy?  I don't have any hope that he'll be gay, but there may be a gay-subtext buddy-bond between him and Devin.

He has to make a delivery, but the guys are all meeting at the park later. "Y'all should come."  Maybe specify which park, and what time?

Scene 4:  On the way home, Dad sends the twins inside so he can chat with a crying woman in a car. She notes that the father of Trey/JJ, the neighbor who Dad argued with, stopped by the police station to file a harassment complaint. According to the Google AI, harassment consists of repeaed acts that cause the victim to "fear for their safety,"  Telling someone to not block your driveway certainly doesn't count.

The woman promised to talk to Trey/JJ's Dad, but "be careful.  He's big on conspiracy theories." 

In other news, she managed to pull some strings and retrieve his brother's things from the night he and his friends dissolved.  . Moldy clothes with dissolved Matty all over them, from 30 years ago? 

The woman has been thinking a lot about that night, but Dad doesn't want to hear it.  He cuts her off and heads inside.

Scene 5: The twins come downstairs while Dad is arguing with his ex wife on the telephone. Wait -- they were living with their aunt, but she's having brain surgery, so they moved in with Dad.  Why weren't they living with their mother?

Dad assures them that although they hate each other, they both love the twins.  He made burnt waffles, which they reject.  It's the next morning. What happened to meeting the guys in the park later?

Left: This show is a little beefcake-light, so here's a photo of Sameer, one of the melted teens (played by the 28 year old Arjun Athalye).

More Sameer after the break

Matt Crabtree: Shy, quiet, stuttering Southern boy grows up to "Modern Family," "Will and Grace," one-man shows, and dicks

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Arabic and Class Rings: Cruising at West Point during my junior year in high school

It's the beginning of my junior year in high school, time to register for the ACT and the SAT, the college entrance exams.  But my parents are vehemently opposed to the idea of college.

They can't afford it.

It's unnecessary -- I'm already smart enough to go to work in the factory.

It's un-Christian, full of Catholics and atheists.

But I've been insistent, littering the house with catalogs and brochures, and finally Dad gives in:  "Ok, you can go to college, as long as it's Olivet.  Or West Point."

A dull, Sunday school-like Bible  college on the prarie or the U.S. Military Academy?  "I understand why you want me to go to Olivet," I tell him, "But why West Point?"

"I'll tell you why: full tuition, room and board, plus a stipend.  All you have to do is sign up for five years of active duty afterwards."

"Five years in the Army!  That sounds awful!"

Dad's eyes narrow.  "I was in the Navy for four years.  It was the best time of my life.  A real man's world.  You don't know what real friends are until you've fought side by side."

"Um...a man's world?  Real friends?"  I imagine sitting in class surrounded by hunky collegiate athletes, the cream of the crop, the most muscular in America, stripping down next to them in the locker room, sleeping beside them in the dorms...  "But...um... I'm not big on military science.  I want to major in Arabic."

"They have Arabic," Dad says, leafing through the catalog.  "And Chinese.  You can major in both, if you're that into languages.  Plus, it's only an hour from Manhattan.  You like all that Broadway musical stuff, right?"

Arabic, Broadway musicals, and army hunks?  It wouldn't hurt to apply....

The application process begins during your junior year, with the SAT, a medical exam, and a physical fitness test: push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, a 400-yard dash, a mile run, and a basketball throw (you don't actually have to make a basket).

In April, I receive a letter stating that I've passed the first set of requirements.  Now I have to get a nomination from my Senator, Representative, or the President of the United States.

No problem: I already know Tom Railsback,  the representative from the 19th district for as long as I can remember.  He is a local boy, and a counterculture hero, having drafted the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.

He says that there are four guys in the 19th district asking to be nominated, the most in a decade.

Just to be on the safe side, I approach our senator, Charles H. Percy, too, even though he's a Republican and I'm a staunch Democrat.

In June, my acceptance into the official applicant pool arrives.  Now I have to fill out some more forms, submit some letters attesting to my moral character, get a psychological evaluation, and come in for an interview.

 "More hoops to jump through, just to join the army!" I complain.  "You know, Olivet offered me a scholarship, and I'll bet I could get one at Augustana, too."

"Do they offer Arabic?" Dad asks. 

I keep silent and continue the application process.

The psychological evaluation is  administered by the school counselor: MMPI, with several questions designed to weed out the gay prospects, some blatant ("I am attracted to members of my own sex") and some keying into gay stereotypes ("I am closer to my mother than to my father.").

This actually comes as a relief.  I have not yet figured "it" out, and I am immersed in the homophobic Evangelical subculture.  I am literally afraid of gay men. If a feminine guy appears on tv, I leave the room..  No way could I go to any college that allows gays in!

Admissions interviews are being held in Chicago and Des Moines. but Dad insists that we go to West Point itself, so I can see how great it is.

In July, we leave Mom and my brother and sister visiting our family in Indiana, and drive out with my Uncle Paul: twelve hours on the highway, a very long trip even with the three of us sharing the driving.  Then a day at West Point, and another very long day driving back.

The campus is very beautiful, stately Gothic architecture on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River.  Some of the buildings date from the Revolutionary Era.

 But soon I notice some problems:

Arabic is no longer offered as a major.  You can take two years of classes while you major in something else.

More after the break.  Caution: explicit