In 2021, I reviewed an episode of Raven's Home (2017-2023), the Disney channel update of That's So Raven, in which the girl with psychic powers grows up and moves in with her frenemy Chelsea, and they raise their kids together. I didn't realize at the time that Raven Simone, an out lesbian in a same-sex marriage, refused to make Raven gay! Disney offered, she refused! Friggin' Uncle Tom, complicit in the heteronormative erasure of LGBT people -- including lesbians, darn it!
Chelsea's son Levi (Jason Maybaum, left, with costar Isaac Ryan Brown) is a femme boy, an aspiring actor, cast as the gay-subtext Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Mom says "I'm proud of you, no matter what," which is usually what parents say to avoid saying "even if you're gay." And he never expresses any interest in girls in any episode -- I checked. Due to Raven's insistence on heteronormative erasure, he couldn't be canonically gay, but -- and the writers -- certainly piled on the gay subtexts. Could Jason be gay in real life?
Jason was born on August 31, 2007, and began his acting career in commercials in 2014, when he was seven years old.
He played the son in The Perfect Stanleys (2015), about a stay-at-home mom whose life is "perfect."
A bratty kid who criticizes Ders' museum purchases in an episode of Workaholics (2016)
A commercial kid who terrorizes sports great Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell) in an episode of the mockumentary series The Fifth Quarter (2016).
Left: Jake Green, who plays the moderator of the mockumentary, if he's the right one. If not, just realax and look at his abs.
And now back to Jason:
The son in Bitch (2017), about a woman who snaps and thinks she's a dog (say what?).
The bratty son of Superstore manager Glen (2017).
A student in Teachers (2017), with Ryan Caltagirone (left) as Hot Dad.
The son in Desperate Waters (2019), with Matthew Lawrence taking a male-female couple on a "three hour tour" (not really; reference to Gilligan's Island).
The son in...well, you get the idea. A lot of sons. Let's try some of Jason's when he was a teenager, after Raven's Home.
Since Raven, Jason has mostly done voiceover work: Wolfboy and the Everything Factory (2021-22), Spidey and his Amazing Friends (2022-23), Ridley Jones (2023).
Plus a lot of singing and dancing.
