Gemstones Episode 3.5: Two gay boys, castration anxiety, a snake handler, and a bank robbery. With Ian Winningkoff and Braxton Alexander

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Free Bert: A chunk comedian, a hot model boyfriend, and gay-friendly actors. What could go wrong? With what to do when you're missing a ___

I'm following Braxton Alexander on Instagram because he appeared in two scenes in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones, and I thought his character was queer coded.  Also he never posts any photos of him with a girlfriend, ever, so probably gay, right?  

He's been pushing his fans to watch Free Bert (2026), a Netflix series based on the comedy routines of Bert Kreischer.  Bert is known for ripping off his shirt (I like that) and getting fully nude (I like that, too).  And here he appears to be pretending that his popsicle is a penis.  

Several of the cast members have played gay characters or appeared in gay-friendly projects, so doubtless there will be some LGBTQ representation (and Bert fellating a popsicle). 

 Plus episodes are set at a pool party and during a "boys' weekend," so there are bound to be some hunks in Speedos (maybe even Braxton, who has never yet appeared shirtless on screen or in a modeling shoot).  

I binged the series in two days, so I'll review it by plot thread, not by episode.

Bert Takes His Shirt Off: We begin with Bert performing at the birthday party of Rob Lowe (butt left, penis everywhere).  The guests don't care about his comedy set; they just want him to take off his shirt, over and over. "It's comedy gold," Lowe assures him, but Bert feels like a sex object.  What about his clever observations? I don't get it.  Why would you want to see a guy with his shirt off unless you found him attractive? 

Back home, Bert's wife LeAnn (Arden Myrin of The Righteous Gemstones) suggests that he tone down the f* word , put a shirt on, and try to be respectable, since they are sending their daughters Georgia and Ila (Ava Ryan, Lilou Lang) to an upscale private school.  It has a Learning Disability Department, which Ila needs.  

Hand Jobs: Trouble begins when daughter Georgia is ignored at school, so Bert plays her up on a podcast. The host asks if the 14-year old has ever  given a hand job.  "No, she's a good girl."

The next day, campus Mean Girl Kiersten has told everyone Georgia's shocking secret.  She is despondent: "My life is over.  What boy will look at me now?"  So not giving a hand job is disgraceful for a girl, like a boy being a virgin?

Bert gets revenge during his act by criticizing the penis size of the Mean Girl's Dad, ultra-rich Landon Vanderthal (not Reggie Van Snoot?).  The bit goes viral, and the Headmaster calls both sets of parents to a conference.  Landon insists that his penis is very big, and he's willing to whip it out right there as proof.  Things escalate; Georgia is suspended, and Bert banned from the campus.

Left: Landon is played by Chris Witaske, straight but the creator of the gay-friendly Chicago Party Aunt.

A Missing Scrotum:  Back at school, Georgia steals the Mean Girl's boyfriend, Zac (Braxton).  Bert goes berserk.  He's banned from the campus, but he sends his wife to flirt with the security guard, marches into the locker room, and threatens to kill the boy.  But then he discovers that Zac has a missing scrotum, so he can't have sex. 

Nonsense.  If you don't have testicles, you get prosthetics and testosterone replacement therapy. and everything works fine.  How does he think transmen do it?

Demonstrations after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Christmas on the Square: Be thankful that you haven't seen this movie. With Josh Serrano, Treat Williams, and random nude dudes

Brax Alexander is promoting his 2020 movie, Christmas on the Square.  Usually I stay away from Christmas romcoms that preach how wonderfully fulfilling small towns are, as opposed to those soulless, heartless monstrosities, big cities, because I grew up in a small town.  My parents rhapsodized, almost daily, about my destiny: find The Girl of My Dreams,  get married, go to work in the factory, buy a house, have kids, die.  There were no other options.  

There was no such thing as same-sex desire or romance.  You spent time with boys in order to talk about girls or strategize on how to get girls.  When you found Her, you would abandon male loves, instantly and without hesitation.  They were trivial, steps on the road to the Girl of Your Dreams destiny.

I kept looking for a place where I could escape, where I could go through an entire day without the "What girl?  What girl? What girl?" interrogation.  Where people cared about beauty, wisdom, and love, not just reproduction.  Maybe even recognized the existence of men loving men. 

After college, I lived in West Hollywood, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Minneapolis: Bookstores, art museums, cathedrals, Ethiopian restaurants, Thai restaurants, stores with rainbow flags in the windows, guys holding hands as they walked down the street: heaven.    

Oh, sorry, you wanted me to review the movie.  

Christmas on the Square was written by gay icon Dolly Parton, and stars gay icon Christine Baranski, plus Josh Segarra (top photo and left), who has played gay characters several time (he even played RuPaul's boyfriend). Furthermore, Dolly promotes the movie in an interview in Pink News, the gay magazine.  Surely this is a gay-positive Christmas romcom.  So here goes:

Scene 1:  A sound-stage town square in the town of Prairie View, with folks making merry.  Some very hot guys rush past, doing a high-step dance number -- but they ruin it by double-taking, en masse, at the hot girl who walks by.  At the end of their dance, they pair off, each guy with a girl.  Yuck!  This is the same brainwashing  I grew up with: "Every boy will fall in love with a girl!  There's no way out, no escape!  You are doomed!" 

A car drives past, with the evil, sunglasses-wearing Christine Baranski.  She sings: "Forget the past, be free at last, gotta get out of this town."  I like her -- she's the voice of thousands of LGBT people growing up in homophobic small towns, longing for a place where they can be free.  Of course, she's the villain. 

Amid the dancing, frolicking characters, the white-haired guy who runs the general store, no doubt Christine's Love Interest (played by Treat Williams, left) sings that "lovers walk in pairs." We only see male-female lovers.

 Focus character Felicity drives up and greets the stereotyped 1950s mailman.  She's the assistant of evil Christine Baranski, who continues to sing: "I know in time I'll lose my mind, if I don't get out of this town."  I had the same thought many times, back in Rock Island amid the "what girl do you like? what girl? what girl? what girl?" interrogation!

I'm getting angry.  They should have a trigger warning for all LGBT people who get trapped into viewing this thing.  I won't last much longer.

Left: Treat Williams' butt.

Christine passes out eviction notices.  She's going to tear down the whole town.  Good! 

 

More nude dudes after the break, if you dare to continue. Caution: Explicit.

Braxton Alexander: three heterosexual boyfriends, three serial killers, one saxophone, and five bare butts

Born in 2007, actor and model Braxton Alexander had a busy child star career. Strangely, although of course he had no control over the scripts at age eight or nine, his movies and tv shows seem overwhelmingly heteronormative, if not downright homophobic.

 

Four episodes of Mr. Mercedes (2017) as the young Brady Hartsfield, living through the horrific childhood that would turn him into a homophobic mass murderer with psychic powers.

 

(Left: Harry Treadaway, who plays the adult Brady)

The young Callahan in Tag (2018), about a group of friends who play an elaborate game of tag every year, while not making homophobic jokes and fielding gay panic.  

The young Callahan kisses a girl. So you can have boys and girls sparking at each other from the womb, but heaven forbid depicting a gay kid.

(Left: Jon Hamm, who playes the adult Callahan).

Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square (2020) is intensely heteronormative: the meaning of life is boys and girls gazing at each other forever. Brax plays a singer.

The Black Phone (2021) is about a gay predator who kidnaps young boys (I'm not kidding).  Brax plays a bully, not one of the victims.

In I Want You Back (2022), a dumped boyfriend and girlfriend try to sabotage their exes' new relationships and get them back.  Brax plays a "middle school boyfriend."

Left: Scott Eastwood, who plays one of the targets.

The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-4) features two brothers in love with a girl named Belly. Brax plays the young Conrad, falling for Belly at the age of 13.

(Left: Brax)

In Black Bird (2022), not to be confused with Blackbird, Jimmy Keane (Taron Egerton, left) is given the task of befriending a suspected serial killer to get a confession out of him. No gay subtext: the guys both display an incessant interest in ladies. 

Brax plays the teenage Jimmy.

More Braxton after the break