Showing posts with label Disney Channel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disney Channel. Show all posts

Phil of the Future's future: Former Disney Channel teen Raviv Ullman on the Torah, wearing dresses, and his penis

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Desperately searching for the gay South Asian character, or any gay character, on the Disney teencom "Vampirina." With bonus South Asian cocks

  


The Disney Channel's Vampirina  (2025) has the standard Disney teencom tropes: forbidden love, a secret identity, a performing arts high school: Vampire Vampirina Hauntley (really?) must hide her fangness from her mortal classmates, and falls in love with Elijah Van Helsing (Shaun Dixon), unaware that he is a Van Helsing, a born vampire slayer (wouldn't the names give them away?).    But the creator is a lesbian, and one of the cast members is gay actor Aariq Manji. 






Aariq, son or Rizwan Manji (Schitt's CreekPeacemaker),  has eight acting credits on the IMDB, including episodes of Shameless, Best Foot Forward, and Ramadan America.  He starred in Blue Boy (2022), about an Indian-American boy who thinks he's an incarnation of Krishna (depicted with blue skin).  






Turns out he's "just gay." 

 Sachir Bhatt (top photo), who plays a gay Marine in Boots (2025),  plays the real Lord Krishna. 
 
A Redditor complains that the vampire girl's companion, the ghost of a child who has been dead for 300 years (Milo Makarika), is a gay stereotype.

As of this writing, Milo Makarika is 12 years old.  He quotes Aristotle, is a fan of Buster Keaton, and sang the Frank Sinatra fav "Fly Me to the Moon" at the Jazz Up Kids Concert in Thailand.  Probably gay, too. 

With all of that representation in the cast, there's bound to be some gay characters at the School for the Performing Arts, probably Cody, the Ghost Companion, and some extras.  I'll review Episode 1.3, which has a school dance.

Scene 1:  A teacher complains about having to hang banners for the Welcome Dance.  Vampirina is all excited; "It's not every day that a vampire is invited to participate in a time-honored human tradition."  Her Friend tells her that she needs to invite someone special, "someone who give you butterflies in your stomach."  At least she doesn't specify that it has to be  a boy.

Vampirina knows just who to ask, as Elijah walks by. Otherwise the hallway is deserted.  Would it kill you to spring for some extras, Disney?


Scene 2:
Elijah on his bunk in a room, examining the vampire-slaying stake that Mom sent him.  Whoa, that set is as plastic and artificial as a department store window.  So far I'm not pleased with the verisimiltude of this show.   He's shocked by his destructive super-strength, but attributes it to working out too much.

A Mean Girl enters and points out that they're best friends, and Beautiful People, so they should go to the dance together.  Nope, he's going to ask Vampirina.  She tries to hide her disappointment.  

Meanwhile, Vampirina and her Friend pick out their outfits for the dance, while Ghost Companion (Milo Makarika) frets: there's a Van Helsing lurking around, so it isn't safe. 

In other news, famous DJ Mini Monster, an alumnus of the school, will be at the dance!  So is this a school for paranormal beings?

Scene 3: The cafeteria.  Teacher tells Vampirina's Friend that Mini Monster broke his wrist and can't DJ, so will she do it?  So why mention him at all?  "No, I'm just starting out, I haven't decided on a persona yet."  Teacher knows that she took two cartons of milk at lunch, and blackmails her into agreeing. Kids need milk, lady.  Why can't she have two?

Meanwhile, Elijah asks Vampirina to the dance with a heart-shaped pizza.  Uh-oh, her fangs emerge and won't retract!  She gets all flustered, covers her mouth, and runs away without giving him an answer.  I used to have that problem when talking to cute boys, too.




Scene 4
: Ghost Companion is helping Vampirina's Friend find a DJ persona.   Vampirina rushes in to complain that she ruined the dance invitation, and now her fangs won't go back in!  Try a cold shower ,

Ghost Companion assures her that there's nothing to worry about, she's just going through vampire puberty.  They'll retract on their own eventually.  

Scene 5: Vampirina decides to stay in the room until the fangs retract.  Just put on a  mask, say you have a sore throat or something.  She asks her Friend to tell Elijah that she's sick, and can't go to the dance.

Back in his room, Elijah is still destroying things with his new super-strength, so he checks the family book and discovers that he's going through Van Helsing puberty.  The Mean Girl drops by.  Since Vampirina is sick, could they go together? 

"Sure.  I just have to tell Cody I'm sick, and can't go with him."  Wouldn't he see you there?

Wait -- Cody is the one played by Aariq Manji.  And he's straight?   Well, maybe Ghost Companion will be gay, or there will be gay couples at the dance.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Atticus Mitchell: "My Babysitter's a Vampire," "Stonewall," "Now I can be who I am," and nude photos, but has he done anything gay lately?

 


When I was researching Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, I looked for nude photos of various cast members, and found several of Atticus Mitchell, who played an ensign "scared by a dog" in one episode.  

You are probably more familiar with him as Benny Weir of My Babysitter's a Vampire (2010 movie, 2011-12 tv series):  teenager Ethan (Matthew Knight)  battles demons, zombies, and various paranormal perils with the help of his buddies, Benny (Atticus, left) and Rory (Cameron Kennedy), plus his sister's vampire babysitter. 


Everyone was intensely hetero-horny, but there was a lot of beefcake. Here the guys agree to be sacrificed so an ancient Aztec goddess can be reunited with her boyfriend.  She's not interested in them, and they're going to die, but that's not important.  She's a girl, so whatever she wants, she gets. 





My earlier review of the series pointed out a lot of gay subtexts.  Here Benny distracts Ethan's girlfriend so he can smooch on Rory.  It's probably a behind-the-scenes shot. 

Born in Toronto in 1993, Atticus became interested in acting in elementary school, and performed in four plays while at St. John Elementary School:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest

James and the Giant Peach

50 Below Zero



When he graduated to Malvern Collegiate Institute (a public high school, in spite of the ponderous name), Atticus switched to on-screen acting with the teencom How to Be Indie (2009-2011), which is about an Indian-Canadian girl, not indie rock. Dylan Everett (26 years old in this photo) played her best friend.  Atticus played a bully.

Next came Vampire, followed by the teen movie Radio Rebel (2012), about a shy high school girl with a secret identity as an underground radio dj. So she's Hannah Montana.  Atticus plays Gabe, a musician who tries to sneak and snark his way into air time, and his future boyfriend or good buddy Adam DiMarco plays as Gavin, the girl's "love interest."  


Aside from Vampire, Atticus is best known for his role as Mickey Hess on Fargo (2014): he runs a shady trucking company with his dad and brother. No girlfriend, but he is established as heterosexual by playing with a female "sex doll."

I was more interested in the role of Matthew in Stonewall (2015), about the 1969 riots that started the Gay Rights Movement, with Danny (Jeremy Irvine) as a white masculine Saviour from Indiana.  

Problem: Matthew doesn't appear in the synopsis, and I don't recall him from watching.  But surely he's gay.

Nude photos after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Blake Michael: The "Dog with a Blog" brother starts a band, stalks a teacher, vanishes into corporate. With Blake and Dano dicks

 


I haven't been watching Disney Channel programs regularly since the days of Hannah Montana, so all I heard of Dog with a Blog (2012-15) was buzz about how ridiculous the premise was: three kids discover that their dog is sentient, can talk, and actually has a blog where he discusses his experiences and tries to find other dogs.  How is that more ridiculous than a pop star pretending to be a regular girl, both daughters of a famous country-western music singer, and no one suspecting for an instant?




Critics lambasted the show for its "lackluster writing' and absence of any actual blogging, but it averaged 3 million viewers in the first season, and was nominated for three Emmies.  The main players appear to be Chloe and Avery, two tween sisters from a blended family, but there was also a teenage brother, Tyler (Blake Michael).


Plus Dad Bennett (Regan Burns) and Avery's enemy/crush (L.J. Benet), who now has abs but smiling smugly as girls in bikinis surround him. 

Besides, I haven't found any n*de photos of L.J.  But there are some of Blake.

Blake got his start in modeling at age three, and had his first on-screen role at age eight, playing a restaurant patron in Chosen (2004).  Small parts in October Road, Out of Jimmy's Head, and The Mortician followed.














He had a starring role in Lemonade Mouth (2011), which I never saw because I thought the term referred to some kind of terminal cancer.  It's actually the name of a bad that five high schoolers who start a band -- I guess disgusting names are de rigeur for rock bands.  The boys are Charlie (Blake) and Wen (Adam Hicks).  Both get girlfriends, and the remaining girl gets a boyfriend, and so on, and so on.  Heteronormativity fulfilled. 

Sorry, this is the only photo I could find where the two guys are together, not bookending the three girls.



It's a little tangential, but Adam Hicks is known as one of the Disney Channel's skateboarding dudebros on Zeke and Luther (2009-12).  His partner, Hutch Dano, has retired from acting to become a painter.

And post photos of his d*ck (after the break).

Has "Phineas and Ferb" gotten more gay-friendly since 2007? With bonus Adam Devine butt and Malcolm McDowell dick


I watched a few episodes of the Disney Channel's Phineas and Ferb when it first aired in 2007-2009, but was turned off by Mechanics Today vibe and the incessant heteronormativity.








The premise: 10-year old stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb (Vince Martella, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, top photo) spend their summer vacation creating technological marvels like time machines and space ships, thereby impressing their male friends and girlfriends (each has a heterosexual crush).  Their older sister Candace tries to tattle (either she's worried about their safety or she's just evil), but by the time Mom gets there, the elaborate devices have reverted into harmless toys; Mom therefore suspects that her daughter is suffering from a psychosis.  


Candace has a heterosexual crush, too: Jeremy, played by Disney teen Mitchel Musso, who has mental health issues.    

Meanwhile, their pet platypus, Perry (Dee Bradley Baker), has adventures as a super-spy.  Under the orders of Major Francis Monogram and his dimwitted assistant, he thwarts the plans of the evil Dr. Doofenschmirtz.  Most involve wacky evil-scientist inventions, making Doof and Perry sort of mirror images of Phineas and Ferb. 







In four seasons, there were no gay characters, although TV Tropes notes some Ho-Yah (queer codes used as jokes) shipping Doof/Perry and the bully Buford and his victim Baljeet.   

Showrunner Dan Povenmire said that there were some LGBT persons in the universe, but "it's nobody's business" who they are.  Got it, heterosexual romance gets infinite space, but gay people must be invisible.  Can't have kids finding out that they exist.  

In June 2025, ten years after the last Phineas and Ferb, a new season dropped.  Gay characters have appeared on Craig of the Creek, Duck Tales, Big City Greens, The Hollow, The Bravest Knight, Jellystone, Kippa and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, Kid Cosmic, The Ghost and Molly McGee, and many others.  Surely Phineas and Ferb can have a gay friend without traumatizing kids for life.


Especially since voice actors Vincent Martella (Phineas) and Maulik Pacholy (Baljeet) are gay.

I reviewed two 2025 episodes.

"Sleepover":  The main five kids and Candace and her friends are having two separate sleepovers in the same house on the same night.

The kids' sleepover activities: a scary movie in a geodesic dome with a popcorn floor.

Candace wants to bust her brothers, but her friends sing about the things they could do instead: play truth or dare, wear monster masks, and so on.

More after the break

Luke Benward: Fried worms, Disney movies, Christian music, gay friends, a j/o video, and a n*de Cameron Monaghan


How to Eat Fried Worms (Thomas Rockwell, 1973) is one of the classic novels of my childhood: Billy brags that he can eat anything, so when his friend Alan offers him $50 to eat a worm a day for 15 days...  He can prepare them any way he wants, but Alan will provide the worms. The parents are in on the scheme, there is no bullying involved, each of the boys has a buddy-bonding best friend, and the only girl is Billy's sister.  No one wins the Girl of His Dreams.

 Remembering the buddy-bonds and the absence of the heterosexist trajectory, I eagerly tuned in to the Disney Channel version (2006).  But now Billy (Luke Benward) is confronted by a gang of  bullies led by Joe (Adam Hicks), he fors a group of friend instead of a special buddy, and there is a Girl of His Dreams.  

A rather disappointing start to Luke Benward's career.  Let's see if he has redeemed himself since with some gay roles.


According to the IMDB, Luke was born in 1995 in Franklin, Tennesse.  

He first appeared on screen playing Mel Gibson's son in We Were Soldiers (2002).  

The infamous homophobe Mel Gibson?  That's even worse. 

After roles in the revamped Family Affair (2002) and Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Luke hit Disney gold with Fried Worms (2006).  

His Disney stardom assured, he continued with Mostly Ghostly (2007): A shy boy (Sterling Beaumon) encounters a a ghost boy (Luke) and his sister, who has a crush on him.  He must figure out how they died before it's too late, and win the Girl of His Dreams. 



Left: Luke and Sterling Beamon strangling Miles Heizer.  Neither has actually worked with Miles Heizer.  Maybe they're friends?



Minutemen
(2008): A teen nerd (Luke), his buddy, and the Girl Next Door become time travelers, allowing him to best the obnoxious jock who is dating the Girl of His Dreams. Guess who he ends up with.

Dog Gone (2008): A boy (Luke) rescues a dog from bumbling thieves, bests the school bully (Cameron Monaghan, left),  and wins the Girl of His Dreams.

Things are not looking good for you, Luke Baby.

Let's skip past Girl v Monster and Zombies and Cheerleaders to Luke's first major tv role in Good Luck Charlie (2013).  Charlie is a girl, not a boy, and she doesn't bring good luck; she's the subject of a video diary filmed by her father.  Luke plays Beau Landry, an employee at Bob's Bugs Be Gone who meets, falls in love with, and eventually becomes the boyfriend of Teddy (another girl.  What's with this show?).


Ok, what about Ravenswood (2013-14), a teen mystery series featuring dark secrets in a small town?  Luke plays Dillon Sanders, who is dating focus character Olivia but is secretly plotting to prevent her from discovering the dark secrets.  Oh, and he kills her father.  That sort of ends the relationship.

Cloud 9 (2014): A snowboarder and her obnoxious boyfriend are trained by snowboarding great Will Cloud (Luke).  The boyfriend gets dumped, and...well you know the rest.

Measure of a Man (2018): Dude gets a girlfriend.

Life of the Party (2018): Middle-aged Deanna, newly dumped by her husband, returns to college, and has s*x with a fratboy (Luke), who becomes obsessed with her.  Guess what?  He's the son of the woman Deanna was dumped for. 

I'm tired of this.  Let's see what else Luke has been up to.

He's done some music, such as the theme song for Cloud 9, and he has appeared in the music videos of several other artists, including Martina McBride and Jason Aldean.  


Wait -- he's the son of Christian country-western singer Aaron Benward, shown here with his boyfriend...um, I mean singing partner Scott Reeves -- and the grandson of Christian music producer Jeoffrey Benward.  They have won Dove Awards, and Jeoffrey was inducted into Christian Music Hall of Fame.  Why didn't anyone tell me this before?  Luke Baby is too fundamentalist to play a gay character, and if he's gay in real life, he's got to be extremely closeted.

According to the  Who's Dated Who website, Luke has been in several relationships with women, and is currently dating Ariel Winter (Alex Dumphy on Modern Family).  You know there were gay characters on that show, right?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.



Ben and Matt Royer: Disney /Nick teencom twins grow up, become journalists, one dates guys. With Matt and bf d*cks

 


If you were watching the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon between 2015 and 2020, you saw twin brothers Ben and Matt Royer.  They were everywhere, playing conniving, mischievous, silly, or virtuous twins.

The brothers were born in Tarzana, California in 2003 and began acting in 2013, playing Vince and Vance Hodges in the sports comedy Back in the Game.  Griffin Gluck also appeared.


Next came the Nickelodeon teencom 100 Things to Do Before High School (2015-16) had the standard three friends, white male (Owen Patrick Joyner), black male (Jaheem Toombs), and female, giving advice like "say yes to everything for a day," "stay up all night," "adopt a flour baby," "meet your idol," and "get your heart pre-broken."  Ben and Matt played Benji and Enzo Froman. 

Chazz Nittolo played Gorgeous Eighth Grade Boy. In 2025, he's 25 years old.  Not bad.






While working on 100 Things, the twins were cast on the Disney Channel's Best Friends Whenever (2015-16): Two teenage girls and their buddy Barry (Gus Kamp) jump back in time, mostly to the recent past so they can determine why their new lab partner is a jerk or Barry can meet his science hero. Ben and Matt play Brett and Chet Marcus, the younger brothers of one of the girls, with crushes on the other. 

I don't know if the actor Gus Kamp (left) is the same as the trans singer August Kamp.

A lot of twin guest spots followed, including episodes of Pickles & Peanut (as Crabmeat and Umbrella), White Famous (Milo and Otis),The Guest Book (Henry and Hank), and Night Court (as Grant and Brant)


Ben also got non-twin roles on Young Sheldon and American Born Chinese, and in the movie The Happytime Murders (2018).

The twins hosted a podcast, Twinger Talk, where they interviewed celebrities.  I don't recognize the names of their guests, but the top photo looked cute: Jerry Hairston, a baseball player.

Plus they supported a variety of charities, like an anti-bullying initiative and YSB Now ("You're So Beautiful" Now).



They graduated from UCLA in 2024, Ben majoring in Communications and Matt in Political Science.  In 2025 they received their M.A. degrees from the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC. 

Ben (no beard) is now a sports reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and Matt (beard) a graduate fellow at ABC News in New York.  I imagine that they don't have a lot of time for acting.

You're probably wondering: 

1. Are they gay?

2. Any n*de photos?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Regan Burns: "Dog with a Blog," obstacle courses, gay erasure, and Big Dick Mitch. With an alpha male d*ck

 


Regan Burns, who plays Big Dick Mitch in Righteous Gemstones Episode 4.8, is best known as a comedic actor.  He has appeared in 3rd Rock from the Sun, Malcolm in the Middle, How I Met Your Mother, Weeds, and 2 Broke Girls.

















His most substantial role is Bennett, the father of the family in the Disney Channel's Dog with a Blog (2012-15)














He's also a personal trainer and running coach.  He didn't say who his partner is.













He sells the Hyrox Physical Fitness Challenge, which caters your race to your physical fitness level. 

I filled out their questionnaire:
Hhow often do you work out (every day)
What distance do you like to run (5k)
How many pushups can you do in a set (30)

It said I should do a pro race, but I'm not doing nearly as much as someone with that physique.






Regan also enjoys obstacle course racing, like the Grit OCR, which you complete with a partner.  It involves obstacles like Dennis the Menace (using a slingshot), Flip this House (flipping giant boxes),  and Out of Gas (carrying heavy cans up mountains).

Regan's partner here is Aaron Cobia, a "husband, dad, and mountain climber."

I hate it when they brag about being heterosexual in their first line.  And it doesn't even work, Buddy: here are gay husbands and fathers.    



More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Jason Maybaum: Is the gay-vague son on "Raven's Home" gay in real life? With some Disney Descendants and Jake Green's goods

 


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.


His only recent live-action role seems to be Cameron in Descendants 3 (2021), which the IMDB says is about competitive dancers in Los Angeles, but Wikipedia says is an animated film featuring the children and grandchildren of Disney villains: Booboo Stewart (descended from Jafar), Mitchell Hope (left, Beauty and the Beast), Dylan Playfair (Gaston --wait, wasn't he gay?)....







More after the break