Q-Force: Swishy queen secret agents save the world from Kazakh spies, with bonus Kazakh cocks

I heard that Q-Force, the animated series on Netflix, was horribly homophobic, brashly portraying screaming-queen stereotypes from 50 years ago, girlfriend. So I waited to review an episode until I was in a good mood.  The homophobia would still be annoying, but at least I wouldn't be tempted to smash my tv set.

Wait -- a positive review pointed out that the showrunner, most of the writers, and all of the voice artists playing queer characters are themselves queer. I picked up my jaw from the floor, forced myself to stop yelling "What the f*k," and continued reading: queer people use homophobic stereotypes as a Trojan Horse: the homophobes tune in to get their stereotypes confirmed -- "I told you them nancy boys all think they're girls!" -- but instead get humanized -- "Hey, that nancy boy is a good fighter!"  

Ok, let's take a look:

Scene 1:  2011.  A muscular,  limp-wristed, screaming-queen secret agent is killing people ("Bye, bitch!"), disarming bombs, and throwing rainbow-colored grenades.  The crowd watching cheers. "Best of the best!  He'll be fighting the Taliban!"  

Switch to the secret agent graduation ceremony.  Limp-Wristed Muscle Guy, Steve Maryweather (Sean Hayes), is the valedictorian.  He comes out as gay during his speech ("I want to thank the Marky Mark videos for making me gay." ) I hate it when people say that seeing a hot guy turned them gay.  It convinces homophobes that we all started out straight, but then something "went wrong,," and, of course, if you turned gay, you can turn "back to straight" through conversion therapy.

Everyone recoils in disgust at the gayness revelation, and the headmaster quickly names the straight guy Buck (David Harbour) valedictorian.  Agent Mary was expecting a plum assignment tracking down terrorists or drug lords, but because he is gay, he is assigned to the backwater agency branch in West Hollywood.

Why ON EARTH would anyone name a character Agent Mary, evoking an ancient slur that makes older gay men cringe?

Left: David Harbour's butt

Scene 2:  2021, 10 years later. Agent Mary gets up and exercises, while listening to news stories about all the terrorist activity he could be fighting.  Agent Buck calls to be homophobic.  After 10 years?  Why do you keep harassing the poor guy?

Girlfriend goes to work at the West Hollywood Agency, which is staffed by two butch lesbians and a drag queen.  Role call: butch bodybuilder Agent Deb has designed a flying car; dour Agent Stat has located the Malaysian airplane that went missing several years ago; and drag queen Twink shows off his "old lady" disguse.

In spite of all their expertise, they never get a case, so they all go home, depressed. Agent Deb is quitting the agency to work at Pep Boys.

Scene 3: Agent Mary in his underwear, preening before a mirror. He finds a gray hair!  Ahh, he's old, and he hasn't saved the world yet!  He calls the Deputy Director and asks for a case, but she says that she's powerless. 

A humorous scene with Agent Mary and the naked male-female couple who are staying at his Air B&B.  He maintains his cover by pretending to be an interior designer, but he complains about the homophobia that has kept him from getting...um...an interior design job for ten years.  "Is there a lot of anti-LGBTQ prejudice in the world of West Hollywood interior design?"    

The agents decide to go rogue and find their own cases.  Agent Twink reveals that last night, during her drag act, she met a guy with a briefcase chained to his wrist and a Kazakh tattoo that said "Anarchy will grow from the blood of the uninitiated."   Sounds suspicious! They look up his profile on Grindr.

Cole butt and Kazakh cock after the break. Warning: Explicit

Agent Elvis: McConaughey as the King, Cavalero as a drug dealer with a bulge, and Gary Coleman as a dick with a dick

 Agent Elvis (2023) features Elvis Presley (Matthew McConaughey) interacting with some of the real people and events of the 1960s, like Timothy Leary, Howard Hughes, and the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, but as a secret agent, working for the mysterious Commander (Don Cheadle).  Episode 1.3 has a Tony Cavalero sighting.

While filming A Change of Habit (1969), Elvis hears about the Moon Landing, and, upset that he's not going, decides to take out his frustration on some drug dealers.   His assistant Bobby Ray (Johnny Knoxville) tells him that Flyboy (Tony Cavalero), who hangs out in the studio parking lot, selling maps to movie stars' homes, actually sells cocaine.   His handler tells him that they still have scenes to shoot, but he rushes down to the parking lot.

Why is Flyboy dressed as a pimp to sell cocaine?  He explains that drug dealing and pimping have an intersecting clientele. 

Who is his cocaine supplier?  Flyboy doesn't want to say, because "snitches get stitches," so Elvis steals his clothes, ties him up in the back seat of his car, and sics his ape companion, Scatter, on him.  Faced with having his head bit off, Flyboy tells him.  

With Flyboy trapped in the trunk, Elvis enters a sleazy apartment building.  His handler appears again, ordering him to get back to the studio to film the remaining scenes. Besides, taking down drug dealers won't get him on the Moon Mission: "No matter what you do, it's not going to turn you into an astronaut." 

Elvis doesn't listen: he beats up the drug wholesaler and his henchmen, but Scatter kills them before they can tell him about the big cocaine shipment coming in.

More after the break

Veep Episode 3.4: Tim Baltz, penis jokes, queerbaiting, and an obnoxious level of homophobia

 I watched the first season or so of Veep (2012-2019), with Julia Louise-Dreyfuss as a scheming, acerbic Vice President of the U.S. (political party unspecified), but got annoyed with the excessive amorality of the characters and their interminable petty squabbles. 

But I'm back to review Episode 3.4, "Clovis," because it reputedly has a gay theme. There's a huge cast of middle-aged white men with interchangeable personalities and identical names, so it will be easier to refer to them by job title.

Scene 1; Palo Alto, California.  The Veep (Julia Louise Dreyfuss) is speaking at Stanford.  Her Strategist (Gary Cole, below) notes that tickets are $5000.  Tomorrow she's speaking at Clovis, a company worth $4.3 billion ("more than I make in a year!").  Darn, I thought she would be going to New Mexico.

While she is holding a baby and talking baby-talk, its mother asks why she backflipped on fracking. They get into an argument.  The team tries to disengage, but you can't just walk away while holding a baby.

Scene 2: The VP Chief of Staff is yelling at the Communications Director (Matt Walsh, left), asking why he didn't disengage quicker.  Meanwhile the Veep and her Assistant Gary (Tony Hale) discuss the damage: "You're going to alienate women in their 30s."  "Oh, no!" she exclaims. "I'm left with gay Latinos and Jews at college."  A very precise fan base.

Scene 3: At the Veep's office, the staff watches tv: Danny Chung  (Randall Park, below) is talking about the fracking fiasco (gleefully; he must be an enemy).  Deputy Director of Communications (Reid Scott, top photo, left, and below) wants to "take the fucker out."  

To add to his woes, on his computer, his frenemy Jonah is rapping about the fiasco, having the Veep say "And that's why drinking chemical sludge is good for you."

Jonah calls the Deputy Director to gloat. White House Chief of Staff yells at him, then tells the Deputy Director that they have to take out the mother (the lady who argued with the Veep about fracking).  Find some dirt on her.  Make her out to be a bad mom.  Wait, I thought they wanted to destroy their enemy, Danny Chung.  They want to destroy the Mother too?  That's a lot of personal assassinations for 23 minutes.

Scene 4: White House Chief of Staff has a beer with the Deputy Director  and complains about his job, "going from 6-pack abs to this keg.  I ain't seen my penis since the Gulf War." Has anyone else seen it?  

The Deputy Director wants to be the Veep's campaign manager.  It's doable, the Chief of Staff tells him, if he is willing to get "down and dirty," like finding some dirt on Danny Chung: there's a rumor that when he was in Iraq, his squad tortured a prisoner.  Ok, back to destroying Danny Chang.

More after the break