Martin Spanjers: Eight simple rules for determining if the "Eight Simple Rules" kid is gay

 

Rule 1: Does his character gawk at guys in the shower?

This is a still from Epiosde 3.1 of the  TGIF sitcom Eight Simple Rules (2002-2005).  It was originally Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, about an overprotective Dad played by John Ritter, but when Ritter died, it became a general family-angst dramedy.  I never watched, but in 2004 you could hardly turn on your computer without seeing Martin Spanjers as the teenage Rory gawking at Sam Horrigan.  

Only Seasons 1-2 are available to stream on Disney Plus, so I don't know what's going on in the scene, except that Rory doesn't want to shower after gym class due to his less than adequate package.  Maybe Sam Horrigan is a high school jock?  

2. Does he play a gay-vague teenager?

Fan consensus is that Rory is one of those gay-vague sitcom kids, soft, shy, pretty, and struggling valiantly to act girl-crazy because on American sitcoms, all teenage boys must be girl-crazy.

3. Does he show his butt on screen?

The next time I saw Martin Spanjers, he was still naked, playing the teenage shapeshifter Sam Merlotte in a 2009 episode of True Blood, about vampires, werewolves, and various other magical beings in rural Louisiana.  When you shift back to human form, you lose your clothes, so he's naked when he breaks into a house looking for food or something to steal.

4. Does he have a gay-subtext role?

The house happens to belong to a maenid (minor goddess) named Maryanne, who naturally wants to have sex with him.  He steals $10,000 on his way out, which causes the adult Sam Merlotte a lot of headaches.  

Although the encounter is heterosexual, Sam is homeless because his parents kicked him out when they discovered his "secret."  We can see a reflection of gay teens ejected by homophobic parents.  About 40% of homeless youth are LGBT.

More after the break

"True Blood": Vampires come out of the closet amid a Southern Gothic soap opera, with some vamp dicks

We have completely run out of tv shows to watch, except for The Simpsons and Doctor Who, which go on forever, so last night we latched onto True Blood, which ran from 2008 to 2014 on HBO.

This is the stereotypic South of Eudora Welty and Mama's Family, where people named Hoyt Fortenberry shop at the Piggly-Wiggly and drink sweet tea on the veranda, where everyone is related to everybody else's great-grand daddy once removed, and where the War means the Civil War...um, I mean the War of Yankee Aggression.   

It starts in media res, two years after vampires have "come out of the coffin," har har -- yep, the connection with LGBT people is just that heavy-handed -- due to the invention of artificial blood, brand name True Blood, which some humans have developed a taste for.  Snooty fratboy Brett (Josh Kelly, left), looking for a store that sells it, learns too late that every long-haired, multi-ringed Goth isn't a vampire; and sometimes chubby rednecks are.

We switch to the problems of Tara, who gets fired from or quits every job because she doesn't abide idiots and her best friend Sookie, who can read minds.  Sookie and soon Tara work at Merlotte's Bar, where the owner, Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell, top photo and left), is in love with her.  He won't come out with it, but of course Sookie can read his mind.

The only gay character so far is the bar's swishy cook, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), a stereotyped flamboyant, promiscuous queen who  claims he's done most of the men in town, and likes to flirt with racist, homophobic rednecks to get them all scared. He doesn't get a boyfriend until late in the series.

That same evening, the bar's other waitress, Maudette, hooks up with Sookie's brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten).  She's a fangbanger, a human who likes sex with vampires, because they get rough.  She offers to show him the video, which turns him on so much that he wants to do rough sex, including strangling her...a little too enthusiastically.  And she's taping the encounter!

Kwanten butt after the break