"My Friend Dahmer": How did they avoid the myth that all gay men are murderers? With bonus Kartheiser cock

 

I wanted to review My Friend Dahmer, because it stars Ross Lynch and Alex Wolff, two of the top teen idols of the 2000s, and both strong gay allies.

Plus perennial gay-subtext favorite Tommy Nelson and several gay actors, such as Harry Holzer, left, and Cameron McKendry.

And Vincent Kartheiser, who played the surly son of the vampire/  private investigator Angel,  then grew up to star as Pete Campbell in Mad Men. 

But could I stomach it?

When Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of killing, dismembering, and eating 17 young men between 1978 and 1991, homophobes were jubilant: "This proves what we've been trying to tell you: all gay men are murderers!"  

As early as the 1920s, Freudian psychologists like Wilhelm Stekel proclaimed that "overt homosexuals" were responsible for most murders and rapes, and men with "repressed homosexual conflict," for most other crimes.  Through the 1960s, criminologists and sociologists generally agreed. Talcott Parsons argued that Nazi concentration camp commanders were all gay, since no one else would enjoy genocide.

During the 1970s and 1980s, criminologists promoted the myth of "uncontrollable rages" that resulted in almost all gay men murdering their partners, or being murdered.  Or they figured that the main reason men have sex with each other is to satisfy "an inner fury against prolonging the race," that is, to kill future generations. 

Today articles and books in the field of criminology ignore LGBT people except as victims of hate crimes and domestic violence, and in lists of deviants on "the margins of society":

Drunks, vagrants, paupers, homosexuals, prostitutes

Homosexuals, murderers, vagrants, scum

Homosexuals, infanticides, cannibals, murderers

Given the ongoing homophobia in contemporary criminology, how the hell could you make a movie about Jeffrey Dahmer without falling back on the old myth that to be gay is to be a murderer?

Some of the reviews seem to be promoting the myth: it's about "a gay, cannibalistic serial killer," placing gay, cannibal, and serial killer as equally disturbing. Ross Lynch commented in Out Magazine about playing a "gay necrophile." 

Gulp.  Well, here goes...

My Friend Dahmer is based on the memoir-comic book of John Backderf, named Derf here (Alex Wolff), who befriended the young Jeff  (Ross Lynch) when they were in high school in 1977-78.  They begin hanging out with a crew of homophobic bullies played by Tommy Nelson and Harry Holzer. 

The gang is also racist, anti-Semitic, ableist -- whew. Even for the 1970s, that's a bit much.

They have fun mocking interior designer Mr. Fedele, who is gay and has cerebral palsy.  They even pay Jeff to imitate his behavior in the mall, and video tape it. 

More after the break.  Warning: explicit.

Tommy Nelson: Boyfriends, bromantic partners, crushes, and cocks

In my earlier profile of Tommy Nelson, star of My Friend Dahmer and Cat and Mouse, guest on The Righteous Gemstones and Better Call Saul, I noted that he married a woman in 2023.  Thus obviously straight, right?

Wait -- there are lots of bi/pan people in the world.  A closer look at Tommy's posts on social media reveals a lot of pre-marriage boyfriends or bromantic partners including Alex Wolff and a non-actor named Ryan.  Plus implications of getting down to business, maybe as a joke, maybe not.

1. Watching tv with a buddy in Fairborn, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton.  I can't tell who belongs to which leg, but they are obviously being intimate. Tommy tells his followers to "laugh."

2. Beer bottle placed strategically over his crotch to emulate an erection.  We've all done that to attract gay men, who always look at other men face-crotch-face.

3. Tommy's main man Ryan.  He invites his fans to invent "ship" names. Rymmy and Tyan sound too weird.

4. A younger Ryan mowing the lawn.

More after the break.  Caution: explicit

Tommy Nelson and Friends: Lots of gay-subtext roles, lots of smoking, but no gay porn

Born in West Haven, Connecticut in 1997, Tommy Nelson has been involved in local theater since he was five years old, with roles in The Laramie Project (about the hate-crime murder of a gay student), The Drowsy Chaperone, and It's a Wonderful Life.

In front of the camera since age 9, Tommy has 31 acting credits on the IMDB, including canonical or gay-subtext characters in My Friend Dahmer (2017) with Ross Lynch and The Cat and the Moon (2019) with Skyler Gisondo and Alex Wolff (left)..

He has guest starred on The Righteous Gemstones, FBI, Better Call Saul, and Blindspot. 

For someone whose Instagram email is "TommyTooHotty," he doesn't post many beefcake photos on his social media pages.  He smokes, hugs guys and girls, kisses girls, declares his love for Alex Wolff and someone named Ryan, demonstrates his leftist politics, and posts pictures of shoes.  A lot of shoes.

We'll have to make do with photos of his friends.

More friends after the break