"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

Carlin James: The third thug, a gay three-way, a queer romance, and Pretty Dudes.

In Episode 4.5 of Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin-off starring Bob Odenkirk as a sleazy lawyer, a flashback to 2003 shows the young Saul/Jimmy McGill working in a cell phone store.  He starts a side-business selling stolen burner phones (popular with drug dealers, gang members, cheating husbands, and so on). 

While scoping out customers at the Dog House sleazoid-favored hot dog stand, he approaches teen thugs Peewee, Skipper, and Scooter. They don't need any phones, but they'll wait until he's done for the evening and beat him up his profits. Jimmy kicks himself for not being able to foresee that the interaction would go bad.

In the next episode, Jimmy approaches the guys at their laudromat-hangout and offers to give them a cut if they let him sell without harassment: a more reliable dividend stream than robbing him just once.  They decide that they prefer robbery, and chase him -- into a trap!

Jimmy's allies, Huell Babineaux and Man Mountain, tie them up, gag them, and hang them upside down in a piñata warehouse.  They begin smashing the piñatas with baseball bats, while Jimmy asks the teen thugs if they prefer to be smashed to death quickly or slowly.  

The thugs are so terrified that they promise not to bother Jimmy anymore, and to tell all the other thugs to leave him alone.  He calls off the smashing, but his goons pretend not to hear him until the bat comes withn inches of Peewee's face.  "You get one warning," he tells them as they whimper.  "And that was it." 

Other than the gay-subtext potential of the three guys hanging out without chatting up girls, I was interested in this scene because I have posts on two of the actors: Tommy Nelson, left, and Cory Chapman, center.  

Both would go on to roles in The Righteous Gemstones, but in different seasons, and both have a substantial amount of gay and gay-subtext work.  

So what about the third thug, Scooter?  

He's played by Carlin James, a Filipino-American actor from Long Beach.  His on-screen career begins in 2009-11, playing college students in dramatic shorts and guys who get killed in thrillers.

His first mainstream role was in a 2016 episode of  How to Get Away with Murder: he plays Martin, one of the guys that main character Connor, played by Jack Falahee, invites home for a three-way.

More Carlin after the break

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

"The Cat and the Moon": Skyler Gisondo and Tommy Nelson in love (with other guys)

  

The Cat and the Moon (2019) was advertised as a "coming of age" movie with Alex Wolff (left) playing an updated Holden Caulfield.  So I  went in expecting depression, drugs, suicide, heterosexual machinations, and rampant homophobia. I found lots of drugs, suicidal ideations, insanity, and heterosexual romance, but no homophobia, and so many gay subtexts that I couldn't keep track of who was in love with whom.  

Nick (Alex Wolff) moves to New York City while his mom is in rehab, stays with his dad's old buddy (Mike Epps, who reputedly belongs to one of these cocks).  He gets involved in a lot stuff.  This review will only cover the gay subtext scenes.

Scene 1: Nick's first day in school.  Skyler (Giulian Yao Gioello, left), hot for the new guy, befriends him and shows him around.

Scene 2: In algebra class, two stoner buds are playing a game involving fluttering their hands together. 

Scene 3:  Nick is in the restroom, trying to get high with a bong made of a toilet paper roll, when the stoner buds come in, bickering like an old married couple and talking like "he got into my motherfuckin' grill, yo."  

One stands at the urinal; the other doesn't have to go, so he just stands nearby to get a peek at his bud's penis.

They find Nick and introduce themselves as Seamus and Russell (Skyler Gisondo, who plays Gideon Gemstone, and Tommy Nelson, who played the Young Junior in Season 2).  Seamus invites Nick to a party Friday night.

"Wait -- will your girlfriend be there?"  Russell asks.  

"Yes."

"Fuck!  You never pay attention to me when she's around."  To Nick: "His balls just evaporate when she's around." That must make sex difficult.

Scene 4; The party was cancelled, so Russell (the gay one, played by Tommy Nelson, far left) invites Nick to go to a club with him and his good buddy Skyler, who cruised Nick in Scene 1.  Seamus and his Girlfriend will also be there.  So when they go out, it's Skyler-his girlfriend and Russell-his boyfriend, get it?  

On the way, Russell and his good buddy Skyler argue and break up.  The Girlfriend tells Nick not to worry: they break up all the time, but get back together again. "Honestly, I think they just secretly want to fuck each other."  Ok, so it's not a subtext.

They end up partying on the roof. Russell (the gay one) and Seamus kiss.  Wait, I thought you had other partners.

Later, while Russell helps Seamus with an overdose, Nick and The Girlfriend bond.

More after the break