Adults: Yet another "Friends" clone, but with more gay/bi guys, kissing, and c*cks

Awhile ago I reviewed the first episode of Adults (2025): a contemporary Friends with five young adult friends  in New York, three guys and two girls, one Black and one South Asian.  They hate their jobs and pursue "will they or won't they?" romances; I don't know if they dance in a fountain while singing "Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA."  

I didn't make it past the first episode. I was annoyed at the showrunners making an obviously gay character straight, just so they could increase the number of hetero-romances.  

But I recently had a bagel sandwich in my hands and no time to search, so I clicked on whatever popped up first on Hulu.  It was Adults Episode 1.8, with the not-gay black guy and a random white guy being victimized by a bullying teenage girl.  I fast-forwarded through the all-girl scenes, and ended up near the end, with the two in a car, consoling each other with  "You're not as bad as she says." They move in for a kiss, but the bully interrupts them: "I knew you were screwing each other's butts."  

WTF?  Did they decide to have the "not gay" black guy come out after all, and give him a boyfriend?  But the first episode went into excruciating detail about the Girl of His Dreams, who lives next door but he is always too tongue-tied to ask out. 

After extensive research, I figured it out.  I've never seen Adults before.  The show I reviewed was Not Suitable for Work (2026), which is also about five young adult friends in New York, three guys and two girls, one Black, one South Asian.  They hate their jobs and pursue "will they or won't they?" romances, and probably dance in a fountain while singing "Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA."

Would you be able to tell them apart?

I think the Adults guys who almost kissed were Anton (Owen Thiele), who is canonically gay, and Paul Baker, always use both names (Jack Innanen), who is canonically straight. He dated both of the female friends, Issa and Billie, and now he's back to Issa.  Or is he starting on Anton?  We'll see what happens in Episode 1.9

 

Scene 1: The Friends haven't checked their mailbox in months.  They go through it. 

"My parents are in Jackson Hole," Samir (Malik Elassal, getting a blow job right) announces.

"Who's Jackson, and how do they both fit inside? Paul Baker asks.  Kind of a sleazoid, aren't you, buddy?

Paul Baker gets a notice that his visa is expiring, so he has to leave the U.S. and move back to Canada. Everyone is horrified.  Can I come with you?

Scene 2:  The immigration lawyer says that he has no choice: go back to Canada and apply for a new visa.  

"How does this happen to our most well-hung countrymen?" Girlfriend Issa moans.   We have a butt shot but no cocks online, so I'll have to take your word for it.

"You could get married," Blond Billie suggests.

"That's visa fraud!  It's against the law!"

"But it's not illegal," Samir points out. I guess he's the Joey, the Stupid One of the group.

Girlfriend Issa offers to marry Paul Baker: "We have a beautiful spiritual connection, and you obviously worship my lady parts."

He consents.  Everyone hugs and congratulates him.  Near-Kiss Anton (Owen Thiele, right) looks uncomfortable, thinking that they were going to start a romance.  Well, ask him yourself.  

Problem: Years ago, Girlfriend Issa married a guy named Zach-Carlos as a joke.  They have to convince him to grant her a divorce.

Scene 3:  Appointment with the priest. She's Catholic?  88% of the population of India is Hindu, so I figured.... Paul Baker doesn't want to lie to a Man of God, so he reveals that they're actually getting married so he can stay in the country.  

"Have you consummated your relationship yet?" The priests asks.

"No," Girlfriend Issa responds.  "Well, in my mouth, and sometimes in my bottom, but no sex."  Oral and anal don't count?

The priest is satisfied that they're living chastely, but Paul Baker blurts out "That's not true.  We have (non oral and anal) sex all the time."

He refuses to perform the wedding, but because of the visa fraud, not because of the sex (and other activities that don't count).

More after the break

Survival of the Thickest: Mavis and her nemesis spar in Paris, Khalil and Luca "get closer," and who the heck is Lopez? With his dick and nude models.

I wasn't planning to review Survival of the Thickest, about a thick black woman finding body positivity as a fashion designer.  But Queerty said that it had gay representation, and one of the cast members, somebody with the last name Lopez (I didn't record the first name), appeared on the nude celebrity subreddit, so I figured I'd give it a shot. 

In Episode 3.4, "C'est la vie, Bitch," they visit Paris Fashion Week, while back in New York, Khalil and Luca "connect." They must be the gay couple, and there'll be shots of Paris. 

Khalil is played by Tone Bell, butt left.

Scene 1: Mavis and her friend on a tour bus, shouting "I'm a designer!"  They reach their destination, the Victoria Palace Hotel , but they're actually staying at the horrible hostel next door.

"It's got character," Mavis says, trying to look on the bright side. "It's got queef."  I think the word means a lady part fart.  It was used to insult Keefe on The Righteous Gemstones.  

"It smells like an 18th century pap smear."  A lot of lady part jokes.

She likes the doorknobs in the center, like a belly button, and asks the concierge if she can check his belly button.  He refuses.

Scene 2: Seven flights of stairs and a hallway bathroom, but there's a view of the Eiffel Tower from the window.  Of course -- on tv every Parisian hotel room looks out at the Eiffel Tower, even if  it's miles away and facing the wrong direction.   Mavis washes her breasts with a handi-wipe, while they discuss how far they've come in two years.

Whomp, someone farts.  Turns out that the ladies have a roommate sleeping under the covers in the top bunk.  

Scene 3: Luca (Marouane Zotti), the one who's going to connect with Khalil (hopefully by kissing), is counseling a refugee couple, assuring them that they'll get housing soon.  They also need a job.  "I promise that you'll..."

His coworker Donny Wang (Ronnie Chien) butts in to tell them that their chances are slim,  When they leave, he advises "Never promise anything.  Keep their expectations vague...."

In other news, a girl asked him to DJ at the strip club tonight.  

"Sorry. I have plans with friends," Luca tells him.

"Oh, I wasn't inviting you.  I was bragging about all the naked ladies I'm going to see."  Ugh, a character whose shtick is being hetero-horny.  

Scene 4: Mavis is giving a pep talk to her models, telling them to "eye fuck" everyone.  There are some androgynous and genderfuck types, and some plus-sized, like David Ventakapen (left).   They walk across a portico (with the Eiffel Tower in the background, of course) and get photographed.  Then Mavis is introduced to thunderous applause.   A journalist tells her that the genderfuck outfit has made her the Best New Renegade of Fashion Week, which comes with a Vogue cover.  And she's invited to the Vogue party tonight.  Wait -- she's the most renowned fashion designer in the world, but she's staying in a youth hostel?

Suddenly Mavis almost collapses in pain, but her friend tells her to dance it off.  Chekhov's Gun: This better be important.

And when are we getting to the Lopez guy?

Scene 5: They have time to kill before the Vogue party tonight, so we get a montage of the usual.  They want to take a boat tour, but the tour guide won' sell them tickets, even though the boat is only half full. And when they try to go to a restaurant, the waiter (Theo Pham) tellsl them that it's closed.  Racism plotline? About 10% of the French population has African ancestry, more in big cities.

They try a Senegalese restaurant in the Black neighborhood, Château Rouge in the 18th Arrondissement,  and are served immediately.   "I like Black Paris a little better than the rest of Paris," the Friend muses.

Khalil and Luca getting close after the break

Ryan Buggle: The youngest LGBT character on tv, star of a gay play on Broadway. But is he gay/bi in real life? With Drayer and Meloni dick

 

I've never seen any of the 586 episodes of Law and Order: SVU (1999-) , because who cares about the Crime of the Week?  So I had no idea that it was so soap-opera like. It took a lot of plot arcs to for Noah Porter-Benson (Ryan Buggle) to get around to coming out as the youngest LGBTQ character on tv. And a lot of trauma:

Bon in 2013, after Mom Elle is  raped by sex trafficker Johnny Drake.

She keeps the baby while working for pimp Little Tino, but when she overdoses, he sells little Noah to a child pornographer couple.

After detective Olivia (Mariska Hartigay) arrests them and rescues Noah, he is placed in several abusive foster homes.

Mom Elle turns up and tries to get custody, but she is murdered.

Olivia decides to foster Noah, but when she pulls him out of the way of a speeding car, he is bruised, and CPS thinks that she is abusive.

He is kidnapped, nearly kidnapped, and hospitalized with life threatening diseases (twice).

His biological father shows up for a custody battle, and is murdered.  I'm looking at you, Olivia.

Finally, a queer code: In 2019, ADA Stone (Philip Winchester, left) decides that Noah needs a "father figure,' and teaches him to play baseball.  

After a few episodes, he gets tired of baseball and says that he would rather take ballet lessons.  This was Ryan's idea.  He tells Dance Magazine: "Dancing is my favorite thing, so I wrote a script over the summer and gave it to the writers, and they were happy to do it."

Although Noah mentions his ballet lessons and his competitive dance team on occasion, and has a plotline where Olivia hangs up on him when he announces that he got the lead in The Nutcracker (not because she disapproves), it's mostly back to trauma, diseases, an unspecified "family emergency," vaping, and getting to know Olivia's estranged brother Simon (Michael Weston), who dies of an overdose. How many parental figures have died on you, buddy?

On January 11, 2022, Olivia finds Noah in his friend Hudson's house, wearing a dog collar, eating dog food, and barking on command.  At first he claims that it was just kids being kids, but then he admits that Hudson was making fun of a nonbinary friend, using homophobic slurs.  So he defended them, and told Hudson that he was bi: "There's no shame in being true to yourself."  The bully didn't respond well.

Olivia praises him for standing up to Hudson.  

He explains: "Well, it's my truth.  I just haven't told anybody before."

Olivia: "Well, thank you for telling me." And they go on with their day. (Yes, she comes down on the  bully.)

The episode received nearly universal praise (excluding the usual homophobes), and got Ryan a dozen interviews in everything from Cliche Magazine to The Today Show.  He was twelve years old, but Noah was nine, thus becoming the youngest self-identified LGBTQ character on televsion..  The runner up is Jude on The Fosters, who says that he is "not into labels" at age twelve, and "gay" at age thirteen.  

As far as I can tell, Noah's bi identity never comes up again.  He  bonds with his half-brother Connor (real-life buddy Tre Ryder), gets a potential father figure in Olivia's ex Stabler (Christopher Meloni, left, who played Lee Tergersen's boyfriend in Oz), and continues to suffer from soap opera traumas.  But there's always the future; Ryan hints that there are some "exciting plotlines ahead" for his character.

Ryan Buggle is now sixteen years old, with biceps.  I'm going to check the usual: any (other) LGBT roles?  Gay or bi in real life?    

More after the break

Russell Posner: The incredibly cute gay teen of "The Mist" plays a politician, gets tied up, shows his dick, and vanishes. With bonus nude Morgan Spector and Jack Black

I used this photo of an incredibly well hung guy as an  illustration for my profile of the Norwegian Fire Viking.  He looks a lot like the incredibly cute Russell Posner, so I thought I would do a profile, on the off chance that they are the same person.

Turns out that the incredibly cute Russell Posner is not too easy to track down.

Famous Birthdays promises "A complete biography," but the complete biography consists of: "Canadian actor, born in 2003." 

Rotten Tomatoes adds: "began acting in commercials while in elementary school, and made his stage debut in Lost in Yonkers in 2012." When he was nine years old?

Broadway World likewise promises a "complete biography," and says only that he starred in The Mist.

His listing on We Audition says only that he's a "New York based actor" 

Trying to find him by googling "Russell Posner" and any of "high school," "college," "theater," "commercials," "Canada," and "actor" yields a guy from Florida who died at age 77 and a postdoctoral researcher in oncology.

Plus a shirtless photo of an incredibly cute guy who doesn't look like him.

Russell has 14 acting credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with the 11 year old son in Eugene! (2012), a tv movie starring Eugene Mirman.

He played the 14-year old son of  Dan Landsman (Jack Black) in The D Train (2015).  Dan is organizing a high school reunion, and tries to get the most popular guy in school, Oliver (James Marsden), to come.  They end up doing some incredibly sexy stuff, but the buns belong to Dan as he gets up from a tryst with his wife.

Next Russell played the son of a journalist who decides to research The Pirates of Somalia (2017).

Russell's most famous work to date is in The Mist (2017), based on the Stephen King novel.  I just read the plot synopsis on the fan wiki, but it sounds incredibly homophobic:

As a murderous mist descends upon the town, high school Adrian (Russell) is at a party with his girlfriend, getting bullied for being gay (wait, that doesn't...).  Later while taking refuge in a hospital, he kisses Tyler (Chris Gray), who beats him up, then relents and agrees to sex.

He is kidnapped by a psych ward patient who sees "the incredible evil" in him.  They must mean being gay.

His Dad says that he could have loved him "in spite of being gay,"  if only he were "right in the head."  In spite of?  

More after the break

Angel Mock Curiel: LGBTQ and Latinx roles culminate in Lil Pappi on "Pose." Not much after except nude modeling and Denver.

It's the late 1980s in Manhattan, the era of Reaganomics, Tough on Crime, and the AIDS crisis.  It's cold outside.  Especially if you're poor, a racial minority, and femme, trans, or gay: "the world hates you.  When you die, it breathes a sigh of relief."

All you have is a "house," a family of choice with a "mother" and her children.  And ballroom.

 Pose (2018-21) is set in the ballroom subculture, where African-American and Latinx trans women, drag queens, and occasionally gay men "posed,"modeled, house against house in the quest for realness.  Some brought home gigantic trophies, and became legends. 

Li'l Papi (Angel Bismark Curiel) was living on the streets, surving through drug sales and hustling  (he preferred women, but accepted male clients).  After stumbling upon the ballroom subculture, he was entranced, and petitioned Blanca of House Evangelista to "adopt" him, even though he wasn't gay or trans.  She agreed, with the rule that he stop dealing, and pose occasionally as a muscleman. 

In Season 2, Li'l Papi starts dating Angel (Indya Moore), a sex worker whose previous plot arc involved an affair with a married man (Evan Peters).  After various arguments and breakup-reconciliations, they get married.  He opens a talent agency specializing in LGBTQ models, with Angel as his top client.  They have a happy ending (sort of), a welcome relief in a show that too often emphasized people being rejected by family, murdered, or dying of AIDS.

 This was Angel's first exposure to trans people.  In an interview with Attitude, he notes that he grew up in a "very cis, very heteronormative, very rough" Afro-Dominican community in Little Liberty, Miami.  He was bullied for being short and artistic, and for having asthma, and escaped into the world of the theater.  At the Miami Arts Charter School, he performed in The Rose Tattoo, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jesus Hopping the A Train,and upon graduating in 2013, he enrolled at Pace University in New York as a drama major.

He dropped out in 2015 due to inancial problems, was homeless for awhile, survived anyway he could (he doesn't specify, but I imagine that hustling was one of his survival jobs), and finally found a job in a hotel.  But he still auditioned, and in 2016 landed his first on-screen role in America Adrift.  He played a middle-class teenager on Long Island who drifts into heroin addiction and drug dealing.

And loses his clothes.

Davi Santos, who is gay in real life, played his older brother, giving Angel his first close contact with LGBTQ people.  

Next came the short Louie's Brother Peter (2017).  Peter (Andrew McLarty) has Asperger's Syndrome, but that doesn't stop him from helping his brother with the drug deliveries.  Angel plays Zeke, one of their customers.

Andew McLarty is gay in real life.  .

Night Comes On (2018) is a "slow, painful, grim" indie drama about an African-American, lesbian girl nameed Angel, who is released from juvenile detention at age 18 with no money and no place to stay.  She gets a girlfriend, tries to find social connections, and seeks out her father to punish him murdering her mother.  Dad is played by John Earl Jelks, who often plays gay characters

You're pushing up the LGBTQ representation, Angel buddy

Our Angel played a store clerk. 

Monsters and Men (2018) is not about James Whale and the Frankenstein movie - that's Gods and Monsters.  It's about an incident where six police officers corner a black man and "accidentally" kill him during an arrest.

You're pushing up the Black/Latinx representation, too.

When Angel saw the casting call for L'il Pappi, he thought, "That's me!  Those are my experiences!"  He got the part, and since he had so little exposure to trans people, tried to educate himself, hang out with them, ask about their lives -- and he ended up in a relationship with producer/writer Janet Mock, an African-American transwoman -- while she was still married to her husband.  She is the one who suggested expanding Papi's role by giving him a romance with Angel Evangelista.

Pose turned out to be the high point of Angel's acting career.  He was starring in a popular tv series, but more importantly, he  had found a community.  

More after the break

Marcel Ruiz: "One Day at a Time" boy grows up, plays gay guys, wears dresses, kisses girls. You figure him out. With Lucas butt and Jackson junk

When I was in high school, Tuesday night meant Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and One Day at a Time (1975-84).   a "hip sitcom" with divorced mom Anne Romano (Bonnie Franklin) moving from small-town Logansport to Indianapolis to raise her kids: rebellious Julie, popular Barbara, and eventually the exceptionally femme Alex (Glenn Scarpelli).  Building handyman Schneider popped in all the time.

The theme song brings me back to those nights, sitting in the living room with my parents and brother and sister, doing my homework on a clipboard. No matter what problems I was facing outside, with screaming preachers and sadistic teachers and the constant refrain of "what girl do you like?", I was safe here.

This is it (this is it); this is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball.
This is it (this is it): straight ahead, and rest assured, you can't be sure at all.
So while you're here, enjoy the view, keep on doin' what you do.
Hang on tight, we'll muddle through -- one day at a time.

In 2017, a re-imagining appeared on Netflix, only to be cancelled, moved to Pop and TVLand, and cancelled again in 2020.  It was a re-imagining because it had nothing to do with the original series except for the title, the theme song, and characters named Alex and Schneider.  Here they are a Hispanic family living in Echo Park, Los Angeles: army nurse Lupe; social activist Elena; and popular Alex (Marcel Ruiz).  Grandma Rita Moreno pops in frequently.

I watched an episode out of curiosity, but didn't like it.  Mostly ladies; no cute guys (Todd Grinnell as Schneider was not my type). And why did they keep the name Alex but remove his gay coding?  

Besides, watching on my laptop in my home office in 2017 was just not the same as watching in the living room surrounded by my family in 1977.

Then I saw Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz (who played Elena and Alex) in a video for the It Gets Better project.  Isabella talks about how Elena struggles with coming out as a queer Latinx woman, and starts dating the nonbinary Syd.  "Normalizing lesbian and nonbinary identities on tv plays an important role in creating acceptance in real life."  Marcel adds that if your family doesn't accept you, there are others who do. You can find a chosen family.  "It gets better. Just keep going through life everyday."  Not "one day at a time"?

Isabella plays a queer character, but why is Marcel there?  Alex is straight.  You're looking quite femme in that outfit, buddy. Are you gay in real life, like the original? 

Time for a profile.

Marcel was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2003.  His mother, Mariem Pérez Riera, is an Emmy-winning director known for her biography of Rita Morena (not coincidentally, grandma on One Day at a Time). His father, Carlitos Ruíz Ruíz, is a "photographer, storyteller, and filmmaker" known for Maldeamores (2007), about a love triangle.

For someone born into a family of film makers, Marcel doesn't have a lot of acting gigs listed on the IMDB.  His career starts with an episode of Snowfall (2017), a tv series about the cocaine panic in Los Angeles in the early 1980.  Damson Idris (left) stars as a drug dealer.  Marcel plays a young Sandanista operative spying on the CIA in Nicaragua. He gets killed.  

His first starring role was in Breakthrough (2019): When a boy with the crazily Anglo name John Smith (Marcel) drowns in a lake, his Mom prays that he will be brought back "from the brink of death."  Did he die or almost die?  

Josh Lucas (left) plays the boy's Dad, and Topher Grace of That 70s Show plays the megachurch pastor.  

Marcel apparently belongs to a megachurch in real life, too.

Sounds Christian, which means homophobic, but Topher Grace went on to star in Home Economics (2021-23), and Marcel, to One Day at a Time (2017-20).  Both of their characters have gay sisters.  Go figure.

 Marcel has only two post-Days roles:

A Bad Bunny music video, Baile inolvidable (Unforgettable dance, 2025).  A lot of male-female couples dance while their friends cheer them on.  

And the short Telaraña (2025) : The teenage Naomi faces the "disturbing truth" about her family, involving a giant spider (araña).  Marcel plays her brother Lolo.

Plus two upcoming projects.

Summer of Three (filming completed in 2026): After his father's death, Javi (Marcel) returns to Puerto Rico, where he becomes involved in a love triangle with Luife (Paolo Schone) and his girlfriend Kiki.  I can't tell from the plot description and photos if the two men are competing for the lady, or if it's a three-way romance. 

More after the break

John Karlen: Vampire's boyfriend, lesbian subtext husband, bi guy shows his stuff. Plus nude Sean Penn and Tim Matheson

 

During the hippie era, what kid didn't run home from school every day to catch the last ten or fifteen minutes of the Gothic soap Dark Shadows (1966-71)?   It wasn't enough time to comprehend most of the plotlines, but you could get a glimpse of the blatant romance between brooding vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) and his boyfriend..um...hired hand, Willie Loomis (John Karlen).  Probably not deliberate in the late 1960s, but since Jonathan Frid and several other cast members were gay, and John Karlen arguably bi, it's a possibility.

I've already covered the romance in detail, but I thought it was high time for a profile of John Karlen.

John was born in Brooklyn in 1933, to Polish immigrant parents.  After high school he served in the Korean War, then attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1958.  

Between 1958 and 1965, John made his mark on Broadway with roles in Sweet Bird of Youth, Invitation to a March, Arturo Ui, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here, All in Good Time, and Postmark Zero. Wow, Tennessee Williams, Bertolt Brecht...classy.

Plus episodes of those standalone dramas that they broadcast in the early days of television, before they figured out that ongoing situations would draw in more viewers: Kraft Theater, Armstrong Circle Theater, Camera Three.  

The boy was 34 years old, and on his way to a serious dramatic career.  Then, for a reason lost to history, he switched to soap operas.

John appeared in 74 episodes of the CBS soap  Love is a Many Splendored Thing  (1967-68) as "sneering playboy" Jock Porter.  He begins dating Chinese-American medical student Mia while she is "on a break" from her regular boyfriend (without telling him).  But she discovers that Jock paid for his previous girlfriend's illegal abortion, dumps him, and returns to Hong Kong.

When he wasn't on the CBS call sheet, John walked three blocks over to ABC, to play con man Jason Maguire's "friend" Willie Loomis on Dark Shadows.  When Barnabas Collins was introduced, he was upgraded to vampire companion, and appeared on 179 episodes (1967-71). 

He also buddy-bonded with the vampire as Desmond Collins in 1840, and as the flamboyant "green carnation" Carl Collins in 1897. 

After Dark Shadows, John's vampire background got him a starring role in the "erotic horror" Daughters of Darkness (1971).  Stefan (John) falls in love with Valerie, and says that they have to elope because his "mother" will disapprove.  Surprise!  He's in a gay relationship with Fons Rademaker, who of course disapproves of being dumped for a girl.

The newlyweds check into a hotel in Belgium, where they meet the famous real-life vampire Elizabeth Báthory and her lesbian lover.  Seductions, three-ways, psychological games, and murder follow.  Only Valerie survives.

I don't recommend it because it's nonstop naked ladies, but there's a gay connection, and we get to see John's butt.

Several times. 

And his dick, but it's too small and blurry for a decent screen capture.  How about Malcolm McDowall instead?  A Clockwork Orange premiered in 1971, also.

More after the break

Jett Klyne: The future bisexual superhero spends his teen years bodybuilding and dating guys. With two twink dicks and an Ecuadorian bulge

 

In Wandavision (2021), the Scarlet Witch, memory-wiped and trapped in a sitcom world, has two sons, Billy and Tommy (Justin Hilliard, Jeff Klyne).  In Agatha All Along (2024), after being adopted by a Jewish family and losing and regaining his memory, Billy Maximoff becomes the gay Jewish superhero Wiccan.  So of course I had to do a profile of Justin.

But what about Tommy Maximoff (Jett Klyne)?  He grows up to become the superhero Speed, who is bisexual in the comics: he dated Kate Bishop in Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade (2010-12), and the male superhero Prodigy in Emperor Hulkling (2020).  He explains "I crushed on who I crushed on."   

Maybe I'd better do a profile of Jett, too.

Jett arguably has a more gay/femme affect.  Guess which is Tommy.

And he has spent his teen years working out.  

I'll answer the standard two questions: has Jett appeared in any movies or tv shows of gay interest?; and is he gay in real life?

Gay-Themed Movies/TV Shows:

 In 2014, when Jett was seven years old, he was in Writing Kim: Aspiring writer Annie (Jett's Mom) heads off on a road trip seeking inspiration, and meets Kim, who has a husband and son (Jett) but also likes ladies. Kim inspires her to embrace her sexual fluidity (you mean she's bi?)  In 2020, it was selected for qFlix, the Philadelphia LGBTQ film festival.  

According to his IMDB biography, Jett's break-out role was in Z (2019).  So a one-word title was too long?  Joshua (Jett) has an "imaginary" friend, Z, who gets more and more disruptive, sabotaging his relationship with his real life friend Daniel and trying to kill his father.  Finally we learn that Z is using Joshua to get to his mother. 

I haven't seen it, but the gay subtexts sort of jump out at you, don't they?

Left: Since Jett is 16 as of this writing, I won't be looking for nude photos, so here's a random twink.

He has a lot of pre-Wandavision guest appearances, mostly in movies that I never heard of: Devil in the Dark, Manny Dearest, The Humanity Bureau, Skyscraper.  Plus three significant post-Wanda movies:

The Boy in the Woods (2023). During World War II, as the Jewish population of Buczarc is being rounded up for the concentration camps, Max (Jett) is sent to live with Janko (Richard Armitage), a synpathetic non-Jewish farmer.  But Janko fears for his family's safety, so he kicks the boy out.  While hiding in the woods, Max forms a buddy-bond with the sensitive, artistic, gay-coded Yanek (David Kohlsmith, right); they discuss their future, living together as artists in Paris, and try to adopt the baby of a dead woman. 

Yanek dies, but the baby grows up, and Max re-unites with her in old age, so symbolically the two had a family.  A definite gay subtext or text.

More after the break

Tom Berklund: Bodybuilder and "Modern Family" cop stars in gay tragedies, poses nude, but what's with all the lady friends?

 

We've finished Modern Family, but I forgot to research a bodybuilder who appeared in Episode 10.5, "Good Grief" (2018): as the family gathers for Halloween, Jay gets the word that his ex-wife DeeDee (Shelly Long) has died.  Dressed in wacky costumes, the children and grandchildren try to process their grief in different ways. Phil and Cam drive into West Hollywood for a convoluted reason, and get stuck in the Halloween parade.  As they are honking, a cop tells them to give the horn a rest.  The parade will be over soon.  Then he swishes off in his very tight chaps.

Phil: "I don't get to this part of town often.  That's not a real cop, right?"

I was annoyed that Phil says "this part of town": West Hollywood is a separate city.  But I wanted to see more of the hot cop, Tom Berklund, and his tight chaps.

I checked his Instagram first: "Real estate developer, bodybuilder, spiritual growth."  That's not an occupation, buddy.

 Some nice muscle shots, but the mixed signals made it impossible to tell if he is gay or not. 

"Had a great time with Sarah and Teddy," a lady and a dog.  You're dating a lady, got it.

"Dinner and theater night out with my famous friend" Ryan Hadad, a queer disabled playwright.  Is it a date or a friend hang?

"Ali, Joey, and me."  Ali and Joey are a woman and a baby.  So is this your wife and son?  

"Post dinner sunset stroll with the one and only Tucker Breder," an actor whose Instagram is private, but he poses with a woman on Soundcloud.  Now you're dating a straight guy?

"Charlie got the lead in Once Upon a High School."  Posing with a woman and teenage boy.  But if this is your wife and son, who's Ali and the baby?   

Heck with it.  Let's look at his biceps and bulge, and see if he's been in any gay-themed movies.

Tom was born in Middleton, Wisconsin, 15 minutes from Madison, and got his BFA from the University of Michigan.  He then moved to New York, where he won the part of Gregory Gardner in the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.  

In his monologue, Gregory talks about getting an erection in class, and realizing that he was gay.  Not a bad start.

Tom has 25 acting credits, but mostly parts like Dancer, Gym Attendant, Spin Instructor, and Sexy Santa (above, on Ray Donovan).  I found a few gay roles:

More after the break