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 will get her 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

"Justified": Episode 1.1: Kentucky cowboy has a gay-subtext romance with an unhinged thug. Lots of thug dick

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Christmas on the Square: Be thankful that you haven't seen this movie. With Josh Serrano, Treat Williams, and random nude dudes

Brax Alexander is promoting his 2020 movie, Christmas on the Square.  Usually I stay away from Christmas romcoms that preach how wonderfully fulfilling small towns are, as opposed to those soulless, heartless monstrosities, big cities, because I grew up in a small town.  My parents rhapsodized, almost daily, about my destiny: find The Girl of My Dreams,  get married, go to work in the factory, buy a house, have kids, die.  There were no other options.  

There was no such thing as same-sex desire or romance.  You spent time with boys in order to talk about girls or strategize on how to get girls.  When you found Her, you would abandon male loves, instantly and without hesitation.  They were trivial, steps on the road to the Girl of Your Dreams destiny.

I kept looking for a place where I could escape, where I could go through an entire day without the "What girl?  What girl? What girl?" interrogation.  Where people cared about beauty, wisdom, and love, not just reproduction.  Maybe even recognized the existence of men loving men. 

After college, I lived in West Hollywood, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Minneapolis: Bookstores, art museums, cathedrals, Ethiopian restaurants, Thai restaurants, stores with rainbow flags in the windows, guys holding hands as they walked down the street: heaven.    

Oh, sorry, you wanted me to review the movie.  

Christmas on the Square was written by gay icon Dolly Parton, and stars gay icon Christine Baranski, plus Josh Segarra (top photo and left), who has played gay characters several time (he even played RuPaul's boyfriend). Furthermore, Dolly promotes the movie in an interview in Pink News, the gay magazine.  Surely this is a gay-positive Christmas romcom.  So here goes:

Scene 1:  A sound-stage town square in the town of Prairie View, with folks making merry.  Some very hot guys rush past, doing a high-step dance number -- but they ruin it by double-taking, en masse, at the hot girl who walks by.  At the end of their dance, they pair off, each guy with a girl.  Yuck!  This is the same brainwashing  I grew up with: "Every boy will fall in love with a girl!  There's no way out, no escape!  You are doomed!" 

A car drives past, with the evil, sunglasses-wearing Christine Baranski.  She sings: "Forget the past, be free at last, gotta get out of this town."  I like her -- she's the voice of thousands of LGBT people growing up in homophobic small towns, longing for a place where they can be free.  Of course, she's the villain. 

Amid the dancing, frolicking characters, the white-haired guy who runs the general store, no doubt Christine's Love Interest (played by Treat Williams, left) sings that "lovers walk in pairs." We only see male-female lovers.

 Focus character Felicity drives up and greets the stereotyped 1950s mailman.  She's the assistant of evil Christine Baranski, who continues to sing: "I know in time I'll lose my mind, if I don't get out of this town."  I had the same thought many times, back in Rock Island amid the "what girl do you like? what girl? what girl? what girl?" interrogation!

I'm getting angry.  They should have a trigger warning for all LGBT people who get trapped into viewing this thing.  I won't last much longer.

Left: Treat Williams' butt.

Christine passes out eviction notices.  She's going to tear down the whole town.  Good! 

 

More nude dudes after the break, if you dare to continue. Caution: Explicit.

Hank Greenspan: Femme boy plays only straight characters, but is he gay in real life? With bonus Brandon butt and Carlos cock

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Fire Island (2023): Myles Clohessy takes off his clothes, erases the LGBT people from a movie set in a gay resort.

  

I'm doing another trailer review, not because I want to see the movie -- the reviews were deplorably bad -- but because I want to demonstrate how deviously they erased the LGBT content.

Context: A 2022 movie, Fire Island, is a romantic comedy about guys looking for love (and sex) at the world-famous gay resort.   In 2023, a horror movie with the same title appeared, for audiences  that have no idea that the 2022 movie exists, or that Fire Island is a gay resort.

The blurb: "The perfect summer vacation quickly spirals out of control for a group of friends on the infamous, picturesque party getaway of Fire Island as they find themselves caught in a web of sex, lies and cold blooded murder."  Any idea that gay people exist here?

First, let's look at the Official Trailer:

Scene 1: A man and a woman in bed together when they get a phone call.  They climb into the car with another man and woman.  Two heterosexual couples, right?  They shriek loudly with excitement.

Scene 2: Establishing shot of the Fire Island ferry, while sinister music plays.  We see an American flag and a Pride flag. What kinda flag is that, Mabel?  I never seen such a thing.  

Scene 3: They move into their house.  More sinister music.  Late at night, Man #2 says "I have to take care of myself.  This is the best way I can breathe.  This weekend is the last fucking thing I wanted to do, but..."  

Meanwhile, Woman #1 and #2 are kissing.  The wives are having a lesbian affair!

Cut to morning, with everyone dancing around the kitchen, overjoyed to be cooking breakfast.  Man #2 and Woman #2 hug and start to kiss.  Man #1 sits on the porch, talking to Woman #1.  I guess the lesbian affair is over.  They're all back to being heterosexual couples again.

Scene 4: Uh-oh, the police find a dead guy (nice bulge in his underwear). Detective (Kresh Novakovic) thinks that it has something to do with the murders "out in the Pines."  That's where the two straight couples are staying!

Scene 5: Night.  Woman #2 awakens to an empty bed and calls for Man #2 (I assume, although the name she calls, Dan, is not in the cast list). Lights flash on and off.  

Cut to daytime. Man #2  and Woman #2 go into a house, yelling "Hello?  Hi?"

Now it's night again. Man #1 looks out the window at something scary.  I'll bet he's responsible for the murders.  

Scene 6: Old guy dressed as a hunter, in the woods, saying "Look at all this fucking b.s." or "these fucking deer." (I can't tell which: the dialogue is very soft, and the sinister music very, very loud.)  

Night again.  Man #2 and Woman #2 are in town. They see a figure in a deer mask.  They run on the beach, then into a house.  The detective, who is there for some reason, pulls a gun. Then it's morning, and they're running upstairs.

Scene 7: A split-second shot of a man and a woman dancing (wait...on pause, it's a butch/femme gay couple).  Cut to the femme one in the bathroom, with his throat slashed. 

Woman #1 wakes up in bed, wondering where Man #1 is.  He's on the beach, looking sinister.  Because he just killed a femme gay guy?  She gets up in her underwear and loads a gun.  The end.

Quick, how many of these people are gay?  Man #1 (played by Conor Paolo, top photo) is married to Woman #1.  Man #2 (played by Jonathan Bennett, second photo) is gay, and overcoming a recent tragedy.  Woman #2 is a lesbian, and in a relationship with someone who isn't on the car trip, so you'd think it was two heterosexual couples driving to Fire Island.  Plus her girlfriend looks like Woman #1, so you can't tell from the trailer that she exists.  You think the wives are having a lesbian affair. 

The Official Trailer tries very hard to make you believe that this movie is about two heterosexual couples at a resort that might have one or two gay people being eviscerated.  

But the Showtime Trailer goes even farther,  It cuts the Pride flag, the "I have to take care of myself," and the dancing/eviscerated gay guys, but adds three shots of men and women kissing.  

Left: Jared P-Smith, who plays the Bartender in a scene that doesn't appear in the trailer.

There are also three shots of a drag queen (played by writer/director Myles Clohessy's father) entertaining an audience of heterosexual couples. Each cuts directly to the deer mask person, implying that the drag queen, not Man #1, is the killer.  

The question is, why?  Why make a movie where 3 out of 5 protagonists are gay, then try very hard to hide it?  

Let's check Myles Clohessy.  He has 16 writing and 20 directing credits listed on the IMDB, but most are "upcoming."  Also 41 acting credits,  but only one gay role, in The Last Ferry.  He plays an ex-Marine who murders his boyfriend during a weekend in Fire Island.

 Interestingly, an interview in The Spirit, a local NYC newspaper, asks how he, a heterosexual, played a gay character.  He explains "I approached (the role) in the same way that I would approach any other character."   Actors used to be asked that all the time, but not in 2020.

But it may explain a lot about this movie.     

Nude photos of Myles Clohessy after the break