Pernille: Norwegian angst comedy with a gay dad, a bi nephew (probably), a gay wedding (almost), lots of funerals, and nude Vikings

I did my undergrad at a Swedish Lutheran college, where everyone had to read Ibsen and Strindberg (ugh!), and listen to Peer Gynt (shudder), so I don't trust Scandinavian fiction.  Even the comedies tend to the dark and dreary.  So, when Pernille (2021-24), renamed from the Norwegian Pørni for obvious reasons, appeared on Netflix as a "triumph of Norwegian television," I decided to do a little research before jumping in:

1. Any gay characters?  

2. How many deathbed scenes?

The premise: Pørni, a single mother (until she starts dating Bjørnar  in Episode 1.2), works for child protective services. After her sister's tragic death, she becomes responsible for her teenage nephew Leo (Jon Ranes)

Left: Gunnar Eiriksen plays Bjørnar, but I think this is a different one.

 Episode 1.3, "Don't Get a Boyfriend, Please":  "When Leo has an angry outburst during a match, Pørni urges him to deal with the elephant in the room." 

The elephant must have something to do with the request to not get a boyfriend.  Leo must be gay, and Auntie Pørni disapproves.

Nope, the elephant is: His dad killed his mother, and wll probably go to prison, but Leo hates him, and thinks that he should have died. 

Pørni advises that, regardless of the anger he feels, Leo owes the kid he attacked an apology, and he shouldn't have called him "mongo."  Not a gay slur -- it refers to a mental disability.

Episode 1.6: Leo has a "Big Day," but when I checked, it turned out to be his confirmation (joining the Lutheran Church).  And the guy sitting next to him is a family member, not a boyfriend.

Leo next appears in the plot synopses in Episode 2.3, when a girl named Rains comes into the kitchen, and everyone is shocked: "I thought they broke up."  "No, they're just open to seeing other people."  Heterosexualized in the second season!

But in Episode 5.6, which I skimmed through for another reason, Auntie Pørni asks Leo, "Have you seen Lukas lately?" with that eager gleam that you doubtless recognize from your childhood, when your parents were playing matchmaker.  He responds, "Not since I picked up the t-shirts for the bachelor party.  Why?"  "Oh, no reason."  Gleam, gleam, knowing smile. 

They use he/him pronouns: Lukas is a guy.  And it sounds very much as if Pørni is trying to push them together.  Maybe Leo has come out as bi.    

Actor Jon Ranes plays a youth gang member in the concurrent Flus (2022-24), and sings under the name Loverboy.  I don't know if he's gay in real life or not, but I have my suspicions.

I was so invested in skipping over the darkness, depression, and unyielding agony of life in Scandinavian comedies that I missed the elephant in the room:

Episode 1.1: While dealing with the grief over her sister's murder, Pørni learns that her elderly father (Nils Ole Oftenbro) is dying of an incurable brain tumor.  As he will be dead soon, he reveals a secret that he has been keeping for 70-plus years.

Yep he's gay.  And the brain tumor was a misdiagnosis.  He's fine; well, terribly depressed, but in a Scandinavian comedy, who isn't?  

Left: Nils Ole Oftenbro, early photo.  He's been acting since the 1960s.

 

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

David Pevsner: Quasi-homophobic roles, older gay guy roles, gay theater, lots of Pevsner penis pics. Did I mention that he's gay?

This photo of someone named David Pevsner popped up on my "n*de celebrity" feed.  I never heard of him, but when I checked the IMDB, I found 57 acting credits, with a lot of gay-themed projects.  

A promising start.  Until you start checking the synopses.

A bartender in a gay bar in a 2000 episode of NYPD Blue: the detectives, including the homophobic Rick Schroeder, deal with the case of a man who rents a hotel room to have sex on the downlow.  He is stabbed 47 times, and his p enis removed. So, like "Cruising", with some gay panic shite?

A casting agent in The Fluffer (2001): a young man employed as a fluffer (keeping the adult actors aroused) falls for "a gay-for-pay porn star whose hedonistic lifestyle may lead them both to destruction."  Yuck, more gay-as-sleaze homophobia.  I'll be he gets redeemed through a heterosexual romance.

"Man in Hospital" in Adam & Steve (2005):  Adam and his girlfriend are at a pub, when he sees a male dancer, Steve, and decides to hook up.  Years later, he meets Steve again, now a psychiatrist, and they start a new relationship.  Meanwhile, the ex-girlfriend starts dating Steve's roommate.  It's on Pluto only, so I can't get to it, but according to the reviews, there's some homophobic hate crime, people being horrified at seeing a gay couple (in 2005 New York), stereotyping, gross-out humor, and a whimpering dog.   

A gay pe dophile child abductor in a 2006 episode of Criminal Minds (with Daryl Sabara as a teen with a precursor of a gay OnlyFans page).

A lot of gay roles, but not positive ones.  I don't know if this guy is gay or a blistering homophobe, or both.

A starring role in The Real Life (2007), about a life coach (David) who gets his own reality tv show, and becomes "addicted to fame."  Not available to stream anywhere.

Lez Be Friends (2007), two episodes of a tv pilot repackaged as a movie: A lesbian must pretend to be straight so her lesbian-phobic landlord will allow her and her gay bff to move in with a gay guy.  So the dude is fine with gay men, but not lesbians?  Or does he think that gay people all hook up with each other, regardless of gender?  The first episode sets up the premise, and the second is about a crab infestation.  David plays Duke, not one of the roommates.  Not available to stream.

A pornography professor in Pornography: A Thriller (2009).

Role Play (2010): A recently outed soap star begins a relationship with a "recently divorced gay marriage activist," and there's something about fame. At least nobody dies. David plays Alex, the resort owner.

The IMDB goes on like that, with guest spots in gay-themed movies and tv shows, some quasi-homophobic. I'm going to move up to the tv series where David has more substantial roles.

Tardust in 10 episodes of We're Alive: A Story of Survival, a podcast about a zombie apocalypse. 

The Host in 7 episodes of Disorganized Zone, a Twilight zone parody.

27 episodes of Old Dogs & New Tricks (2011-20), a webseries about four middle-aged gay men living in "youth-obsessed West Hollywood": Leon Acord as a talent agent, Curt Bonem as singer who peaked in the 1980s, David as an actor who peaked in the 1990s, and Jeffrey Patrick Olson as a personal trainer

Scrooge in Scrooge & Marley (2012), a gay retake of Dickens' Christmas Carol.  The "bah! humbug!" dude is mourning his dead partner (Tim Kazurinski), learns the Spirit of Christmas, and helps his nephew get a boyfriend.  And the ghosts are rather...um, festive.  

It's on Tubi. Maybe I'll review it next Christmas.

  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Surreal Estate," Episode 1.1: Realtor and his scoobies investigate haunted houses, with gay characters and a lot of n*de Matt Whites

  

Surreal Estate (2021-23), on Hulu, appeared on Reddit about shows with "normalized" LGBT characters, not struggling to come out or fighting homophobia.  None of the episode synopses suggest gay characters, and the icon shows a man and a woman, but here goes, Episode 1.1

Scene 1: Night. A man in a 1940s detective costume walks through a thunderstorm to a creepy house. The sign says "For Sale by Owner." 

Inside, it's too dark to see much, but a woman in a bathrobe seems to be reading an antique book on human anatomy.   She gets scared when the surgeon in a photograph seems to be grinning evilly at her.  Suddenly the room catches on fire (at least we can see something now).  She runs outside, but runs into the Old Fashioned Man.  

Psych!  He's not the ghost of a 1940s detective, he just dresses like one: Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of Schitt's Creek), interested in the house.  So call in advance?  

She hugs him: "The house wants to kill me!"  That's every home owner's complaint, girl.

He can help with that.  They gaze into each other's eyes.  I'll be they start dating, and she joins the paranormal real estate team.

Scene 2: At Shirley's Diner, still too dark to see much, Homeowner Megan, says that her fiancé is coming to pick her up.  Don't you hate it when they mention a boyfriend halfway through the date?

Luke shows her a video about his company, SMEP, Specialists in Metaphysically-Engaged Properties, those with a market value depreciation due a tragedy occuring there.  Sometimes they are haunted, sometimes not, but the rumor makes it lose 37% of its market value and takes 317% longer to sell. 

Megan's swishy boyfriend Brock (Matt White) flounces in with a teeth-click, a flamboyant wave of his umbrella, and a "What up, Girlfriend?"  Shouldn't be too hard to convince him to be true to himself, so you can have Megan for yourself.  

Matt White has nine acting credits on IMDB, including six shorts,and three walk-ons.  This may not be the right one, but there are lots of other Matt Whites to choose from: a baseball player, a football player, an artist,  a musician, a comedian, and a billionaire.

Left: Matt White d*ck

Scene 3: At the agency, Luke tells his scoobies, two men and a woman, about the case.  Homeowner Megan is a medical student who inherited the haunted house from her grandfather.  Swishy boyfriend lives with her (in his own room, I assume).  

On to otheir other case, a house with a poltergeist. It came out clean: no entities.  But Rita, the Evil Realtor who hired them, insists that things were flying around.  Nobody wants to confront her because she's so evil, so they get the New Girl to do it: a ringer who got $10 million in sales at her last agency.  

Introductions:

Father Phil (Adam Korson, right), a defrocked priest with nice biceps, does the background checks and due diligence.

More after the break

M. Emmet Walsh: Daddy who didn't mind showing his dick. With bonus old guy hotness

 

 M. Emmet Walsh enjoyed one of the longest and most acclaimed careers in Hollywood.  On screen since 1968, Walsh appeared in some of the most iconic films of the 20th century,  including Midnight Cowboy, Alice's Restaurant, and Little Big Man, as well as some of the most beloved tv programs: The Waltons, The Rockford Files, All in the Family, Bonanza.

He grew up in Swanton, Vermont, a few miles from the Canadian border and graduated from Tilton High School in 1954.  His page in the yearbook says that his nickname is "Creep," he "lives with the Gus," and he played football and basketball. So who is this Gus, your boyfriend?

 After studying business administration at Clarkson University (where he roomed with William Devane) and some military service, he hit Hollywood.  

And stayed there for the next 50 years, playing gangsters, beset-upon bureaucrats, cranky businessmen, clueless dads, cops, inventors, workmen of various sorts, bus drivers, and on and on.  His obituary in the  Washington Post praises his work as a sports writer in Slap Shot (1977), a swim coach in Ordinary People (1980), a police chief in Blade Runner (1982), and a "boogie-woogie pianist" in Cannery Row (1982).

No gay roles that I could find by googling, but Emmet never married, so there is a lot of  speculation that he was gay in real life.  (Gay men of his generation would always stay closeted).

He regularly appeared on websites devoted to hot older guys, not only because of his attractiveness, but because he took his shirt off -- a lot. Unusual for actors of his generation, he even appeared nude. A rear shot from Straight Time (1978).  If you look closely, you can see balls.

A frontal from Fast Talking (1982)

One of Emmet's last roles was in The Righteous Gemstones, as Roy Gemstone, megachurch pastor Eli's stern Baptist-preacher Daddy.  In Episode 1.5. the flashback to 1989, he advises his son to avoid ostentatious display and stick to the message of the Gospels. 

 In Episode 2.5, the flashback to 1993, Roy is suffering from dementia.  He appears at the family Christmas in his underwear, asks "Are we going hunting?", and fires randomly into the room.  When he appears again, he accidentally saves the day.

More old dude dick after the break