Lee Doud: "I'm Fine," random nude dudes, and anti-Asian prejudice in the gay community

 Lee Doud starred in the Doku series I'm Fine, about some twenty-ish friends looking for love in West Hollywood. I lived in West Hollywood for twelve years, sigh.

He also appeared in Good Trouble, Lucifer, and SWAT, and wrote/produced the documentary series OUTLOUD: Raising Voices   

In 2018, Lee  published The Gay Community's Fear and Loathing of Asian Men Must End" in The Advocate, about his experience as a mixed-race Asian/white guy in Hollywood ("you'll get more roles if you downplay the Asian part) and in the gay community ("So, which half of you is white, har har")..  Guys think that he is Hispanic, and actually lose interest when he tells them that he is part-Asian.  Hookup app profiles regularly say "No Asians.  Not racist, just a preference."

Um...it's a preference because they think that all Asian men have traits that they find undesirable, like being femme,anal bottoms, or having small dicks.  On the flip side, some guys like those traits, and fetishize Asian men. That's the definition of racism.

So let's take a look at some photos that highlight Lee's physique.  

Morning mimosas

Halloween at the Pailhouse.  I miss West Hollywood.

Working out on a pole.

More Lee after the break

Obliterated: Do you want a review of "the worst movie of the year," or should I skip directly to the penises?

Netflix has been pushing Obliterated as must-watch tv.  The premise: an elite team of CIA operatives, spies, and ladies in bikinis, must deactivate a nuclear bomb set to destroy Las Vegas.  When they succeed, they have a wild party with naked girls, blow jobs, and drugs (but no one bothered to research the effects of various drugs, so ketamine and Ecstasy are hallucinogens).  Then they discover that it was a fake bomb; the real one is set to go off in a few hours, so they have to find and deactivate it while hallucinating and naked (well, the ladies, anyway).

 I have rarely seen such split reviews:

"A triumphant blend of exhilerating action, sharp writing, and humor"

"The worst movie of the year"

"A nearly unwatchable hodgepodge of nonsense littered with penises and explosives."  Well, the penises sound ok

"A lot of fun to watch.  The girls are gorgeous."  So maybe it's only fun to watch if you're a horny hetero guy?

"Female characters are leered at in incongruous shower scenes; they undertake missions in string bikinis."  Double yuck.

There are two gay characters: Marine Sniper Angela Gomez is a butch lesbian stereotype; and Trunk, a "big black guy" stereotype who beats people up with lines like "Smell my dick, motherfucker!"  Apparently he is outed in one scene, as a joke: "The big black guy is a pansy, har har." 

I know you don't want me to do a scene by scene review.  Let's just skip to the penises.

1. Army explosives technician Haggerty, played by C. Thomas Howell, looks like a sleazy, effete gay stereotype, but he's actually straight.

2. Jeremy, played by Johann Fitch,   His job is not specified.  

More dicks after the break

"Partner Track": High-power lawyer is passed over in favor of people with penises. Yes, we see a few.

Partner Track , on Netflix, is about a high-powered Manhattan lawyer.  Are there lawyers in any other city?   But I couldn't find any gay characters or subtexts, so here goes. Maybe there will be some grey-suit hunks in steam rooms.

Scene 1: We're in NYC!  You can tell because of the shots of Central Park and the Empire State Building.  Close-up of pink high-heeled shoes, eventually are revealed to be Ingrid, a lawyer  in a pink business outfit, standing out amid the throngs of grey-suit men.  She gives some coin to a homeless guy, gets jostled by a grey-suit man, and tells us that this city is tough on a girl who wants to get ahead.

Inside the glass-and-steel building, she meets her friend, a woman in a blue business outfit.  They discuss Ingrid's obsessive drive to be made junior partner at her law firm (ok, partner track, I get it).   It's down to her, Dan , and Todd, but they have penises, so she has to do something spectacular to tip the balance, like land a major account.  

When they arrive upstairs, Dan and Todd, and a third guy, Hunter, can't wait to start their hetero-horny hostile-workplace sexism: "she's got a wide margin on the face-body quotient.  She looks like you from the back, and Dan from the front.  Ugh!"  So the epitome of ugliness is...a man.  Got it! 

The three grey suits don't have any distinguishing characteristics: they are all fratboy-style hunks, they mention sports every 10 seconds, and they think of women as sex toys..  But in case you are interested, they are played by Zane Philips (top photo), Nolan Gerald Funk (left), who often plays gay roles, and Will Stout ("actor, West Virginian, Dad", but no beefcake).

The butts of the guys follow:

Everyone drools over Ultra-Richster, who will decide on the next junior partner.  They have to really butter him up!  

Ingrid rushes to her office, ignores a phone call from her mother, and tells her assistant to gather all the intel needed to wow Ultra-Richster.  

She also meets her new paralegal Justin (Roby Attal), a white dudebro who has his feet on his desk and is busily texting and ignoring his duties.

Left: Nolan's butt. He's having sex with a lady.

Ingrid's friend asks why she was assigned such a terrible paralegal. The answer: since Ingrid is Korean-American, HR thought that assigning her only paralegals of color might be construed as racist, so they got her a white one. Problem: they couldn't find any competent white paralegals.

Friend shoves his feet off the desk and yells: "Ingrid graduated #2 in her class at Harvard Law.  You will show her some respect!"  Oh, please, every lawyer on tv graduated at the top of their class at Harvard Law.

Scene 2:  Out of nowhere, Friend asks "What happened to the Brit you hooked up with long time ago?  You said he was like Bogart from Casablanca?"  Ingrid shrugs.  "It was just a hookup."  "Well, he was just hired by this firm.  A chance for you to get laid, and take your mind off your obsession with becoming partner!"  Why do you care so much?  Are you a standard romcom friend who exists only to goad the big city girl into accepting the small-town hunk? Or, in this case, hunky Brit?

Scene 3:  Ingrid runs into Tyler (Bradley Gibson).  He is wearing a blue suit, so he's a nice guy.  This series is as color-coordinated as an old Western.  He is bragging to someone on his cellphone that he has landed a bunch of accounts, plus he started reading Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Women's Wear Daily when he was 11.  The guy on the phone is impressed, and gives him the account. 

Left: Zane's butt.  He's having sex with a guy.

I thought Tyler would be a standard romcom gay bff,  but he asks Ingrid to "come say hi to the kids at the reception tonight."   Was that thrown in to identify him as heterosexual?  About 20% of gay men have kids, you know.  There are several ways to get the job done that dont require sex with a lady.

Scene 4:  Not looking where she is going, Ingrid has a splat! meet-cute encounter with...you guessed it, the Brit, she used to date, Jeff Murphy (Dominic Sherwood).  He stares in cliched teencom Girl-of-my-dreams lust, but unfortunately he doesn't remember Ingrid from their long-ago hookup.  He was way drunk that night.  Ingrid is way pissed.

Whoops, Brit Jeff was hired at level five, whatever that means, so he's in the running for junior partner, too.  Romance between competitors, a cliched...um, I mean classic romcom trope.

Scene 5: All of the contenders -- Dan, Todd, Brit Jeff, and Ingrid -- watch in amusement as the Richster demolishes fawning acolyte Sanders: "Don't ask if you can ask a fucking question, just ask the fucking question! And don't laugh.  Laughter is a coward's expression of fear."  

They bet on which cliched business phrase Richster will use first.

Scene 6: A meeting.  Who wants to work on getting a corporate merger contract worth $2.9 billion? Wait -- is that the law firm's fee?   Ingrid brags about her qualifications, repeatedly, and is ignored.  He assigns Grey Suit Dan instead.  "And this deal is confidential.  Any leak, and I will fucking tear up your fucking license my fucking self."  

Out in the hallway, Grey Suits Dan assigns Ingrid some grunt work.  She fumes.  Is she going to start murdering these grey suits?

Scene 7: Another meeting. The big boss walks right by Ingrid to shake hands with Dudebro Paralegal Justin, because he has a penis.  Maybe he wants to see it?  Then he orders Ingrid to bring them some wine. She relegates the task to Justin. "Oh...you're the associate?  Sorry...you look so...young."  He means "lacking a penis."  Everybody else arrives, and Ingrid is ignored again as they delve into sports and car metaphors.

Guys demonstrate that they have penises after the break

The American Society of Magical Negroes: criticizing white entitlement, or erasing gay people from the world?

 

Members of marginalized groups -- racial minorities, religious minorities, women, and LGBT people -- are often stereotyped as mystical.  They may be presented as superstitious (the Italian "evil eye") or psychic (women's intuition), but sometimes they have fully-formed paranormal powers. like the "magical Negro" who zaps around time and space to help the white protagonist. There's a helpful Wikipedia page with dozens of recent examples: Bruce Almighty, Hitch, Sex and the City, The Dark Knight, The Matrix, The Martian, The Green Book, La La Land and Aladdin.   According to the conflict theory of criminology, the ruling class promotes these stereotypes deliberately, to justify the groups' lack of power and wealth -- they "can't function" in the hard, logical, materialistic world of goverment and business.

The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) presents this stereotype as real. Aren (Justice Smith) is recruited into an Illuminati-like society of African-Americans with paranormal powers, which they use to control world events.  He is assisted by his white best friend (Drew Tarver).  Justice Smith is gay and Drew Tarver is bi, so this movie has to be LGBTQ-friendly.  

But, whenever possible, I watch trailers and read plot synopses before watching a movie, to check for nasty surprises like queerbaiting or deathbed scenes. 

Scene 1: Aren sees a lot of people standing in line outside a building, and is zapped into a magical space.  A woman says "I know you can feel their discomfort," as he sees a half-naked white girl looking at him.   He walks through a giant gallery space while white people stare at him.  The woman: "Watching you walk through a roomful of white people is the most painful thing I've ever seen."

Scene 2: David Alan Grier recruits him into the American Society of Magical Negroes.  We see a lot of classrooms where students are learning to use their powers, sort of like Hogwarts. Then Grier transports him to a streetcorner and asks "What's the most dangerous animal on the planet?"  The answer: "White people, when they feel uncomfortable."  Gemstone connection: Tim Baltz plays a white cop who feels uncomfortable upon encountering two black guys.

Grier continues: The job of the society is fight white discomfort, because the happier they are, the safer we are."  I thought they were like the Illuminati, controlling governments. 

I can see not wanting to get shot, but is it really the black person's responsibility to make white people feel comfortable?  If they feel uncomfortable, isn't it on them?  Maybe I'm being over-optimistic, but shouldn't the society be fighting the institutional racism that internalizes the stereotypes and results in perceiving the black person as a potential threat?

Scene 3: Aren becomes the coworker of his first client, Jason (Drew Tarver).  They bond over pingpong and video games.  He also meets his Love Interest. Unfortunately, Jason thinks that he is trying to set them up.  Drama! Hey, Drew Tarver is bi, and plays gay guys all the time.  Why is he straight here?  Boo!

The boss gets mad, too, because Aren won't be able to concentrate on making Jason comfortable with black people if he's busy courting Love Interest.  They're already best friends; he looks pretty comfortable.  

Scene 4: Well, Love Interest is white, so why take on her as a client instead  She seemed fine, too.  Aren goes all out on his courtship.  Scenes of the two falling in love, while the boss warns that he could have his memory erased for breaking society rules.  Meanwhile the motto of the movie splashes across the screen: "Some connections are stronger than magic." 

Will I Watch:  Heck no.  I'm interested in the political implications of "making white people comfortable" as a social movement agenda, but this movie is actually just a regular heterosexist heterosexual romance, with the magical stuff just added to create a "forbidden love" drama.   And it's heterosexuals all the way down, to make sure that straight viewers don't feel uncomfortable. How ironic is that?

Bonus dicks after the break