George MacKay: The time-traveler's buddy chooses movies about endless pain, misery, and despair. Just because he has a small dick?

 

I've been watching 11.22.63: Jake (James Franco), disillusioned by how awful his life (and everything in general) is in 2016, takes a time portal to 1960 in an attempt to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy and make life perfect. In Episode 2, he hooks up with Bill (George MacKay), a Kentucky redneck with a standard Stephen King backstory -- abusive father, murdered sister.  

They have to live together for several years while waiting for Lee Harvey Oswald to show up, so they pass themselves off as...um... brothers.  Not much of a gay subtext--  Episode 3 is entitled Other Voices, Other Rooms, but it has nothing to do with the Truman Capote novel about gay awakening, and Bill's heterosexual identity is established very quickly, when the guys relax by going to a strip club.  But at least some people suspect that the two are a gay couple, and Bill is beaten up in what we would call a homophobic hate crime. Later he is institutionalized and given shock therapy, a common experience for gay men in the early 1960s.  And killed.

So, a queer-coded character, displayed in his underwear a lot.   Enough for me to check to see if George MacKay has played any other gay-subtext roles, or is gay in real life.

He was born in 1992, and broke into film as one of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan (2003).  Then he played a gang member in The Thief Lord (2006), which I recall as having a gay-subtext romance.

Next came a long string of angst dramas :

The Boys are Back (2009): man with a dying wife and estranged sons.

Private Peaceful (2012): Tommo (George) has a brain-damaged brother, sees his father being crushed by a tree, loses the Girl of His Dreams to his other brother (Jack O'Connell).  They go to war together, and Bro disobeys an order to abandon the wounded Tommo, and is executed.  Sounds delightful.  

How I Live Now (2013): Daisy, who has a dead mother (of course), survives a nuclear war, sees her friends massacred, finds her boyfriend (George) severely injured, and nurses him back to health.  Lovely.

 The Outcast (2015), a two-part tv movie: Lewis (George) sees his mother drown (of course), and grows up feeling responsible, so he self-harms and sets a church on fire.  He spends time in prison, then confronts his toxic family members (hint: every man is bullying and abusive),  and confesses his love for The Girl of His Dreams before...you guessed it...going to War. Ugh!  Or as one reviewer notes, a "relentlessly emotional, heart-tugging story of tragedy."

Does every single one of George's movie and tv roles involve crying over the endless misery of life?  I'm surprised someone doesn't start singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Let's check his gay and gay-subtext roles:

I  already reviewed 1917 (2019).  The tragedies piled on World War I soldier George and his gay subtext boyfriend (Richard Madden) were laughably unyielding.  The darn thing was too grim even for torture porn. But the gay subtext lasted until the last scene, with a last-minute tacked-on reference to a girlfriend back home.  I can hear the writers panicking: "Wait, we forgot to establish that he's straight! Quick, add a line about a girl!"

Left: Richard Madden in Sirens. He's playing the gay Ashley Greenwick (stereotyped name, that) caught in the act.  I don't know who the disgusted buddy is. 

Pride (2014): Members of the gay group LGSM are raising money for the families affected by the British Miners' Strike (1984).  Joe (George) is so closeted that his out-and-proud boyfriend dumps him, and dies of AIDS two years later.  Bummer, but at least it's a gay role.

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019): George plays the notorious Australian bushranger (outlaw), who has a gay friend (Nicholas Hoult) and likes to hang out affectionately with his male crew, but also gets a girlfriend.  It ends badly.

In Femme (2023), George plays Preston, a homophobic gang member  who beats up and then starts hooking up with a drag queen.  But she gets revenge by filming their encounters and showing his friends, so they suspect him of being gay.  Preston gets angry and beats her to a pulp, but doesn't kill her.

OMG, George, what is this, Hee-Haw?

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me

More after the break

That scene from C*A*U*G*H*T, the Australian hostage comedy. You can't see the tv series, but you can see the d*cks

 

I've been looking at n*de guys in mainstream movies and tv shows for a long time. Accidental arousal all the way back to Mark-Paul Goesselaer in Dead Man on Campus (1998), full, open arousal on Europhia and The Righteous Gemstones.  But this morning I saw a screenshot so shocking that I couldn't believe it aired on a mainstream television program (after the break).

So I had to research the program: C*A*U*G*H*T, with asterisks, like M*A*S*H,  to distinguish it from the other tv series named Caught that premiered that year.  It is a six episode comedy produced, written, and directed by Kick Gurry (Kick?), which aired on the Stan network in Australia, in September 2023.  It was pulled from international release, so not available in the U.S., but I read an episode guide.

The plot: four Australian soldiers go on a secret mission to the war-torn island of Behati-Prinloo, where they are mistaken for American spies and captured by "freedom fighters."  They release a homemade hostage video that goes viral, resulting the U.S. Secretaryof State, played by Susan Sarandon, negotiating for their release and Sean Penn offering to exchange himself for the guys.

As far as I can tell, all of the characters and actors are heterosexual.  

The four are:

1. Lincoln Younes as Albhanis Mouwad.  The former Home and Away soap star is known for Down Under, Tangle, and Grand Hotel.

2. Kick Gurry (Kick?) as Dylan Fox.  He is best known as Sparky in Speed Racer and Griff in Edge of Tomorrow.  He's rather unattractive, so here's another photo of Lincoln Younes instead.

3. Ben O'Toole (shouldn't that be Rod O'Toole?) as Rowdy Gaines (Rowdy?).  He is best known as Snapper Webster in Barons (Snapper?).

4. Alexander England as Phil Choi.  He appeared as Mnevis in Gods of Egypt.

More after the break, including that scene

Christopher George: Soldier, cowboy, spy, warlock, Hugh Hefner, and nude model. Is there a gay connection?

When Christopher George posed for Playgirl, in June 1974, he was 43 years old and a Hollywood veteran, famous for Rat Patrol and about 50 gung-ho, "can we win this time?" war and cowboy movies.

He reclines, eating watermelon, a little paunchy in middle age, but hirsute, tanned, gold-chained, the sharp phallic knife accentuating his obvious gifts beneath the belt.

IMDB calls him a "solidly built, boyishly handsome leading man."  He was born in 1931 to Greek immigrants, and didn't learn English until he was six years old.  In high school in Miami, he played football, soccer, and track, drove trucks, and shot alligators.  

He was planning to become a Greek Orthodox priest, but in 1948 he dropped out of high school to join the Marines, and got the acting bug.  While waiting for his break, he held a variety of macho jobs, like bouncer, private investigator, and owner of a beer bar.  He started on the stage, roles in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Mr. Roberts, The Moon is Blue, and Stalag 17.

In 1965, he got a guest spot on Bewitched as George the Warlock, a Hugh Hefner-like playboy with a harem of women. Endora hires to seduce Samantha, but he likes her attractive neighbor more. 

He was also cast in In Harm's Way. with John Wayne as a naval officer who wants to beat the Japanese during World War II.  The two shared a gung-ho, macho philosophy, and became lifelong friends.Lots of rough, true-grit war and cowboy movies, flag-waving reactions to the pot-smoking, draft-card-burning, "can't tell the boys from the girls" hippies: Massacre Harber, The Thousand Plane Raid, The Devil's 8, Midway, Mayday at 40,000 Feet!

In Project X, 1968, Christopher plays a spy whose memories of a top-secret Commie weapon are being suppressed, so the good guys use advanced technology to extract them.  He has sex with the naked lady on the movie poster.

Christopher also did some modeling.  That's how he met Lynda Day, who became famous for her work on Mission Impossible and her Playboy centerfold.  They were married in 1970.

A heavy drinker and smoker throughout his life, Christopher died of a heart attack on November 28, 1983.  He received a Greek Orthodox funeral. In 2009, the Marines flew a flag at the Iwo Jima memorial

Is there any gay potential to such an indefatigably macho, hetero-horny, beefy, boyishly handsome Hugh Hefner?

Answer after the break

Tropic Thunder: Danny McBride, a gay rapper, Jack Black's bulge, and a lot of wartime buddy-bonding

 

In Tropic Thunder (2008), some actors, their director, and a member of the crew are filming a movie about the daring rescue of a captured American soldier during the Vietnam War. They accidentally move off-set and out of Vietnam, into Laos --the territory of a heroin-trafficking drug cartel.  Except they still think they are filming a movie!  

They are:

1. Tugg Speedman (Ben Spiller), an action-adventure star who tried to move into drama with Simple Jack, about a mentally-disabled farm boy. It bombed, but it happens to be the drug cartel's favorite movie.

2. Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey, left), his agent and gay-subtext best friend.  When Tugg is captured by the drug cartel, he rushes to the rescue.

3. Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), famous for a series of movies about a family who farts.  If you like chub, he's got an extended scene tied up in his underwear (which displays quite a bulge).

Left: Jack Black's but

4. Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., left and below), an Austalian superstar who always stays in character, playing a black soldier.

More after the break