Simon Rex: From gay-ish porn to homophobic comedy to gay necrophilia to Bupkis

I don't know who Simon Rex is, except that he starred in Down Low, a Netflix bait-and-switch movie where everybody dies, and maybe Jackass?  But seeing or hearing his name gives me a vaguely disquieting, uncomfortable sensation, as if there's something wrong about him.  Let's do some research to find out why. 

Wikipedia gives a full, lenthy biography.  Born in San Francisco in 1974, started out modeling nude and wanking in four gay porn videos -- not having sex with any guys, just wanking.  Wikipedia mentions his girlfriend right off to assure readers that it's ok, he's straight, he never did any actual gay stuff.

Maybe that's where the disquiet comes from -- reading articles that mention his "disreputable" and "sleazy" past, without specifying that it's just some j/o videos.

He's not bad looking here. 

Modeling gigs for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfinger followed.

In 1995, at age 21, Simon became a VJ, like a disc jockey for videos, on MTV.  He says that this  made him a household name, "because I was on tv every day from 3-4."  Prime after-school time.

  

The VJ gig lasted for only two years, but it pushed Simon into a movie career:

He played "Slab O' Beef" in Shriek if You Know What I did Last Friday the 13th.

George Logan, a rapper/ women's boxing promoter in Scary Movie 3 and 4.  He commits suicide by overdosing on Viagra and jumping off a  balcony.  Also, there's a lot of homophobic rhetoric.

National Lampoon's Pledge This  is about the breasts of college girls. Simon plays Derek, who dumps one college girl with breasts when he falls in love with another.  A review notes that it presents lesbians as sexual predators and gay men as easily turned straight by the right pair of breasts.

I'm getting an idea of the reason for the disquiet.

His days of frontal nudity far behind, Simon rarely even took his shirt off. Here's one of the few examples, in Boy Toy, 2011. 

The title is misleading: it's not a gay movie.  It's about an unsuccessful but well hung underwear model who tries a new career as a gigolo. No, we don't see his dick.

2020s dick after the break. Warning: explicit.

Gangs of London: A gay assassin, his boyfriend, a gay mafia son, some sex parties, and a lot of violence and dicks

 

In dramas about crime families, the youngest son is traditionally gay -- think Deran in Animal Kingdom, Ian in Shameless, and Kelvin in The Righteous Gemstones.  So I'm reviewing the first episode of Gangs of London, on Netflix, to see if the traditionl continues.

Scene 1: An upside-down view of a cityscape.  Telling us that this is an alternate world?  No, it's a guy hanging upside down from a tall building, crying and begging Sean (Joe Cole, left) not to kill him.  But he says "What choice do I have?", douses him with gasoline and sets him on fire.  Soon the rope snaps, and the burning body falls. Kind of an overkill.

Scene 2: Irish Traveler Darren (Aled ap Stefan), who apparently works as a hit man, gets a new assignment -- "nobody, just some pedo," and invites his Buddy ( Darren Evans) along.  They park, and Darren goes up the stairs to an apartment, where he waits to shoot the guy.

Downstairs, the Buddy has trouble from a group of toughs.  Then Finn Wallace arrives!  The hit is on the head of the biggest, most important, most brutal crime family in London!  He tries to call Darren, tell him to cancel the job, he's not who they said,  but it's too late, Finn Wallace goes upstairs, and Darren shoots him.

Meanwhile, his Driver Jack ( Emmet J. Scanlan) is terrorizing the Buddy.  When he hears the shot, he runs to the car for his gun.  All the Buddy can think to do is run him over. 

Scene 3: While Darren soaks in a tub, being horrified, the family gathers for the funeral.  

We meet Family Advisor Alex (Paapa Essidue) and a little boy named Danny, who may grow up into a main character.  The costumes seem a little quaint, so I'm thinking that this is all a flashback

They watch the guests arriving, wondering if any of them ordered the hit.

Scene 4: Sons Billy and Sean (Brian Vernel, Joe Cole) play Dad's favorite song, "Suzy Q," so loud that everyone is disturbed.  

We saw Sean being brutal in Scene 1.  Billy is the gay one, and a recovering heroin addict, naturally.  

Left: Horror Hunks claims that this is Brian Vernel, but the one in Gangs of London is younger, with black hair

Family Advisor Alex advises them to not look for the killer, or they'd have a war on their hands.

More dicks after the break

"English Teacher": Gay teacher, his ex-boyfriend, and his homophobic buddy face woke culture and get naked

I spent the worst year of my life teaching English at Homophobe State University in Hell, aka a far northern suburb of Houston, Texas. The minute I submitted the last of the final grades, I got in my car and drove nonstop until that blessed "You are now leaving Hell" sign was receding into the distance.

So the new Hulu series, English Teacher, about an English teacher in small town Hell...I mean Texas...piqued my interest.  I could relive how hideously horrible it was, from the safe distance of my living room a thousand miles away.

Score -- none of the promotional materials let on, but this English teacher, Evan, played by Brian Jordan Alvarez,  is gay.  Let the rampant homophobia begin.

Left: the worst place in the world

And Brian Jordan Alvarez's cock, to take your mind off the horror.

Wait -- in English Teacher, everyone knows that Evan is gay.  Not a problem.  The problem is, he's kind of a jerk.

The much more woke students want to cancel him, for instance, because he said that he couldn't understand why lesbians aren't attracted to men.  Lots of people aren't attracted to men, idjit!

In the first episode, a parent wants him fired, claiming that he turned her kid gay by kissing his then-boyfriend and current hookup, played by Jordan Firstman, in front of the class. 

Left: Jordan's dick.

More after the break