David Henrie: The Wizard of Waverly Place re-wizards, but is he as gay-friendly and naked as his costars?

I thought lightning might strike twice, or rather five times. The Wizards of Waverly Place, which ran on the Disney Channel from 2007 to 2012, featured countless gay subtexts and about a dozen beefcake hunks who have gone on to a gay-positive adulthood.

Gregg Sulkin, left, displays his biceps and bulge in gay magazines.

Jake T. Austin starred in the gay-friendly The Fosters.

Dan Benson runs a gay-friendly OnlyFans page, where he reviews adult products and shows his dick.

Selena Gomez is "mostly straight," and reveals that her character, Alex Russo, was bisexual, but the Disney censors wouldn't let them say so.

David DeLuise is a gay ally who has a j/o video online -- after the break.

So what about David Henrie, who played eldest wizard in the family, Justin Russo?

Since Wizards, he has done a lot of voice work, and had minor roles in movies: 

Lane in Paul Blart, Mall Cop

Rudy Isling -- Walt Disney's competitor -- in Walt Before Mickey.

Clean Cut Man in Cardboard Boxer, about a homeless man who is forced into cage matches.

Sebastian in This is the Year, about a teen road trip.  David also directed, and his brother Lorenzo Henrie starred.  

The Young Ronald Reagan in a 2024 biopic.  Ugh.

Six episodes of Underdeveloped, a mockumentary about inept producers.

No gay content here.

 

David is now starring in Wizards Beyond Waverly Place:  Justin Russo gave up his wizard powers so he could marry a mortal woman.  Wait -- weren't his parents a mortal and a wizard?    Now he's a middle school vice principal with a wife and two sons, wearing an annoyingly overstated wedding ring that he flaunts around like a newly-engaged schoolgirl.

Trouble begins when he and his wife must become the foster parents to a girl who was raised in the wizard world.  And by the way, the fate of the universe is in her hands.

I watched two episodes -- awful.  No beefcake, no gay subtexts, except that Justin's son, played by Alkaio Thiele, doesn't mention an interest in girls.  A Redditer thinks that he will come out as gay eventually, but he'll have to get past his Dad first.

Is David at least gay-friendly in real life?  

Answer after the break. Caution: explicit.

"The Seminarian": Gay evangelical with an enormous penis looks for love, annoys his friends and the viewer. No, it's not Kelvin Gemstone

 

The Seminarian 2011: "A seminarian saves a lady's life. They fall in love."  And "A closeted gay seminarian struggles..."  Well, which is it?  It can't be both

.  The only way to find out is to watch on Roku (or to look very closely at the DVD cover).

Scene 1: Whoa, the first scene shows a very well hung naked guy changing clothes in his kitchen!  Now we know the audience they're going after.  

He's Ryan Goodman (Goodman, har har) (Mark Cirillo), who lives in an incredible decadent-red apartment with his "when will you find a girl and get married" mother.  He is about to graduate from a conservative evangelical seminary, but he doesn't want to become a preacher: he's applying to a Ph.D. program at Yale.   

Scene 2: Meeting with his thesis advisor. Ryan is writing on how "love and desire" encourage procreation, protection, and socialization, "which enable us to survive and persist as a species."  The point of life is reproduction?  That's the house, job, wife, kids trajectory that my parents were always pushing on me.  I thought a gay guy would come up with something less oppressive.  Besides, he forgot the theology. "Oh, right...um...when we love each other, we reflect God's love." .

Scene 3: A restroom hookup leads to a heart-to-heart.  The guy had a bad breakup six years ago, and hasn't dated anyone since.  "So you're content without love?" Mark asks, horrified.  Some people are aromantic, and some are asexual.

Scene 4: Mark has only one gay friend on campus, Gerald (Matthew Hanon), who has just been dumped by his boyfriend, and doesn't have the energy to listen to his "love is bollocks" moaning.  Also a sraight friend, Eugene, who plasters the campus with "Protect Traditional Marriage" fliers. 

Although he has a girlfriend, Straight Eugene argues that you don't need to be in a relationship -- God's love is enough.  If you disagree, you don't understand God, and what are you doing in seminary?  Judgmental, aren't you?  Oh, right, you're training to become a preacher, and hate gays for a living.

Scene 5:  Mark working on his thesis: "When you love another human being, you love God."  He pauses for cybersex with Bradley, his online boyfriend, who lives too far away to meet. 

Scene 6: Mark decides to busybody into his gay friend Gerald's relationship, but  they have reconciled and don't want him nosing around.

Cut to the gym, where Mark is talking to his other gay friend about the Online Boyfriend. "So he lives far away.  You have to go see him, or you will never find love."  Dude, you live in Los Angeles.  Just walk into any bar and say "I have 8 inches.  Who wants to buy me dinner?"

Cut to Mark sitting on a bench, looking morose while Straight Eugene flirts with his girlfriend.

More Mark after the break

Jason Bradley Jacobs: From a cowboy cruising in the shower to a cartoon Kentucky Adonis to...well, isn't that enough?

Insurance companies go to great lengths to produce clever commercials, but they rarely venture into the realm of beefcake.  That's why the Eastwood Insurance cowboy was so memorable.

In California in the 1990s, a series of at least 30 tv commercials showed the Cowboy riding up to a befuddled car owner, almost always a man, who was paying too much for car insurance, and "saving the day" with Eastwood's low, low prices.

The best commercials had him in the shower, naked except for his white cowboy hat, cruising...um, I mean talking about insurance to another naked guy, who seems more interested in his physique than his insurance policies.

Nudity in unexpected places is always stunning.

Besides, he had quite a smile.

The Cowboy was played by Jason Bradley Jacobs, who has only two acting credits on the IMDB:

A record company executive in Selena, 1997, about the Tejana singer who topped the Latin music charts and sang at the Astrodome. John Seda played Chris, her guitarist/boyfriend.

Maurice Charpentier in The Feast of All Saints, 2001, based on the Anne Rice novel about "the Free People of Colour" in 19th century New Orleans, "a dazzling yet damned class caught between the world of white privilege and black oppression."  Anne Rice -- shouldn't there be vampires?

It stars many recognizable African-American celebrities, including Robert Ri'chard, Ozzie Davis, Ruby Dee, James Earl Jones, Eartha Kitt, Ben Vereen, and Forest Whitaker. 

Jason provided the voice and artists' model for a character in a comic book and animated series, Plowboy in the Cornmeal Universe, created by D.W. Newman.  It is set in the Appalachia of 1978, the era of Jimmy Carter, Hee-Haw, and The Dukes of Hazzard, and emphasizes the "raw physicality and blatant sexuality."

More after the break