"American Gigolo," 1980 and 2022: Frontal nudity and homophobia, or underwear shots and gay erasure. Which do you prefer?

 

In 1980, American Gigolo became famous for Richard Gere's biceps, chest, abs, and penis -- the first  full frontal shot in any mainstream movie!   

Every gay magazine had an article on The Nude Scene, with a screen shot.  This was before you could buy a DVD or stream the movie, so every gay guy in the country, probably in the world, marched down to the Cineplexto see it.  Gere plays Julian, a hustler who specializes in women, and in fact rejects any assignment involving "fag tricks."  The plot involves Julian falling in love with one of his clients (of course), and being framed for murder.  (He was with a client that night, but she refuses to come forward.)

Gay men of the era didn't mind that the hustlers have 100% female clients, while in real life 97% of their clients are closeted gay/bi men.  They were used to being erased.

They didn't consider homophobic slurs a problem. You weren't allowed to mention gay people, even in slurs, before the 1960s, so in the 1970s and 1980s, most movie characters threw in a few "fags" and "fruits" to demonstrate that they were cool.

Nor did they get upset when the villain turned out to be gay: Julian's pimp (Bill Duke), whom he pushes out a window to his death. Straight people hated us; it was a given, a simple fact of life.  You couldn't escape it,  unless you managed to live and work in a gay neighborhood and avoid mainstream media altogether.  The rest of us would hear homophobic jibes, slurs, scandals and jokes from family and friends, from coworkers, from random strangers on the bus, so what difference did a movie make?  You got to see a dick on screen!

Writer/director Paul Schrader has been involved with a number of other homophobic projects, such as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, about the gay writer who developed a fixation with bodybuilders.  Again, being gay is all about darkness, destruction, death. Being gay is evil.

But not Richard Gere.  A year before American Gigolo,he  starred in the gay-themed (and not homophobic) Bent on Broadway, about gay men who are sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany.  In 1993 he appeared in And the Band Played On, about the first years of the AIDS crisis.

How did he manage all three?  Does he hate gay people, or not?  

In an interview in Entertainment Weekly.  Gere reveals that he took the part because Julian was so different from himself, into fashion and languages (which Gere was not), and with "a gay thing flirting through it," and he knew nothing about "that community."  Good enough explanation, I guess.

In 2022, an American Gigolo tv series appeared.  15 years after the events in the movie, the middle-aged Julian (Jon Bernthal) tries to find out who framed him (I thought Leon confessed?) and to reconnect with The Girl of His Dreams.  

Paul Schrader was not involved, so no homophobic slurs and no gay villain. But gay men are still erased; 100% of the hustlers' clients are women.  There's a lesbian cop, which is not nearly adequate representation.

And no frontal nudity, just a butt shot.

Is that progress?

Richard Gere's dick after the break

The Twelve Bare Butts of "Animal Kingdom." With some faces

 

Someone recommended Animal Kingdom, not to be confused with the Animal Kingdom at Disney World, the Animal Planet network, or a tv show entitled Animal Control.  This one is a drama featuring the struggle for succession in a crime family led by...Smurf? Really?   "Ok, boys, I want you to go smurf out those rival smurfs and smurf their bodies."

 There are a lot of sons, grandsons, and boy toys, even a gay one.  Most are sleazy, scruffy, and tattooed, not my cup of tea.  But most get bare butt scenes, so you don't have to look at their face.

Link to the G-rated version, with the faces

1. Scott Speedman as Baz, adopted Smurf, who wants to try new crime techniques instead of Mama Smurf's old fashioned smurfing. 

2. In flashbacks to 1992 and 1996, Baz is smurfed by Darren Mann.

3. Shawn Hatosy as Pope, eldest Smurf, who suffers from mental illness and does a lot of risky smurf. Plus he's smurfed in prison.

4.  Kevin Csolak smurfs as Pope in the flashbacks.

5. Ben Robson as Craig, middle Smurf, who parties and does drug instead of paying attention to the smurfing. 

6. Jake Weary as Deran, youngest Smurf, the moral one who is trying to distance himself from the family, running a surfing shop instead of smurfing crime. He is closeted for a long time, but when he finally comes out they are fine with it. 

More butts after the break

Joshua Mikel: Pirate, Satanist, zombie chow, boyfriend. With two important questions answered, and maybe a cock

 

You may be familiar with Joshua Mikel as Daedalus in Season 1 of  The Righteous Gemstones.  When the recently converted Keefe returns to the Satanist/Goth Club Sinister, Daedalus assumes that he's there for "pleasures" and caresses his body and licks his face, while his friend Cryptocore starts to go downtown. This scene establishes that Keefe is gay, and that Daedalus is an ex-lover.

Born in Conyers, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, Josh graduated from Florida State University's Theater and Creative Writing programs.  He has written a number of award-winning plays, many for children:  The Monster Hunters, Pirates!, Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island!.  I looked at some of the scripts, but didn't see anything of particular gay interest.

Josh has 92 acting credits on IMDB, including a lot of fantasy and horror: Renfield, Mayfair Witches, Unhuman, Creepshow, and 50 States of Fright.  It took 17 auditions to be cast on The Walking Dead, as Jared, one of the "Saviours" who demand tribute from surrounding post-zombie-Apocalypse communities.  

 

But a lot of general dramas, too. The Lengths (2014) is of gay interest: Josh's character is in love with both a man and a woman. 

There are several bulge shots, and maybe a butt, but it's obscured and hard to see, so I substituted this fully visible butt.

Josh has also done storyboard art and set design for everything from Kirksville to The Little Mermaid.  

If he has any time leftover, he is the drummer for the indie rock band Look, Mexico.  One of their songs, "It's Been a Long Time Since I Smelled Beautiful," might have a gay subtext:

Will you compromise, or will you say what's on your mind this time?

Will you smile for me, or will you say what's on your mind this time?

But we're not, we're not keeping quiet.

So if you think you're ready…

It's our time now.

Underwear and dick after the break

"The Ropes": An unreliable-narrator Rashomon about nightclub bouncers. Take careful notes. There are some dicks, too

 

I was looking for some tv shows starring Joel Rush, and found The Ropes, a quickly-canned tv series based on Vin Diesel's early job as a bouncer.  Well, maybe there would be some beefcake. 

Problems: It was impossible to research among 1,300 other series called The Ropes, On the Ropes, and Learn the Ropes.   

It was available on Amazon Prime, but not if you used the Prime Search window -- you had to go through Google.  Even after buying an episode.  

More problems: Nonlinear narration, with people describing an event that happened earlier, then seeing the event from different points of view, and seeing the consequences of the event, but in jumbled order. 

Some of the guys are black/speaking in a stereotyped jive accent, and some are white/speaking in a stereotyped Guido accent, but within those categories, they look, talk, and behave exactly alike. This makes it very difficult to figure out who belongs to what plotline.  But for the sake of a review I'll try to piece it together.

The illustrations are whatever beefcake or nude photos I could find of the actors, in no particular order: Gonzalo Menendez, F. Valentino Morales, Brian Ahern, Brian Hooks, Joel Rush, Danny Abeckaser, Shawn Woods, Robert Ervin, Ramses Jiminez.  Plus a couple of random photos of guys with big dicks.

Setting: A very sleazy nightclub in New York, where they have both ladies dancing on poles and illegal gambling.  A squad of seven or more bouncer/security guards, whom the Boss calls "ladies" although they're actually men, is on patrol every night.

 Big Vic's Story:  Big Vic, who has the biggest dick in New York City, is infinitely attractive to every woman in the world.  He asks the lady bartender to have sex with him; she agrees. On the same night, or on another night, he's working the door, and lets in a girl who claims to be a model, but rejects the guy she's with.  He asks if she wants to have sex; she does.

While he is having sex with one or the other the bathroom, someone knocks on the door, saying that he's needed at the bar.  He ignores them.

Later, or on a different night, he goes out into the alley, and sees a sleazoid trying to push an unwilling lady into a taxi.  He intervenes and sends the guy away. Then her friend arrive and accuses Big Vic of taking advantage of her!  They drive away.

Uh-oh, a whole gang of bad dudes rushes into the alley to try to kill him! He's got the biggest cock in New York, not the biggest muscles.  He tries to fight them off, but they prepare to beat him to death when...

A smaller guy wearing a suit rushes in and annihilates them!  Big Vic is not happy to get his life saved by a nerd -- it's a major blow to his masculinity.  Then the nerd asks "Are you Vic Pendejo?" Har-har, pendejo means "asshole" in Spanish!  Big Vic angrily orders him to leave.

Ralphie's Story: One night Ralphie is screwing a lady in the Trash Room (no beefcake, but we see her butt).  And she accidentally butt-phones her Man, so he and his homies show up to kill him.  Big Les, working the front door, pulverizes them, but now they want revenge on him!  They return the next night, mistake Big Vic for Big Les, and attack. I guess people in-universe have trouble distinguishing the guys, too.

Later, the Boss complains that Ralphie is too feminine, and takes him off bouncer duty.  

The Kid's Story:  One night a Kid shows up at the front door just as they open.  Big Les, who happens to be working, won't let him in: no action so early anyway.  "Come back in two hours."

Two hours later, the Kid is waiting in a line that goes around the block.  They've reached capacity, so no one else gets in that night.  

He doesn't want to get in, he just wants to apply for a job, so he cuts line and asks Big Lou what to do. Yes, this is a different character, actually named "White Lou."    Big Lou sends him to the back door, where Big Vic is working, and tells him to ask for "Vic Pendejo," knowing that he'll get annihilated.   Instead, he sees "Pendejo" in trouble, being beaten to death by some thugs, and intervenes. 

Big Vic is so impressed that he offers him a job as his "intern."  All of the side deals at the club -- the drugs, hookers, whatever -- will go through the Kid.  For a salary, he'll get some of the bribes and "some ass."  Presumably girls, or is Big Vic offering his own?  

Rashomon after the break