Jason Maybaum: Is the gay-vague son on "Raven's Home" gay in real life? With some Disney Descendants and Jake Green's goods

 

In 2021, I reviewed an episode of Raven's Home (2017-2023), the Disney channel update of That's So Raven, in which the girl with psychic powers grows up and moves in with her frenemy Chelsea, and they raise their kids together.  I didn't realize at the time that Raven Simone, an out lesbian in a same-sex marriage, refused to make Raven gay!  Disney offered, she refused!  Friggin' Uncle Tom, complicit in the heteronormative erasure of LGBT people -- including lesbians, darn it!

Chelsea's son Levi (Jason Maybaum, left, with costar Isaac Ryan Brown) is a femme boy, an aspiring actor, cast as the gay-subtext Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.  Mom says "I'm proud of you, no matter what," which is usually what parents say to avoid saying "even if you're gay." And he never expresses any interest in girls in any episode -- I checked.  Due to Raven's insistence on heteronormative erasure, he couldn't be canonically gay, but -- and the writers -- certainly piled on the gay subtexts.  Could Jason be gay in real life?   

Jason was born on August 31, 2007, and began his acting career in commercials in 2014, when he was seven years old.

He played the son in The Perfect Stanleys (2015), about a stay-at-home mom whose life is "perfect."

A bratty kid who criticizes Ders' museum purchases in an episode of Workaholics (2016)

A commercial kid who terrorizes sports great Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell) in an episode of the mockumentary series The Fifth Quarter (2016).

Left: Jake Green, who plays the moderator of the mockumentary, if he's the right one.  If not, just realax and look at his abs.  

And now back to Jason:

The son in Bitch (2017), about a woman who snaps and thinks she's a dog (say what?).

The bratty son of Superstore manager Glen (2017).

A student in Teachers (2017), with Ryan Caltagirone (left) as Hot Dad.

The son in Desperate Waters (2019), with Matthew Lawrence taking a male-female couple on a "three hour tour" (not really; reference to Gilligan's Island).

The son in...well, you get the idea.  A lot of sons.  Let's try some of Jason's when he was a teenager, after Raven's Home.

 

Since Raven, Jason has mostly done voiceover work: Wolfboy and the Everything Factory (2021-22), Spidey and his Amazing Friends (2022-23), Ridley Jones (2023).

Plus a lot of singing and dancing.

His only recent live-action role seems to be Cameron in Descendants 3 (2021), which the IMDB says is about competitive dancers in Los Angeles, but Wikipedia says is an animated film featuring the children and grandchildren of Disney villains: Booboo Stewart (descended from Jafar), Mitchell Hope (left, Beauty and the Beast), Dylan Playfair (Gaston --wait, wasn't he gay?)....

More after the break

Bridger Buckley: Titan, pizza guy, kidnapped footballer, with a practically perfect physique and a donkey d...or is it a camel?

 

I've been watching The Neighborhood (2018-2025) about two nuclear families who are...um...neighbors, because someone on Reddit said that the femme, long-haired Grover (Hank Greenspan) was gay.  So far he hasn't expressed any interest in men or women, or really interacted with anyone outside the two families.

He doesn't appear in Episode 4.10, "Welcome to Jury Duty," (2022), but in the B-plot, Malcolm and Mary rent out their house for a movie, without realizing that it's going to be a porno.  They watch as the Hot Pizza Guy comes to the door -- and are shocked when he starts stripping off-camera.

Hot Pizza Guy is Bridger Buckley -- great name, attractive face, beautiful physique (pectoral perfection except for a dumb tattoo).  He's got one movie and two tv appearances listed on the IMDB, and I'm going to try to watch all of them.

An article in the Washington State Pullman student magazine provides some biographical details: Bridger Buckley grew up in Snohomish, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.  He was an "angry fat kid" who changed his diet, bulked up, and went out for football. -- Snohomish Panthers, class of 2014.  

He went to Washington State Pullman on a football scholarship, but was hit by a car during his sophomore year, resulting in a concussion and two fractured vertebrae.  It took a long time to recover, but eventually he returned to WSU and the football team.  Another injury, this time a badly sprained ankle, put an end to his football career, but not to his fitness goals.

By 2018, he was ranked #44 in West Coast Men in the Crossfit Games.

In 2019, he competed in The Titan Games, a sports reality show hosted by Dwayne Johnson: Fitness trainers, paramedics, accountants, soccer coaches, and other amateurs with amazing physiques faced Greek mythology-type challenges. 

Bridger won the Hammering Ram and Mount Olympus, permitting him to go on to the Battle of the Titans and win Herculean Pull,  In the season finale, The Titan Championship, he lost the Uprising (pulling an anvil through a series of concrete barriers).

 James-Jean Louis, a truck driver from Miami Beach, was named top male Titan.

After graduating from WSU Pullman in 2019, Bridger pursued a career as a fitness trainer and model.  He won #3 in the Male Commercial Actor of the Year Awards at the IMTA (International Modeling and Talent Association).

And he began auditioning:

1. The Neighborhood (2022)

2. NCIS, Episode 13.10 (2022), "Where Loyalties Lie": A scientist working with the marines is murdered, and her advanced technology stolen, so the NCIS team has to "race against the clock" to catch the baddie.   Bridger has a walk-on.

More after the break

Glenn Scarpelli: the star of "One Day at a Time" and "Jennifer Slept Here" grows up, comes out, and gets a husband

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Jackson Tessmer: From Hebrew School to toga parties, with angst tv, Christian drama, Asa Butterfield, and n*de selfies

 

 Jackson Tessmer was born in Hermosa Beach, California, about 20 miles south of West Hollywood.  When he was a teenager, he moved to Inverness, Florida, where he graduated from  Citrus High School in 2022.

He was a swimmer and powerlifter, winning first place in the Orlando Open Championships in 2022 with a bench of 170 and a deadlift of 211.  Sorry, I couldn't find any powerlifting photos.

He was also very busy with Hebrew School and  temple activities.  It's a wonder that he had time to go on auditions.

Jackson's on-screen acting credits begin with a series of shorts: Show and Tell (2013), Birthday Boy (2014),  Table Manners (2015).  He starred with Michael Berthold, Stacy on The Righteous Gemstones,  in Dear Ones (2014), On Your Street (2016), and Ranger Things (2017).

  

Plus walk-ons in Tomorrowland (2015) with George Clooney, Modern Family (2016) with Mitch dressed as Little Orphan Annie, and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), with Asa Butterfield 

Jackson's first starring role came in Schoolbus Diaries (2016-17), with "the everyday lives of children and teenagers" mediated by their surprisingly wise bus driver. 

No Place in the World (2017) is a Christian movie featuring two sisters with problems at home and school, "trying to survive in a disconnected, self-centered world."  I'll bet they find God.  Jackson seems to play a school shooter.

I can't find the tv series Mohawk (2018) streaming anywhere, but Jackson's demo reel shows his father, who has just crucified someone, punching and strangling him.  He's saved by the spirit of a Native American woman.

Paradise Lost (2018) is another show that is impossible to find on streaming services. All I can figure out is a guy (Josh Hartnett) and his wife and kids returning to his home town to confront the demons of his past. Jackson plays his son. Shane McRae plays Dickie Barnett, his enemy.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.