Dan Shor: Tron, Star Trek, an Excellent Adventure, the South Pacific, and the Butt that Changed the World.

Sometime during the days of Blockbuster Video, we rented Strange Behavior (1981), mainly because the cover blurb said something about Galesburg, Illinois, which is near the Quad Cities. 

We weren't aware that it was written by a gay man (Bill Condon), it stars a gay man (Dan Shor), and it features something that would change movies forever.

It's got a silly plot about a crazed college professor named Dr. Le Sange (Dr. Blood), who mind-controls the town teenagers into blood-crazed monsters.

No Galesburg sites are appear mentioned; Apparently they just picked a random town in the Midwest so there would be cornfields and stereotyped farm folk. It was actually filmed in New Zealand.

The focus character is named Pete Brady, which no doubt caused a lot of eye-rolls and derisive laughs in 1981: Viewers would instantly think of the kid from The Brady Bunch (Christopher Knight, who grew up into a muscle hunk.)

This photo teases a gay-subtext buddy bond between focus character Pete Brady (har har) and Oliver (Marc McClure), but the movie is actually heteronormative, with boy-girl romance all the way down.  

I'd rather date Marc McClure, loveable nerd Jimmy Olsen in Superman (1978).

 And Dan Shor, the guy who plays Pete, is not handsome. He's got a long face, a Romanesque nose, and a lantern jaw.

But none of that is important.

What's important is a scene early in the movie where Pete Brady (har har) and his father (not Mike Brady, darn it) have just gotten up in the morning.  Pete approaches him to discuss something.  Naked.  He then moves toward the shower.  We get an extended shot of his butt.

 

It wasn't the first nude butt on film, but it was the first extended butt shot that wasn't for a comedic purpose.

There is no other nudity, male or female, in the film, not even a shirtless shot.  What was the directorial decision to film Dan Shor nude?

In an interview, Dan said that it was a political act, an acknowledgement of gay potential in the homophobic 1980s. It disrupted the heterosexual male gaze and paved the way for movies to present images of male beauty.

"And it sealed my popularity in West Hollywood," Dan joked.  Or maybe he wasn't joking.

Born in New York in 1956, Dan Shor studied acting in England, then moved to Hollywood, where he landed small parts in some serious, "artistic" movies: Young Studs in an adaption of James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan (1979).

Enoch Emery in an adaption of Flannery O'Conner's Wise Blood (1979).

Eric in the After-School Special The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980), starring Scott Baio as an alcoholic teenager named Buff Saunders (Buff?).

More after the break

"The Sandman": Season 2: What happened to the beefcake and gay romance? After watching, you'll need to see some cocks

 

We're watching Season 2 of The Sandman on Netflix, based on the 75-issue Neil Gaiman comic book series.  The Sandman, aka Morpheus and the Dream of the Endless, negotiates crises with humans, various magical beings, and his siblings, whose names all begin with D (Death, Destruction, Desire) and end with "of the Endless."  

1. In Season 1, the Sandman is an otherworldly creature, dark and mysterious, who rarely intrudes upon the human realm.  He spends 50 years naked in a bottle, staring at the humans as if they are a bizarre alien species.  In Season 2, he is a jaded aristocrat who hangs out in the human realm all the time, taking cabs and paying for things.

Or look at Lucifer: in Season 1, a seductive, dangerous being with motives and desires that are impossible for humans to comprehend.   In Season 2, an elderly British aristocrat who wants to sit on the beach with a cup of tea.

2. In Season 1, the Endless are responsible for the working of the human realm.  When Dream is captured, the world falls into chaos: millions of people fall asleep and can't wake up, and others can't fall asleep at all.  In Season 2, the Endless mostly engage in partying and pranks.  The only one we see doing any actual work is Death, who escorts people to the afterlife. 

3. Season 1 has high stakes. A nightmare is running rampant in the human realm, plus an unstable guy has acquired Dream's ruby of infinite power, and changes the world, with disastrous results.  In Season 2, there's some rumbling about a prophecy, but mostly it's episodic stories, like deciding who to give the keys to Hell to after Lucifer retires, or trying to track down Dream's ex-girlfriend from 10,000 years ago (who is not interested in getting back together).

4. In Season 1, there are many gay characters.  A gay couple in the first episode.  A lesbian couple in the second.  In Episode 6, two same-sex couples emerge among the six people stuck in a diner, when they are forced to tell the truth of their situation. Plus a heterosexual liason involving job applicant Mark (Laurie Brewer, left) and the lady in charge of the company.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

Jacob Tremblay: Gay sea monster, gay-subtext Miracle, heterosexist Good Boy, Boyfriend. With Brady Noon and n*de dudes

 

You probably saw Luca (2021), the Disney/Pixar animated movie about the friendship between the closeted sea monster boy (Jacob Tremblay) and a human boy named Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). And you were probably upset when director Enrico Casarosa vehemently denied the possibility of a gay reading of the couple.  "They're kids!  They're much too young to be gay!"   

Got it, Enrico. All boys are born heterosexual, Gay is something that happens in adulthood, after you've tried heterosexual stuff and decided that it is not right for you. Gay is who you invite to your bed,, heterosexual is the Eternal Feminine that draws us to the City of God. 

Yeah, I was unhappy, too.  

But it wasn't the fault of the actors.  I heard that Jack Dylan Grazer and Jason Maybaum (general voices) are gay.  Let's see if Luca himself, Jacob Tremblay, is involve din any gay-friendly projects.

He has 43 acting credits on the IMDB, most long before Luca.  I've never heard of most of them, but there seem to be some interesting gay subtexts here and there:

Gord's Brother (2015): The human Gord and his monster brother (Jack Irvine, Raphael Alejandro) searach for the legendary City of Monsters.  Jacob plays the Young Gord.

Wonder (2017): "The incredibly inspiring and heartwarming story" of a boy with facial differences who goes to school.  How to come up with a title that gives you absolutely no clue to what the movie is about.  

There's a girl -- there's always a girl -- but he makes a male friend (Noah Jupe), too.  

Good Boys (2019): Three six-grade boys skip school to go on an "epic adventure" involving two of them (Jacob, Brady Noon, center, recent photo) trying to win the Girls of Their Dreams (of course).  The third (Keith L. Williams) is a bullying victim who doesn't try to win a girl.  Hey, in a raunchy "coming of age" comedy, I'll take any gay hints I can get.  

Will Forte plays one of the dads.

Left: As of this writing, Brady Noon is 19.  Maybe I'll profile him next.

More Jacob after the break

M. Emmet Walsh: Daddy who didn't mind showing his dick. With bonus old guy hotness

 

 M. Emmet Walsh enjoyed one of the longest and most acclaimed careers in Hollywood.  On screen since 1968, Walsh appeared in some of the most iconic films of the 20th century,  including Midnight Cowboy, Alice's Restaurant, and Little Big Man, as well as some of the most beloved tv programs: The Waltons, The Rockford Files, All in the Family, Bonanza.

He grew up in Swanton, Vermont, a few miles from the Canadian border and graduated from Tilton High School in 1954.  His page in the yearbook says that his nickname is "Creep," he "lives with the Gus," and he played football and basketball. So who is this Gus, your boyfriend?

 After studying business administration at Clarkson University (where he roomed with William Devane) and some military service, he hit Hollywood.  

And stayed there for the next 50 years, playing gangsters, beset-upon bureaucrats, cranky businessmen, clueless dads, cops, inventors, workmen of various sorts, bus drivers, and on and on.  His obituary in the  Washington Post praises his work as a sports writer in Slap Shot (1977), a swim coach in Ordinary People (1980), a police chief in Blade Runner (1982), and a "boogie-woogie pianist" in Cannery Row (1982).

No gay roles that I could find by googling, but Emmet never married, so there is a lot of  speculation that he was gay in real life.  (Gay men of his generation would always stay closeted).

He regularly appeared on websites devoted to hot older guys, not only because of his attractiveness, but because he took his shirt off -- a lot. Unusual for actors of his generation, he even appeared nude. A rear shot from Straight Time (1978).  If you look closely, you can see balls.

A frontal from Fast Talking (1982)

One of Emmet's last roles was in The Righteous Gemstones, as Roy Gemstone, megachurch pastor Eli's stern Baptist-preacher Daddy.  In Episode 1.5. the flashback to 1989, he advises his son to avoid ostentatious display and stick to the message of the Gospels. 

 In Episode 2.5, the flashback to 1993, Roy is suffering from dementia.  He appears at the family Christmas in his underwear, asks "Are we going hunting?", and fires randomly into the room.  When he appears again, he accidentally saves the day.

More old dude dick after the break