Dashiell Messick: A homophobic tv mom, a gay brother, a pretty princess outfit, and a hunky male au pair, all before his 12th birthday

 

I don't usually profile preteen actors, because they won't have played any gay characters yet, and it's impossible to tell whether the buddy-bonding in their private lives is romantic or platonic.  But Dasheill Messick, age 11, played the son of gay dads and has made some explicitly femme fashion choices.  That's enough for a profile of Dashiell and his twin brother Fox. 

 

Plus there are some cute adults in their lives, like their Argentine au pair  (top photo and left), and their hot dad (below).

Mom Kacy Andrews , the CEO of Bigfoot Entertainment, has documented the twins' career since their gestation.  She is infertile (and an advocate of infertility awareness), so a friend of 25 years, her soul mate and part of her chosen family, offered to become her surrogate.   They only implanted one frozen embryo, but on December 5, 2014, twins came out!  

The two began appearing in tv commercials at the age of two months, and in 2016 won the role of Tommy Fuller Jr. on the Full House sequel Fuller House (2016-20).  They appeared in 75 episodes, moving from baby to toddler.

Tommy Jr. is the son of focus character DJ and her deceased husband.  He has two brothers, Jackson (Michael Campion, top) and Max (Elias Harger, left).

I profiled the grown-up Elias, and decided that he is probably gay, but there were no gay regular characters on the show.  Showrunner Candace Cameron Bure is vociferously homophobic, and insisted that her show be "family friendly", that is, heterosexual only.  They did manage to cast trans actor Miss Benny (then presenting as male) as a gay high schooler in two episodes, but cautioned that Candace would try to fire her. So don't speak to any of the Fuller adults, don't look directly at Candace, and prepare for a firestorm of hate from her homophobic core fans. Gee, I think I'd give that role a miss.

Tommy's main plot arc involves getting therapy for being a "late talker,"  reflecting the twins' real-life speech delay.

While starring on Fuller House, the twins, alone or together, had other acting gigs:

The music video Sunrise Sunset (2018) with the song from Fiddler on the Roof covered by Juan Pablo di Pace (left).  He's straight but played a gay guy in The Mattachine Family.   Elias Harger, Adam Hagenbuch, and Michael Campion from Fuller House also appeared, presumably growing older to the lyrics.

Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

An episode of Grey's Anatomy (2019) as a child whose mom overdoses and abandons him.  A bystander brings him to the hospital, where the doctors advise keeping him away from mom until she gets help.

Two episodes of the DIY show Home & Family (2019), with Mark Steins as the co-host.

An episode of  Danger Force (2020), starring Cooper Barnes as a wacky superhero.  His Danger Force of teen superheroes kidnap a toddler, thinking that he is a baby-faced supervillain.  Eventually they track down his dads and return him.

More after the break

20 gay and gay-friendly teen actors: a fierce, fabulous Barbie boy, Pugsley Addams, Harvey Milk, a Russian bodybuilder with a cat,....

I usually profile teen idols after they've graduated to adult hunkiness, but sometimes I can't wait: they're playing gay characters, going to Pride events, wearring  femme/fabulous outfits, or hugging their boyfriends while still teenagers.  Their openness to gay potential gives me hope for a less homophobic future.  I won't look for or post n*de photos, of course, but I usually include some adult co-stars to keep things interesting.

1. Taylor Gregory: At 17, the fierce, fabulous Barbie boy had grown up to become a bodybuilder and fundamentalist. 

2. Alfie Williams (left), star of 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: Bone Temple, is 15 as of this writing, but hangs out with a surprising number of gay guys, who call him "one of the girls"

3. Eldon Jones: Actor in gay projects, dancer, artist with a gay brother and a pink shirt. 

4. Isaac Ordonez (not pictured). The sweet, sensitive, queer-coded Pugsley Addams on Wednesday dates dudes.

5. Alkaio Thiele. The wizard in training on Beyond Waverly Place and Kayden Koshelev (below) used to be an item.

6. Kayden Koshelev (left). Drag boy and nonbinary firetruck, Alkaio's Other Half before their breakup. Not to worry, he's moved on.

7. Recker Eans. The gaydar boy on Beyond Waverly Place drums in gay-friendly videos and sings in a boy band with gay-friendly songs.

8. Bentley Storteboom (not pictured). His name and physique had me fooled.  I thought he was 25, and Dutch.

9. Benjamin Pajak (right) played six gay characters before age 15, and sang as Harvey Milk.

More after the break

"Dad Can't Know That I'm Gay": An Abraham Gemstone Adventure, with Ash, some twink d*cks, and a special appearance by Pontius and Stacy

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Ben Pajak plays the gay kids of Wolverine and Paul Blart, Harvey Milk, Max von Essen's buddy, and a gay Corey Haim. But is he...

The Lost Boys (1987) starred teen idol Corey Haim (right) as Sam, a teenager trying to save his older brother (Jason Patric, left) from a pack of motorcycle-riding, leather jacket-wearing vampires. Sam is as gay as you could portray in the homophobic 1980s:he takes a bubble bath, has a poster of heartthrob Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall, wears a "Born to Shop" t-shirt, and sings that "I'm a lonely girl, ain't got a man."  That's not enough for most fans, of course, who proclaim loudly, "Straight guys do that!  It doesn't make him gay!"

Left: Jason Patric's butt and cock, or maybe the cock of his partner.  I can't tell their gender from the photo.

A musical version of the iconic film opened on Broadway in April 2026, with the same plotline: single Mom Lucy and her two sons move to Santa Carla, the murder capital of the West Coast, where older brother Michael (LJ Benet), falls in with a crowd of rock star vampires.  But 40 years have passed, and his relationship with the vampire David (Ali Louis Bourzgui) can be openly homoerotic:

Wanna get you alone / Caress your collarbone / No preacher would condone / What I would do to you, baby

And now younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) can be overtly, obviously, coming-out speech gay:

Maybe I can be a hero here/ And make it cool to be queer/ Maybe that's my superpower.

Wait -- Benjamin Pajak.    Wasn't he in Playdate?   Paul Blart is trying to de-gay his shirt-raiser stepson Lucas  (Ben) by teaching him football, when they run into Reacher and his sociallly awkward son CJ (Banks Pierce).  The two boys hit it off instantly, so the dads arrange a playdate.  But government agents or evil corporate clones are after CJ, and...it gets weirder and weirder, with multiple plot holes, but dang it, those boys are obviously into each other.  They do everything but kiss.  

That's one gay and one "an inch away from flying a Pride Flag" role.  I need to do a profile of this kid.

Benjamin Pajak was born in March 2011, in Westfield, New Jersey, about 20 miles from Manhattan.   The family is Jewish but not observant.  The Paper Mill Theater was across the back yard, so acting and singing were an ever-present part of life. 

He made his Broadway debut  in The Music Man (2021): con artist Harold Hill (Wolverine Hugh Jackman, left) wooes the prim-and-proper Marian the Librarian.  Her younger brother  Winthrop (Ben) rejects a date request from a girl and speaks with a gay-stereotype lisp, which he overcomes with Harold's mentorship. If I was writing a scholarly article about musicals, I'd have a lot of fun queering that text.

Three gay and gay-light roles so far.

In June 2023, Ben performed as the Young Harvey in the oratorio I am Harvey Milk, about the assassinated gay rights leader. 

Four for four, Ben Baby.

He has also performed in Oliver!, Golden Rainbow, Nine, and Ragtime.  His songs appear in four albums: Rails, Figaro, The Music Man, and Christmas Time in the City.

More after the break.