Around 2008, I researched queer codes on children's tv for what turned out to be three scholarly articles. I gave high scores to
Drake and Josh, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Wizards of Waverly Place, and
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Phil of the Future, Ed Edd and Eddy, and
Zoey 101 got low scores, and the lowest:
The Naked Brothers Band.It was a mockumentary about the misadventures of a fictional band led by preteen brothers, Alex and Nat Wolff. They never explained the embarrassingly salacious name, but I assume that it meant that you would be seeing their real life, uncurated and unmediated.
Of course, it was curated and mediated. Alex and Nat did have a band, and some of their real-life bandmates (like Dan Levi, left) were in the cast, but most of the characters and situations were purely fictional. They were not at all famous. Yet.
In 2004, actress Polly Draper had the idea of making a mockumentary about her sons' band, sort a preteen Spinal Tap or A Hard Day's Night. She got her wealthy (or wealthier) brother to finance The Naked Brothers Band, filmed it in mid-town Manhattan, and entered it the 2005 Hamptons International Film Festival. Nickelodeon bought it, and suggested a teencom spin-off, competition to the upstart Myley Cyrus in Hannah Montana.
Nat Wolff was only twelve years old, and Alex was nine, a little young to handle a teencom by themselves, so Polly added adults to the cast to pull some of the weight. Mostly her relatives: husband Michael Wolff as the boys' widowed dad; niece Jesse as their babysitter; brother Tim as the school principal. Plus a steady stream of celebrity friends, including Ryan Seacrest, Tony Hawk, and Whoopi Goldberg, popped by to play themselves.
The result was three seasons of intense nepotism and aggressive "girls! girls! girls!' hetero-horniness (2007-09).
I only watched one episode for my research project (there were over 30 programs in my dataset), so to be fair, I just watched another: "Three is Enough" (February 8, 2008)
In the teaser, Alex wants to practice putting his arm around his "true love" in the movies. Nat is skeptical -- he has a new "true love" every week. But he agrees to play the girl. Then Alex plays the girl so Nat can practice. The gender-play is a queer code, but it's drowned out by the endless discussion of how many girls they like.
Next: they have writen a new song, "Three is Enough." Babysitter Jesse agrees: three is the perfect amount of everything, from donuts to boys. For instance, she can't choose between the three "adorable Timmerman Brothers" (played by Polly's excessively rich nephews).
She implies that she is dating all of them, and perhaps not one at a time. Maybe they are involved in a queer four-way romance.
Then the Handsome Foreigner next door (Michael W. Barry) asks her to the big horror movie. The Timmermans get jealous and decide to spy on them.
At the studio, famous cartoonist Jules Feiffer, playing himself, is drawing cartoons to project over the band's new song. Alex asks to be portrayed as cooler and more teenager-ish, and for the girl he is in love with to look more like his real-life true love.
The main plot: their manager, 12-year old Cooper (Cooper Pillot) accidentally asks a girl for a date. The band suggests various ways to get out of it, but he doesn't want to get out of it. He just wants Nat to come along for moral support. But Nat needs a date, and he can't ask his on-off girlfriend Rosalie while they're "on a break." Can he? This section can't be easily queered; it's boys and girls all the way down.
Verdict: A few gender-bending moments , but no gay subtexts.
I couldn't even find any gay actors in the cast, except for Andre Keenan-Bolger, who played the snippy director Christophe in four episodes.
After the break: Have the Naked Brothers continued their heteronormative erasure as adults? Have they gotten naked?
