Jacob Sartorius: Femme teen idol into heterosexism, cowboys, and frontal nudity

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Asa Butterfield: A dozen "boy meets girl" movies, a dozen nude photos, and a boyfriend

I keep thinking that Asa Butterfield is American due to his old-fashioned name -- maybe Moravian or Amish -- but he's actually British, born in Islington, 30 minutes by underground from the British Museum.  It has pubs called The Earl of Essex, The Duke of Cambridge, and the Pig and the Butcher.  Can't get more British than that.

He got his start in horribly depressing movies like After Thomas and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 2007, which of course were on my "run away fast" list.  

Then came Hugo, 2011, a fantasy with an ending that made me cringe -- the photo looks like two boys have the adventure, but it's actually a boy and a girl.  When Hugo announces that he's got a girlfriend, the adults throw confetti, high-five each other, and scream with joy.  That happened to me every time I mentioned a girl, no matter how casually: "A girl in my class did a book report on Finnegan's Wake."  "Hallelujah, he's straight!  He's normal!  We don't have to worry anymore!  Here, have some money and the keys to the car!"

Although it did allow me to get away with anything: "Sorry I left my jacket on the bus.  I was talking to this girl, see..."  "Hah-hah, of course, boys will be boys!  Here, have some money and the keys to the car!"

I didn't see Ender's Game, 2013, because the original novel was written by the horribly homophobic Orson Scott Card, or A Brilliant Young Mind, 2014, because the brilliant young math prodigy gets a brilliant young girlfriend. 

The novel version of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children contains no heterosexual romance, but in the 2016 movie version, there are three of them. It's boys and girls gazing into each other's eyes all the way down. 

Are you noticing a pattern here?

Then Came You, 2018: A boy falls in love with a dying girl. This seems to be quite a trope.  Why do girls never fall in love with dying boys?  Of course I'm not seeing it.

Time Freak, 2018.  At least Asa has a gay-subtext relationship with Skyler Gisondo en route to winning the Girl of His Dreams.

Your Christmas or Mine?, 2022.  Isn't Asa a little young to graduate to Christmas romcoms?

Asa's biggest role to date is in the tv series Sex Education, 2019-23.  He plays Otis, a boy whose mom is a sex therapist, so he and his friends get the idea of opening a clinic to solve teenagers' sex problems. There are some gay characters, but Otis is straight.  And naked a lot.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

Aaron Goldenberg: Former fundamentalist, Cousin Karl's boyfriend, Mean Gay. With some underwear bulges.

 

Aaron Goldenberg is an Atlanta based comedian with 41.000 followers on Facebook, 294,000,  on Instagram, and 1.2 million on Tiktok. 

He is best known for his series of "Mean Gays" videos with Jake Jonez: they make snarky comments at your wedding, your baby shower, by the pool, at your dinner party. The "hookup" video, where the Mean Gays invite you over for "some fun" and discover that you're a little older and huskier than your profile photo, has gone viral, with over 4 million views on Twitter and Tiktok.

Well, we've all been there.

The Mean Gays went national in 2024 when they "invaded," or rather hosted, the Razzies, the annual awards for the worst movies and actors of the year.

Aaron also riffs, or rather comments, on his fundamentalist childhood -- hiding in plain sight, parents in denial, friends saying "Hate the sin but love the sinner," coming out to his pastor.  It did not go well.

Aaron has 21 acting and 9 writing credits on the IMBD, beginning in his fundamentalist days with the short "Witnesscylin," about a drug that can help you win souls.  He has played Confused Bellhop in Burn Notice, Emaciated Vampire in So Dark, and the Host of Rap Shit.

He has a scene in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones, as Percy the Interior Designer, who is working on the siblings' new executive board room.  Kelvin is nice to him,so I interpreted this as an attempt to form social connections with other LGBT people. 

I was so impressed with Percy that I used him in four fan stories: he has a date with Kelvin during the breakup with Keefe; attends their commitment ceremony; and finally starts dating Cousin Karl Montgomery.  There's even an explicit story about their first night together.

More Percy..um, I mean Aaron..after the break

"Young Rock," Episode 2.8: The Rock hits the big time, with lots of locker room beefcake and bulges

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"Pretty Dudes": Gay Asian erasure, Spiderman, a car hookup, and hamburger sex. All in11 minutes. With some pretty nude dudes

 I wanted to know how Carlin James, who is apparently straight, got cast on  Pretty Dudes, a webseries about a group of  gay guys sharing a house in West Hollywood and negotiating life, love, sex, and race.  He appears as CJ in four episodes.

Now the craziness begins. Amazon Prime lists 21 episodes, the IMDB 29, and Wikipedia 39, with different numbering and chronological order. Some titles appear in just one list. Some have been repackaged into other projects. You'll need an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them all. 

But unless the titles have changed, only one of Carlin's episodes is streaming on Amazon Prime: 1.9, "All American Type."

Above photo: A show about gay guys, and the actors; nude photos are stuck behind paywalls.  So I just googled "Gay Asian actor"

Scene 1:  Hustler Jay (Tae Song) and photographer Zario (Brian Michael Nunez) are playing video games when a shirtless Spiderman approaches, announcing that he has super powers now, and can protect the queens.  How special, girlfriend.

Scene 2: Flashback to the day before. We hear Elijah (Carlin James) saying: "This is going to taste so good in my mouth.  I can't wait to shove it in there."  Psych!  He's talking about a hamburger.  Not a hot dog?

Gregory  (Leo Lam, left) enters from the kitchen and, annoyed, tells him to just eat it, but he continues making sexy sounds.  Wait --according to his page on the IMDB, Carlin plays CJ, but according to the tv series page...heck with it. 

Scene 3: Reality tv confessional room.  Model Sunji  (Yoshi Sudarno, left) confesses that he doesn't understand photographer Zario because he doesn't act gay.  But he'snot normal, so Sunji just tries to be a good friend.

Cut to photographer Zario getting ready for his first job "since the breakup," filming a podcast hosted by artist Kito (Chance Calloway). 

In 2024, Chance published Anatomical Iconography, featuring the Pretty Dudes paying homage to classic male nude art.  It sells for $43 on Amazon.  I had no idea the show as so popular.  How do fans figure out the episode confusion?

Scene 4: Model Sunji cooking shirtless.  He sees a spider and freaks out. 

More after the break

Adam's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 2: Gold's Gym, grapes, ben wa balls, and 69

This is a collection of hot or humorous photos of Adam Devine, star of The Righteous Gemstones, Workaholics, and practically everything. 

1. Bro, you don't have to be actually made of gold to join Gold's Gym.

2. Steve Howey, one of the gay terrorists in Game Over, Man

3. You think every guy wants a hickey, dude.

4. "Quick, make a funny face!  Maybe they won't notice where my hand is!"

5. In Captain Fail, Adam plays an unqualified, inept spaceship captain.  Jason Ritter plays his arrogant rival.

6. Adam always treats his fans like buddies or boyfriends.

More Adam after the break.  Warning: Explicit

Ten Dudes from Rejected Reviews: From Matt Bomer to Tom Goodman-Hill

I find potential movies and tv shows to review on my streaming service recommendations, the social media of actors I follow, and if I have just completed a profile of someone, like Cory Chapman or Michael Provost, their work on the IMDB.  If the premise is interesting, or there are two guys together on the icon, I might just click "play," but usually there's some research involved.

Do the episode synopses mention a same-sex friendship or rescue?  Is there minimal man-woman kissing in the trailer?  Are there any beefcake or nude photos of the male cast members?  

Sometimes I collect nude photos for illustrations, and then decide against the review after reading a plot synopsis or Rotten Tomatoes score, or after watching for a few minutes.  The result is a folder full of naked guys from rejected reviews.  I hate to delete them, so I'm posting them for their aesthetic value.

1. Adam Rayner in Tyrant: An American family drawn into the politics of a fictional Middle Eastern nation.  A gay guy eventually comes out and finds a boyfriend, who is killed,  I don't do the Bury Your Gays trope.  Next!

2. I was planning a review of "The Unicorn and the Wasp," a Doctor Who episode with gay characters, so I searched for "Christopher Tennant." 

"Christopher Benjamin" popped up,  nude on stage doing The Fairy Queen. But the full-sized photo was behind a pay wall, so I tried someone else in the cast, Robert Burt.

Except this isn't Robert Burt the stage actor. The link goes to a set of pictures illustrating the works of poet Robert Hamberger, models unknown. 

3. Turns out that the Doctor I was looking for was actually played by David Tennant.  A new search on "David Tennant" yielded Harry Lawtrey in Industry.

The British drama about job applicants in a finance firm had two gay characters, but the opening sequences were boring, so no review.  Next!

4. A reader recommended The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare for its buddy-bonding and beefcake.  As of this writing it's in theaters only, so I scanned its cast list and found Hero Fiennes Tiffin -- great name -- which led me to The Loneliest Boy in the World.  The boy appears to be falling in love with a boy zombie.   But it's not available on any of my streaming services. Next!

5. Depressing disease-of-the-week medical dramas are usually a resounding "No!", but The Good Doctor had a gay character played by Noah Galvin, so I researched him.  A former Hasidic Jew, conflicted, confused, self-doubting, guilt ridden, who finally gets a boyfriend -- only to have him killed on the day they become engaged.  

Before I noped out of there, I found some nude photos of Noah Galvin's real-life boyfriend, Ben Platt

More nude dudes after the break