Raising Dion Episode 2.2: Gay kid with superpowers and his scoobies fight monsters, deal with a helicopter Mom

There are lots of movie and tv shows about teenagers discovering that they have superpowers, but not many about eigh-year olds. In Raising Dion, single mom Nicole must deal with her own problems and her son's superpowers, which draw the attention of the usual medical specialists, dark-government agencies, and monstrous supervillains.  Gavin Munn plays Dion's best bud.  To see if they have a gay-subtext relationship,  I reviewed Episode 2.2, about a new boy in school, figuring that this was the episode where Gavin first appears.

Prelude: Mom and Dion off a giant smokey monster in naked human form.  So far, so good.  The monster leaves, and a guy named Pat (Jason Ritter, left) is left (fully clothed).  He explains: "It took a whole day for my body to completely reform, and another to walk to the nearest town, where I decided to start a new life."

Scene 1: Zoom out: he's being interrogated, claiming that he did unspeakable things because the Crooked Man was controlling him.  And now it is controlling someone else!  Big Boss Suzanne doesn't believe him.

Scene 2: Guys in Hazmat suits investigating a giant crater.  There are footprints down there -- maybe the security guard. They call him to check, but he's at home with a disgusting pustulating growth on his neck.  They block off the crater so no school kids fall in.

At that moment, Mom and Dion (Ja'siah Young) drive past. Dion, now ten years old, is troubled, but Mom tells him that there is nothing to worry about.  He praises his superpower trainer, Tevin (Rome Flynn, top photo). Mom says "I'm glad you like him."  Next subject of conversation: the upcoming musical, which Esperanza is counting on him for.  Does Dion have a girlfriend?  TV writers are hesitant about portraying gay pre-teens or even teenagers, but they'll happily have toddlers expressing heterosexual desire.

Scene 3: At school, Dion is drawing in the abs on a muscular superhero.  Questioned by his friend Jonathan (Gavin Munn, already a regular), he claims that they are power stabilizers to help him go faster.  "Um...ok," Gavin says, rather obviously pretending not to know that Dion is gay.  I'd better take another peek at Dion's interest in his superpower trianer.

Their third friend Esperanza (Sammi Haney), who has a unique body type and uses a wheelchair, wants to know when they're going to investigate the mysterious crater. How about today after school?  Next, she has picked out the songs they're going to use for their auditions for the school musical.  BFF Jonathan says there's no need: he has his song picked out, and it's going to be awesome!

During class, the new kid Brayden (Griffin Robert Faulkner) keeps glaring at Dion. 

Scene 4: B Plot with Mom and her sister Kat discussing where their lives went wrong. 

Cut to school: after class, New Kid Brayden reads the minds of the kids around him, mostly criticizing him for being strange.  Dion and his buds friend-up to him: "I know how hard it is being the new kid."  They ask him to audition for the school musical.

Scene 5: Out in the hall, Crooked Man tells Brayden to "get him alone!", so he asks Dion for a tour of the school. BFF Jonathan wants to come, too, but Brayden mind controls him into agreeing that it should just be the two of them. 

They walk down a deserted hallway.  Dion asks Brayden why he moved to Atlanta.  "To find you."  I don't think he means "we were meant to be together."  

Crooked Man smokes out of Brayden and tries to grab Dion, but fails.

Scene 6:  After school.  Mom arrives to pick up Dion, but Esperanza stalls her, and at the crater, BFF Jonathan stalls the hazmat guy, so Dion can zap down and investigate. It's got glowing purple flowers with undulating stamens that reach out for him -- ulp, time to zap away! 

Scene 7:  At the Bio Institute, while Dion is changing into his superhero-workout clothes, his trainer Tevin asks Mom out.  I'll skip the Mom and Patrick plots.  Actually, they take a while.  I guess child stars can't work a lot of hours.

Scene 8: Brayden at home -- he lives by himself -- eating pizza.  He criticizes the Crooked Man smoke-monster for trying to attack Dion, when he wasn't strong enough.  "Well, he was just so close, and I couldn't help it."   Crooked Man is not quite as scary when he whines to a little kid.  

Next criticism: "Why are you using the weird flowers to build an army? Why can't you kill Dion all by  yourself, you wimp?"  Crooked Man doesn't answer; he just complements Brayden: "You're making me stronger.  Soon I will be ready." 

Next: when the job is done, will Crooked Man abandon Brayden?  "No, I'll keep you with me."  Ten to one he's lying.

Scene 8:  Dion in his room, reading comic books.  Why is there a map of Scandinavia on his wall?   Suddenly Brayden appears!  He explains: "I'm not actually in your room, I'm in your head.  I have powers, too."  While Dion stares, he says "I think we're going to be best friends."  Uh-oh, that sounds sinister.  The end.

The Dion plot is a little thin, so lI'll add a scene from the next episode:

The Musical Auditions:   Dion's main friends and Brayden compete for Dion's attention.  Brayden uses his superpowers to zap the two of them into a field (a boring field?  How about Disney World?). But Dion still chooses his main friends.  Brayden roils with jealousy.

The femme diector, Mr. Kwame (J. Harrison Ghee, who won a Tony for his role in Some Like It Hot ), uses the opening of Fame: "you got big dreams?  You want fame?  Well, fame costs, and here's where you start paying -- in sweat!" This is a fourth grade musical review, not Broadway!  

Ulp, all of the kids sing "Oh, Susannah!"  Badly!  "Fosse, forgive me!" Mr. Kwame cries. Then Esperanza does a mesmerizing performance of  "Beautiful Dreamer." 

Jonathan doesn't audition; he uses pyrotechnics and confetti cannons to push for the job of stage manager.  The end.

Beefcake: None, but I included the butts of Jason Ritter and Rome Flynn after the break.

Heterosexism: Just among the adults.  I researched the series, and none of the kids is involved in a heterosexual romance.

Gay Characters: One scene implying that Dion is gay.  There are probably hints in other episodes, too, but I doubt they go beyond.  

According to AfterEllen, Mom's sister Kat gets a "surprise! she's a lesbian" moment that is never referenced again.  There are rainbow posters around the school, but I can't read what they say.

Gay Subtext: Dion and Brayden have a kid version of a toxic romantic relationship, complete with gaslight, blaming, and abuse.  Nothing with Dion and Jonathan in this episode. 

My Grade:  Esperanza steals every scene, and Jonathan is amazing as a pre-teen operator.  Dion is the morose, troubled Peter Parker type.  Mom is definitely over protective.  Kid plotline: A-.

Overall, this seems to be Mom's story, about the problems of raising a "special needs" kid and dealing with the season's Big Bad.  Grown-up plotline: C+.

Butts after the break.  Guess which belongs to whom:

Harry Jowsey: New Zealand reality star, Boyfriend Dick Podcaster, Onlyfans nude model, "Call me gay."

22-year old New Zealand-based fitness model Harry Jowsey first appeared on screen on Heartbreak Island, and gained international fame on the Netflix reality series Too Hot to Handle (2020). It was based on the Seinfeld episode "The Contest": hetero hunks and babes had to live in close quarters without hooking up.  Proven "Master of his Domain," Harry split the $100,000 prize with the other  winners.  His "smouldering s*xual tension" with some of the ladies spun him into 4 million social media followers.  

And several podcasts. In Boyfriend Material, Harry and his guests give humorous relationship advice based upon his experience of hooking up with about 200 women.

It is notable for the viral term Boyfriend Dick, based upon Harry's description of his penis: No too big, not too small, looks nice, gets the job done.

More reality tv followed: Match Me If You Can, The Amazing Race Australia, Dancing with the Stars, and Perfect Match.  

Plus the upcoming movie The Wrong Paris (2025): a woman joins a reality tv show in "Paris," thinking that she's going to France, but it's the one in Texas. The women outnumber the men in the cast three to one, but there are a few hunks: Pierson Fode, Torrance Coombs, Kaden Connors (left), and William Wilder.

Harry seems to be veering back and forth between ally and homophobe. 

In September 2021, youtuber and trans activist Nikki Dragun included a picture of him in her video "Dick."  Fans got upset: "You hooked up with a dude, man!"  

Harry had assumed that the relationship would be private, but now that it was open, he explained, Nikki Dragun is a woman.  Trans or cisgender, what's the difference.

Sounds like an ally. except in October 2021, on his Tap It podcast, he complained that "some f*ggot" was trying to hook up with him.  He was referring to makeup youtuber James Charles.  Later he apologized, and stated that he supported the LGBT community.

In 2022, Harry demonstrated his support by posting some photos wearing a dress, and fans again became irate: "That's wrong, man." 

Boyfriend dick after the break

Aaron Carter: The golden boy of the fall of 2000 comes out as bi, shows his d*ck, has a hard life. Brother Nick: "Hurts to love you."

Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of The Backstreet Boys, burst into teen idol fame with his debut album (entitled Aaron Carter, naturally), released in 1997, when he was just nine years old. It sold a million copies.  A second album, Aaron's Party: Come and Get It (2000), sold two million copies and peaked at #4 on the U.S. charts.  

To those who were young in the fall of 2000, songs like "Bounce," "Aaron's Party," and a highly risque version of "I Want Candy" became symbols of a golden age of innocence,  became an icon of the fall of 2000, along with "Who Let the Dogs Out," "Kryptonite," and "Dance with Me."

 

The sizzling star appeared as himself on Sabrina the Teenage Witch (2001) and Lizzie McGuire (2001), and started high-profile romances with Hilary Duff (Lizzie) and Lindsey Lohan (The Parent Trap).

New albums were released in 2001 and 2002, but in the post-911, War on Terror world, that golden age seemed impossibly naive, and Aaron's star faded.  He continued to tour and release new songs, but none of them charted.  Focusing on his acting, he played:

Harry (one of the daughter's boyfriends) on two episodes of 7th Heaven (2004)

A classmate of the live action Fat Albert (left, with Shedrach Taylor III as Rudy).

A Hannah Montana-like incognito popstar in Popstar (2005).  Former popstars David Cassidy and Leif Garrett (right) appeared.

Marty in I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006), with Jeff Garlin (soon to star in The Goldberg) as a man looking for someone to each cheese with.

Brian in College Fright Night (2014), about a vampire infestation at a college, with former teen stars Todd Bridges and Dustin Diamond in the cast.

Aaron's adult years were rough:

Monetary problems, with his parents squandering his income, sometimes forcefully.

His father firing a gun next to his ear, leaving him partially deaf.

Allegations of abuse from his sister Leslie and brother Nick, which led to a restraining order and an admission that on social media that he wanted to kill Nick's wife.

Frequent drug problems.

More after the break

Jason Marsden: Second hottest of the Short Guy Brigade, Steve Smith, Max Goof, and Robin. With Marsden dicks

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Alexander Polinsky: Adam on "Charles in Charge" grows up, models props, goes Furthur. With Andrew Keegan, Julian Sands, and some d*cks

 I get a lot of page views with profiles of former child stars and teen idols who have gone on to a hunk adulthood, so naturally I was drawn to Charles in Charge (1984-1990), with Scott Baio as a college student working as a live-in nanny in...um...a household full of teenage girls far too old for a nanny.

There were boys around, too, but Jonathan Ward and Michael Pearlman from the 1984-85 version can't be found.  That leaves Alexander Polinsky, who appeared as Adam Powell in 104 episodes in the second version (1986-90).  

The show was focused on Charles, his buddy Buddy (Willie Aames), and the two teenage girls, so Adam didn't get a lot of centrics: he is harassed by a bully, gets a crush on a girl, takes a babysitting job.  I recall one episode where Adam has to explain that he doesn't like playing football.  He starts off with a list of the sports he does like, lest Charles get the idea that he is a sissy/ gay.

Left: Alex with fellow 1990s teen stars Stephen Dorff and Brian Austin Green

After Charles, the 14-year old had guest spots on Billy (about a Scottish comedian), The New Lassie (about a dog), and Joe's Life (about a stay-at home Dad), and starred in Pumpkin II: Blood Wings (1994): teenagers accidentally unleash an ancient demon, who kills them all except the Final Girl.

In Perfect Fit (2000), Dick (Alex) "turns to murder" to satisfy his girlfriend, a blue jean fetishist. 

Former Colt model and soap stud Nick Benedict appears as Thomas, one of the jeans donors.

Since the 2000s, Alex has been involved mostly in his prop modeling and voiceover animation: 

Control Freak in Teen Titans

Garrett in Alpha Teens on Machines

Chameleon Boy in Legion of Superheroes.

Jimmy Olsen in Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Unicorns 1 and 2 in Breadwinners

Several characters in Monster High: the Series

He returned to live action for the the anthology movie Locker 13 (2014).  In Segment 3, Alex plays a mental patient considers jumping off a building, until the fast-talking Jason Marsden tells him about a Suicide Club, where members bet on when and how people will off themselves.

Ricky Schroder appeared in another segment as a down-and-out boxer who finds sinister gloves that let him win every match -- for a price.

Roger Ebert.com tells us: "Rarely do I find a movie that is so appalling if not outright insulting to all of humanity (and particularly, in this case, womankind) that it gives me a stomach ache, but Locker 13 really put me off my Cobb Salad."

Still, Alex highlights his segment in his acting demo reel.

Alex has one writing/producer credit: Going Furthur (2016), 1966-67, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters took a psychedelic bus called Furthur up and down the West Coast, offering Acid Tests to introduce the youth counterculture to LSD. 

50 years later, Ken's son Zane and new Merry Pranksters repeat the trip (without the LSD), visiting "music festivals, community events, tribal festivals, and national landmarks."

This one sounds interesting.

More after the break

The Answer to the Naked Man's Question

 

Today summer lasts for 12 weeks; I can see its beginning and end.  But when I was nine years old, lasted for months or years, or never ended: somewhere it's still that childhood summer, an endless succession of days, all bright green and dazzling.  

A week in Indiana, visiting my parents' family.

A week camping in Minnesota and Canada.  

Nazarene summer camp.  

Swimming lessons at Longview Park Pool.

The bookmobile every Tuesday. 

The Denkmann School Carnival.

  

Malts at Country Style. 

Vacation Bible School

Gold Key comic books at Schneider's Drug Store.

Dark Shadows.  H.R. Pufnstuf.  Tarzan Theater.

Posters of teen idols.

And the Naked Man's Question:

 All on a golden afternoon, probably a Saturday in July, in my Grandma's farmhouse in northern Indiana.  It's a big house, white frame.  The living room is pink, with flowered wall paper and thick drapes.

My brother and I are alone.  I don't remember why.  Maybe Mom and Dad have gone off somewhere, on an expedition of their own, leaving Grandma Davis to babysit, and she has stepped out.

We have just come in from something or other -- puttering around in the apple orchard, playing fetch with the dogs next door, exploring the old barn where Grandpa used to milk cows.  We kick off our shoes at the door.  

Maybe we're going to head up to our room which happens to be Dad's old room, with his pictures and schoolbooks and baseball glove), or up to the attic to sort through the bundles of old magazines in search of comic books.

I stop in front of the tv set, a big piece of furniture, wood-brown, with curved pillars on the sides.  There's an empty candy dish and a photo of my Cousin Phil on top. 

At our house the tv is almost always on, whether anyone is watchng or not, a stable, comforting background noise.  But Grandma keeps it off unless someone wants to watch a specific program.  It seems unnatural, wrong somehow.

I reach down and turn it on.

Kenny asks "What do you want to watch?"

I shrug. "I don't know.  Maybe Tarzan Theater."  On Saturday afternoons in Rock Island, when there isn't a game on, you can see old Tarzan and Bomba the Jungle Boy movies.

The black and white screen flickers, and then pops on.  A game.

I turn it to the next channel.  Some people talking.

"Find some cartoons," Kenny suggests.

There are only three channels, so only three choices.  I turn to the third.

A naked man.

In my memory he's naked, although he was probably wearing a leotard.  Shirtless, though, with taut hard pecs and very thick hard biceps.

You never saw naked or even shirtless men on tv in those days, except in Tarzan movies, so I stand dumbstruck, frozen in place, realizing that I will remember this moment forever.

"What's this?" Kenny asks.

The naked man twirls and high-steps, bulging his bare calves, across a bare stage to a young blond woman.  Then, dancing a sort of tap dance, he asks "Who....are...youuuuuu?"

She starts a tap dance of her own, dances in front of him, and says "I....don't...know. Who...are...youuuuu?"

He stops dancing and glowers at her, his eyes dark, and replies.  "I am the Magic Mushroom."

At that moment, Grandma appears at the window leading to the kitchen.  "There's nothing for kids on now," she says. "Turn the tv off."

"Wait...I..."  I begin.   But Kenny obligingly turns it off.  

"Now who wants to help me bake a pie for dinner tonight?"

All in a golden afternoon.

More after the break

"Sinners": Twin brothers fight vampires and klansmen in the Mississippi Delta. With Jordan junk and O'Connell butt

For movie night this weekend, we actually went to a movie in a theater, for a change: Sinners (2025), about twin brothers fighting vampires in the Mississippi Delta in 1932.

The first hour is quite naturalistic: Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan in a dual role) return to the Deep Delta from their gangster career in Chicago with a lot of money and Irish booze, buy the old abandoned mill from a klansman who says he's not a klansman, and organize a juke party. We get the sense of the vast emptiness of the cotton fields, and the terror of everyday life for African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.  

You had to be very careful; glance at or speak to a white woman, accidentally bump into a white man, and you would be attacked.  Gay people live with a similar fear -- hold hands with your boyfriend or display a Pride flag, and you could get attacked or killed.  But at least heteronormativity ensures that most gay people are assumed straight, and can keep hidden in the riskiest situations.  Most African-Americans could not.

Left: Michael B. Jordan

The brothers pick up Preacher Boy (Miles Caton), who is torn between the church and the guitar (which his Preacher father calls Satanic).  After he agrees to perform tonight, they split up.  

Stack and Preacher Boy go to town, where they recurit another performer, the elderly, alcoholic Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo).

They hire shopkeeper Bo Chow (Yao) to make up signs and fry the catfish.

Left: Malaysian actor Yao received a MFA from Yale University in 2023.  He played a gay character in #LookatMe (2022).

They pull Cornbread (Omar Miller) from the cotton fields to act as bouncer.

The brothers are so intimate that I was sure that one or both would be gay, but heteronormativity is running rampant.  Both of them, and Preacher Boy, get girlfriends, whom they have s*x with, one after the other.

1. Stack with his ex-girlfriend Mary, who is an octaroon (one-eighth black), so Jim Crow laws still apply to her.

2. Smoke with his estranged wife Annie (Wummi Musaku).  She's rather old , so I thought she was his mother until they started doing things.  

She's also quite butch, so I figured that the actress must be a lesbian. LezWatch says that she is cisgender, unspecified sexual identity, but she has played at least three queer characters.

3. Preacher Boy with Pearline, a married singer.  Fortunately, her husband isn't around. 

It keeps going like that.  Bo Chow has a wife (we learn their favorite s*xual activity).  Cornbread has a pregnant wife.  Delroy Slim isn't married, but discusses the hetero exploits of his youth.

Left: Michael A. Newcomer, who plays a bartender in a white joint, is gay in real life.  

Vampires after the break