Wet Hot American Summer Episode 1.5: Skyler in a satyr costume, a gaslit gay couple, learning how to use your penis

 

Wet Hot American Summer (2001) was set in a summer camp in Maine in 1981: after all of the kids have left, the counselors hold a talent show and hook up. Two guys fall in love and get married.  I've never seen it, so I don't know if the sequence was performed as a homophobic joke or not. 

Undaunted by the 38% Rotten Tomato rating, Netflix produced two Wet Hot tv series, a prequel and a sequel.  Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later catches up with the original characters and some new faces in 1991.  I reviewed Episode 1.5, "King of the Camp," where pompous, snarly, mean-tempered new character Deegs (Skyler Gisondo) and regular Andy (Paul Rudd) compete for the title.

Scene 1: The camp is in session, so there are kids as well as counselors.  Andy's friend points out that he was named King of the Camp every year back in the day, but now the honor goes to that mean-tempered kid, Deegs.  At that moment Deegs throws some trash at them, while his friend Seth does a "fucking" gesture.  So he plans to humiliate them with anal sex? 

They argue. "Fuck off!" "Suck my balls."  Dude, you're a 30 year old man telling a kid to suck your balls.  Doesn't that sound a little odd?  

Finally Andy challenges Deegs to a "King of the Camp Duel."

Scene 2: The King of Camp contest begins with drummers, acrobats, a band dressed like road warriors, and fire dancers (both ladies, darn it).  The contestants are in cages, Andy dressed like a Viking and Deegs dressed like a satyr. Whoa, nice muscles, but shoving your hand into your loincloth is a little distracting. Don't worry, Skyler is 21 years old.

Scene 3: First contest: bag race. Deegs loses his bull horns but keeps the loincloth.

Scene 4:  Next: get dizzy and race with an egg in a spoon.  

Scene 5:  The guys run across the quad for the next contest.  Skyler bouncing around in that satyr outfit is still distracting.  Ok, here it is: make up a song about dinosaurs.  Andy gets weepy about their extinction, while Deegs sings "The Dinosaur Stomp."  

Scene 6: Next: hot pepper eating. Whoops, they're tied.

Scene 7: Next: Man on Fire.  The guys are set on fire, and must walk as far as they can before being overcome.  Hopefully they're wearing fireproof outfits? And using stunt doubles?   They both walk about five feet, and collapse at the same time. But Deegs is an inch ahead, so he wins!  He hugs his bud Seth (Joey Bragg), tells Andy to "suck it," and rushes to collect his prizes. 

As the loser, Andy has to endure the walk of shame, being called names and hit and kicked by the campers.  He complains: "This is total bull jizz!  I should have won!" 

There are six other intertwining plotlines:

1. Yaron and his wife want Victor (Ken Marino) to "shove a baby into her with my penis."   His problem is: he's never had sex, because "my dick has two left thumbs."  His bunkmate, Neil, offers to show him how to use it.  First, to increase his confidence, Neil gives him a makeover ("What do you think I've been taking those night classes at Barbizon for?").  

Then he plops a mattress down and tells Victor to pretend it's a woman. "Slower...don't look like you're going to throw up...smile at her."  He helps, lying on top and thrusting, until Victor has an orgasm.  Ok, you guys just had a dry hump.

This is Ken Marino's bulge from the original movie.  Most likely a prosthetic.

2. Suzie's boyfriend Garth (Jai Courtney, left) got an acting gig, and is leaving the camp -- and her -- for eight months in Budapest. 

3. A girl tells Coop (Michael Showalter) that she doesn't want him hanging out with Katie anymore, He immediately runs into Katie, who wants to have sex with him.

4. McKinley (Michael Ian Black) discovers that his nanny, Renata, has cut all of his faces out of the couple photos, and plans to "Kill the Baby" at 2:00 pm.  He rushes to tell his husband Ben (Adam Scott, left).  

At that moment, she emerges with a cake.  She was planning a surprise anniversary party for them!  She needed the photos for an anniversary montage, and "Kill the Baby" is the band she hired! Hubbie calls him a "paranoid asshole" and rushes off.  But she confesses that he was right: "I wanted to make you insane, so no one will believe you as I destroy your family."  

5. Mark (Mark Feuerstein) keeps a journal of the women he's screwed, upsetting his girlfriend.

6. A journalist shows up at Mikey's door to discuss "him." His wife insists that he (Dax Shepard) not talk to anyone, or "he will kill us." Snooping in the bathroom, the journalist finds a photo of the camp from 1921, with "Ronnie Reagan" among the campers.  This is 1991, just after the Reagan administration, but why would Reagan not want people to know he attended the camp?

Beefcake: Only Skyler, but he is extensively on display.

Heterosexism: Four of the seven plotlines involve heterosexual romance.

Gay Characters: McKinley and Ben.

Gay Subtexts: Victor and Neil (penis functioning plot).  Deegs and Seth (camp leader plot).  Neither expresses any interest in women.  CIA-trained gay subtext couple Eric and Jason (Chris Pine, Jason Schwartzman) appear in later episodes.

My Grade: The contests were very impressive, and some of the plotlines were interesting, even without the back story. A-

Update: Deegs appears in three episodes, and never interacts with a girl.  He is always with his best bud or in a group of guys.  Plus he insults Andy constantly, usually by claiming that he has a nicer dick, but no one ever uses a homophobic slur.  I'm upgrading Deegs from "maybe" to "definitely" gay subtext.

See also: Skyler Gisondo's Penis, Probably

Jason Schwartzman: Lots of quirky guys winning the Girl of their Dreams, with two gay/bi roles and one penis

Skyler Gisondo's penis, probably

 

First, check the bulge in this candid shot of Skyler Gisondo.  Notice that he's packing, and he dresses right (puts it in the right side of his pants)

Next: playing softball in Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later (2017), Deegs (Skyler Gisondo) pretends that a baseball bat is his penis (he also pretends to masturbate it and suck it).

Look carefully at the bulge he's displaying here. It's on the right.

Now tell me what this is:

From his twitter feed in July 2017: a gif of Deegs dancing when he reaches first base.  Surely that can't be his dick.

It's on the left side, and we know he dresses right. But there's no bulge on the right, and it doesn't look at all like a fabric crease. As we said in California, "You can see the friggin' teeth marks."  

Deegs is supposed to be calling attention to his penis -- he refers to it several times during the scene -- so maybe it's intentional, a club bulge.

See also: Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later

"Fit hot guys have problems, too."

See also: Keefe's Capacious Cock

Keefe's Capacious Cock, Part 2: The Mushroom Head

Zac Efron: Nude Photos of Adam Devine's Bromantic Partner

Zac Efron is best known for High School Musical and his bromance with Adam Devine.  It's  platonic-ish, gay around the edges: Adam often discusses his erotic attraction to Zac, and brags about seeing his penis -- several times.  (Of course, almost everyone who sees Zac wants to sleep with him.) 

The bromance probably began, or at least became part of their public personas,  when the Workaholics guys did a cameo for Neighbors (2014), playing stoner frat guys from an earlier generation.  Zac and Seth Rogan, the stars of Neighbors, returned the favor: in a promo video for the Season 4 finale, they apply to become the guys' new cubicle mates. Zac gives Adam a lap dance and gets the job.

In Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016), Adam and Zac play gay-subtext brothers who for some reason can't get girlfriends. Can't two of the hottest men on the planet just walk up to anyone they like and ask?   They eventually find some girls who will accept their quirks, but still, their non-fraternal love for each other shines through.  And off camera, after two years of trying, Adam finally got a chance to see Zac's penis.

And the rest of him.

Adam always distracts us from his jaw-dropping gorgeousity by making funny faces.  All Zac has to do is keep his shirt on.

Easier said than done.

Nude photos of Zac after the break.

Gemstones Episode 2.5 Queer Code: the muscle magazine taped to Kelvin's bedroom wall

 

In Episode 2.5, the flashback to 1993, four-year old Kelvin has a cover of Muscle & Fitness on the wall of his room.  

You can only see it for a second before Judy turns off the light. Notice that it's positioned very low, at Kelvin's height, so he can see it better. 

I worked at Muscle & Fitness in the 1990s.  Joe Weider was extremely homophobic, worried about gay men reading our magazine, so every cover featured a man and a woman together, or a celebrity like Arnold.  The Righteous Gemstones prop department found one with just a man, or made one up: the cover on the wall does not appear in the 1990-1996 gallery.

This show rewards attention to small details of staging and set design.  Kelvin's interest in muscles here is a subtle queer code that presages his interest in the God Squad.

"How do I know if I'm g...."?: A Young Gideon Story

“Hey, Bro,” Pontius called, rushing up to Gideon’s locker at the Riverpointe Christian Academy in Charleston. 

“Hey, yourself.”  Gideon was a bit suspicious: his younger brother rarely talked to him at school.  Sometimes he didn’t even accept a ride home, preferring to call one of the Gemstone drivers to avoid being seen with a “glee club nerd.”  An odd insult, since Gideon didn’t belong to Glee Club.

“Are you staying after for gymnastics?”

“No, that’s on Tuesday and Thursday. Why, what do you need?”

“Well, a ride home.”

“Why – the drivers are both busy, and your pogo stick’s in the shop?”

Pontius smiled, either not noticing the dig at his age, or too invested in whatever he wanted to care.  “And  can we stop for pizza on the way?”

This was really suspicious -- Pontius never invited him to go anywhere.  Maybe the age difference was too great for them to really be friends – Gideon was in eleventh grade, with a girlfriend and college plans, while Pontius in eighth grade still played with toys.  Maybe they didn’t have much in common – Gideon was into gymnastics and acrobatics (he loved tumbling with Uncle Kelvin at the Gemstone Teen Center), while Pontius was into…well, hanging out with his buds and telling dirty jokes.  Or maybe they just didn’t like each other.  He must want a big favor, Gideon thought.

 They climbed into the Lexus that Granddad Eli gave him for his sixteenth birthday and drove down to Famulari’s, the go-to pizza place for all of the Gemstones, probably because the delivery guys didn’t mind driving ten miles out to the Compound.  The moment they sat down, Pontius said, "Ok, here’s the thing. I want to have a sleepover Friday night, and you have to come."

"No way, José! 16-year olds do not go to slumber parties.”

“You used to like them.”

“Sure, and I used to like Battlebots, too. I grew up.”

From his 10th birthday until last year, when he graduated to the high school building at the Academy, Gideon and Pontius hosted sleepovers at least once a month. They each invited two or three boys, plus their younger brother Abraham by default. They spent the night playing video games, watching tv, eating snacks, and bragging about how late they were staying up.  Then they bedded down in the Kid Guest Room, Pontius and Abraham on the top bunk, Gideon and another boy “on the bottom,” and the rest in sleeping bags.   Gideon always took awhile to choose his bed partner: not necessarily his best friend.  Maybe even one of Pontius’s friends, if he was cute. 

How did I know which boys were cute?  Gideon thought, surprised by the memory.  Why did I care?

"We haven't had one for a long time!" Pontus protested.  "And Mom says I can't have one by myself – you have to be there, too."

The waiter came – a rather chunky, sandy-haired guy from Gideon’s Biblical History class – and they ordered their usual bacon-cheeseburger pizza (sometimes Mom and Dad called for something “healthy,” and they had to scour the menu for healthy toppings.  What kind of pizza topping was healthy?).

“What will my friends say if they find out I went to a sleepover with a bunch of eighth grade dorks?  What will my girlfriend say?”  He and Katie had only been dating for three weeks, but Gideon mentioned her every chance he got. “Katie likes lima beans. Katie’s aunt lives in Belgium.  Katie’s favorite Harry Potter character is…”  

"They won't all be dorks," Pontius said.  "How about if you can invite some of your friends. Whoever you want.”

"As if!  My friends are way too cool for sleepovers!”

"Well, maybe not one of your friends, just guys that you like.  You know, want to spend time with, like the guys that Uncle Kelvin hangs out with”

Gideon felt the anger rising.  “I do not want to spend time with guys like that, Jackass!  Uncle Kelvin is gay, and I have a girlfriend!”

Pontius laughed.  “You dummy, no way is Uncle Kelvin a homo!”

“How do you know?”

“Number One, he’s got muscles.  Number Two: he works with kids…”

“You’re an idiot. Gay guys have muscles sometimes, and they can work with kids like anybody else.”

Pontius sneered. “Number Three, he never brings a little fruity friend to the family dinner….”

“Maybe he’s afraid to bring a boyfriend around. Granddad Eli might kick him out of the church.”

“Number Four: He doesn’t live in California,”  Pontius said with a flourish, as if that was a definitive argument.  “Why do you want Uncle Kelvin to be gay so much?  Are you in love with him?  Do you want to, like, hug and kiss?” 

“Dude, that’s my uncle!” Gideon said, disgusted.

“Ok, so if he wasn’t your uncle, you’d be all into him.”  He made pucker sounds. “Oh, Thweetie, your muscles are so big! Kiss me again!”

“You’d better stop talking trash about me if you want me to come to your darn sleepover.” 

“Ok, ok, sorry…Thweetie.”  He giggled. “Now pick two guys that you want to invite. Somebody you want to spend time with.”

More after the break

Adam Devine's Ginormous Glutes

 

Some guys like looking at guys' backsides.  I prefer the front: face, pecs, biceps, abs....

And other things.  But I'm all about accommodating, so if you want to see Adam Devine's butt, you can see Adam Devine's butt.

 On Righteous Gemstones, Kelvin presents his butt quite often, but Keefe's hands always get in the way.

More after the break