Tag Archives: gay

Prom Time, Again

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Logan Westrope (left) and Michael Martin post-prom. Photo by Jodi Brotman Westrope| Image: Outsports.com

In my 2014 Top 10 Posts list, I noted that the 10th most-viewed post on this blog last year was actually a piece from 2013 about a gay couple heading to their high school prom in Carmel, New York.

This story, published first (I believe; apologies if my research is entirely inaccurate!) on Outsports, is a piece about a gay couple going to the prom in West Virginia. Somehow, it’s that West Virginia angle that grabs you. That takes some cojones. Or maybe not, anymore. Even in West Virginia. All I know is that it sure as hell wouldn’t have happened in my southern hometown back in the dark ages when I had my high school prom which, for the record, I did not attend.

One of the young men will attend Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa. in the fall. Having intimate knowledge of that institution, I’ll keep a weather eye out.

Shamelessly Suggesting Visiting Valhalla

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Watched a delightful little flick this week. See You In Valhalla is the latest from brothers Jarret and Brent Tarnol. Brent writes. Jarret directs. They both produce. Their star and fellow producer is Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland.

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Sarah Hyland and Steve Howey in See You in Valhalla. |Image: Arc Entertainment

This is a nice turn for Hyland. Johana is a meatier, more fully realized part than the airheaded — but adorable — Hayley Dunphy on Modern Family. Also, for her freshman turn as a producer, Hyland made some smart choices. Her co-stars have some chops, too, especially Bret Harrison, who plays one of her brothers.

Johana’s family is reunited when one of her brothers commits suicide. It’s a comedy. About a funeral.

And this would be a run-of-the-mill slightly macabre comedy if it wasn’t for Steve Howey. Now, I am a straight-up, unabashed fan of Showtime’s Shameless and Howey has been a rockstar as bartender Kev Ball for all five seasons, but I’m telling you, nothing has prepared you for him in this film.

Howey has mastered the art of playing very broad and very specific at the same time. He is completely over-the-top, but at the same time, he’s not showy. Consequently, he steals absolutely every scene he’s in as Johana’s brother’s Hawaiian (or maybe Hawaiian-adjacent?) boyfriend Makewi. Pretty as you please, he effortlessly walks away with this movie and leaves you utterly convulsed. He is brilliantly funny and completely worth the price of admission.

As my viewing companion noted when the credits rolled, “He needs to be in every movie ever made from now on.” I agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IBojzATKBI

P.S. to Fellow Shameless Junkies. Magnus, the brother that dies in this movie, is only seen in flashbacks. Alert viewers will recognize him as Jake McDorman, who, as Mike Pratt, the scion of Worldwide Cup in Seasons 3 and 4, tantalized Fiona with the prospect of a “non-Gallagher” life only to be in inadvertent catalyst for her downfall.

Congrats, Freddie Smith, DOOL on Emmy Wins, Inclusion

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Freddie Smith (l) as Sonny Kiriakis, opposite Guy Wilson as Will Horton, picked up a 2015 Daytime Emmy Award for his portrayal of “one of the good guys” on NBC’s venerable drama, Days of our Lives.

Kudos to Freddie Smith, who won a richly deserved Daytime Emmy Award yesterday for his role as Sonny Kiriakis on NBC’s Days of our Lives. Smith, whom I have long-called the best actor on soaps, was overshadowed in awards seasons past by three wins in a row by then-scene partner Chandler Massey. Smith has had many more Emmy-worthy scenes than this year’s reel showed. I’m glad his quiet, subtle, earnest acting did get the respect it deserves.

Smith has already wrapped filming, and the show will suffer for it, but continuing dramas are just that — continuing. Like sands through the hourglass, baby; you just keep keeping on!

One thing, though, Smith embraced Sonny from the jump and he made this young gay man more than just a poster child. DAYS integrated him into the canvas, involved him with tentpole characters — some of my favorite of his scenes were two-handers with the great John Aniston — and made him a three-dimensional person, a good guy, and someone to root for. The fact that the character was gay was completely immaterial. Sonny and Will had daytime’s first same-sex wedding and DAYS pulled out all the stops and wrapped up the best-long arc plotting I’ve ever seen on soaps. The show, deservingly, tied for Outstanding Drama last night as well.

I have sentimental favorites in the pantheon of American daytime dramas, but the continued inclusion of LGBT characters into the narrative in challenging, meaningful ways will always mean that DAYS comes first in my book. Also, Peggy McKay; I mean, come on!

Freddie dedicated his Emmy to the LGBT community. He’s a class act, that one.

DAYS/Freddie/WilSon-Related Recent-ish Posts Include:

I Do: The WilSon Wedding, Playing the Long Game, and Celebrating the Zeitgeist
‘Sonny’ Skies or Clouds on the Horizon? The New Normal Comes to Salem
More Sands Through the Gay Hourglass — Revisiting and Revising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Loa8SDj9Ok
H/T Ron, aka 477mrfixit, for the cut

Most Gay Porn Watched in the South?

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Actually, that makes perfect sense to me and, as this clip from the Rubin Report explains, we should not be surprised that the regions that have the most oppressive anti-LGBT laws are were we would see this bubbling under the surface.

The Rubin Report is something that I would encourage you to look into. Like the Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, Dave Rubin has fashioned a unique program that combines humor with discussions about real issues. And instead of pundit blathering, he uses comedians. Usually, and this is not a stretch to those that have been around this world, the comedians are some of the best interpreters of human emotions and often offer important dissections of events of the day.

Also, they’re funny. So, there’s that.

Watch.

‘S Wonderful Max von Essen

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Kevin Fallon conducted a great interview with Max von Essen for The Daily Beast and I think you should read it.

Von Essen stars in the new Broadway show, An American in Paris, by all accounts a lush new show with a Gershwin score full of standards to die for. (Perhaps obviously, it’s based on the 1951 Gene Kelly/Leslie Caron picture, only with a new book by Craig Lucas.) Von Essen’s not new to the table — I still regret not being able to see him in Evita — but he’s one of those solid performers that you can always depend on. You may not instantly remember his name, but hardcore theatre-goers certainly do. Maybe that will change now.

Anyhow, from Fallon’s interview:

Interestingly enough, one of the first facts listed about von Essen on his Wikipedia page is that he is openly gay, something that he laughs about, but clearly doesn’t mind.

“If I don’t get a TV show next year because someone looks up my Wikipedia and it says ‘openly gay,’ then it’s worth the risk because I’ve had so many years being openly gay and proud of myself as a role model.”

“Especially for me on Broadway, of all places, I know people who are gay but living a bit of a lie in my own community,” he says. “And I’m thinking, ‘You’re on Broadway! You do musical theater! Of all places to hide yourself? Are you kidding? Enjoy. Be yourself.’”

Bravo, sir, bravo.

You can see von Essen in the hilarious web series Submissions Only. He has delightful comic timing — and he’s easy on the eyes. What’s not to love?

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Max von Essen, far left, played Cameron Dante, the boyfriend of Steven Bienskie’s Stephen Ferrell (third from left, in tie) in the delightful comedy about the other side of theatre, Submissions Only. Also pictured are Anne L. Nathan, creators Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Kate Wetherhead, Colin Hanlon, Wade McCollum and Lindsay Nicole Chambers.|Image: Curtis Brown/Broadway World

 

Poll: Indiana Voters Dislike Businesses Refusing To Serve LGBT Customers

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Poll: Indiana Voters Dislike Businesses Refusing To Serve LGBT Customers, Frown On Governor – BuzzFeed News.

Yeah, okay, I know enough Hoosiers to know the headline is true, but — and this is a big one — do they dislike Gov. Mike Pence enough to vote him out of office? Ay, there’s the rub.

JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s vice president of policy and public affairs, said in a statement: “Elected officials, and governors specifically, who experiment with these anti-LGBT bills that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people do so at their own peril.”

5794984932_535b1a72e8That’s a nice sentiment, Ms. Winterhof, but I’m not sure that boat holds water. HRC commissioned this study, so I’m at once dubious. (Sorry, just am; too many years in a newsroom not to be leary.) Secondly, it’s easy to take a poll in a non-election year and say you “do so at your own peril” when you are not a citizen of the state in question.

And neither am I. Anymore.

In the seven years I spent as a Hoosier, I spent six of them with the odious Pence as my Congressman. And I know this about Indiana politics: Hoosier voters are damn lazy. I saw it over and over and over again on the state and local level. They will vote in an incumbent every time — I even recall a local Indiana election where they voted in a councilman who was dying in a nursing home — and the default position in the voting booth is one of ardent conservatism because it seems less like rocking the boat than making a change does. It’s similar to the “Shy Tory” syndrome that we saw in Scotland after their recent election on leaving the United Kingdom.

I know a lot of decent, hard-working, socially-progressive, intelligent Hoosiers, but until they agitate their neighbors into making the change that is needed in their state — at the ballot box — you can scream “at your own peril” until the cows come home, but nothing in Indiana is going to change.

God, I hope I’m wrong.

(But, as a friend of mine so eloquently says, “Remember, I am Cassandra!”)

Buena Suerte, Chad Allen

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Out actor Chad Allen has decided to leave “the business” behind. Allen has been acting professionally for about 35 of his 40 years and now he wants to try something new.

He’s been working as a clinical psychologist of late and is pursuing his doctorate. This really shouldn’t come as any surprise: Allen has long been a passionate advocate for equality, for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention and helping LGBT kids. By all accounts, he’s a modest sort and all in all a good egg.

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Chad Allen as hard-boiled gay detective Donald Strachey opposite Sebastian Spence as his partner, Timothy Cunningham.

I have to say, I think my favorite of his many roles was his portrayal of gay private detective Donald Strachey in four made-for-TV movies that aired originally on the Here network. Based on a series of books written by Richard Stevenson, Strachey is something of a pioneer: one of the first — if not the first — out, gay lead character in detective fiction. They are quite good books and Stevenson’s pairing of Strachey with former seminarian Timmy Cunningham is the gold standard by which all other gay couples in genre fiction are judged against.

As Strachey, Allen’s easy-going demeanor was in evidence. He played the character with nonchalance and intelligence and, with Timmy, genuine love and affection mixed with that shot of exasperation that comes when you have been with someone for a very long time. H/T to director Ron Oliver, who helmed this quartet of films, as well.

One grace note, on five episodes of the daytime drama spin-off, General Hospital: Night Shift, Allen played a gay man dying of some mystery illness (I forget what) who falls for his doctor, played by Adam Grimes, who sends him away to find a new liver or some such, so that they could live happily ever after. Or something like that.

Anyhow, most of Allen’s lines were delivered from his hospital bed, but it was a heartfelt performance and, frankly, that was in 2008, and I still remember it.

Good luck and godspeed, Chad Allen. Thanks for sharing your gifts with us.

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P.S. — Do you remember the great series St. Elsewhere? Remember how at the end of its run, Tommy Westphall, the autistic son of the hospital’s director of medicine, was playing with a St. Eligius Hospital snow globe? And it seemed as though the entire series may have all been in his head? That was Chad Allen.

Thanks, Petteri Paavola

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Petteri Paavola, in case you are not in the know, is a young man who has played the role of Elias Vikstedt in the Finnish soap opera Salatut Elämät for the last four years.

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Ronny Roslof (left) and Petteri Paavola portrayed lovers Lari and Elias — known by fans worldwide by the portmanteau Larias — on the Finnish sudser. Roslof remains on the show, his once-closeted character is now in an out relationship with an older man.

He announced recently that he was leaving the show and the character was written out, having headed to Belgium to live with his mother. It’s not known at this time if he will return.

The relationship between Elias and Lari captivated audiences around the globe, thanks to YouTube and the good offices of MissFinlandia88, the handle of the dedicated YouTuber who subtitled these clips in English — and even got the show’s blessing to do it.

What do I care? Well, a post I wrote about Salatut Elämät in January 2013 has been the most-read piece on this site for two years running. Go figure. Who knew gay Finnish soap opera characters would bring so much of the world to me?

If you don’t come back — or even if you do, — thanks, Petteri. I’ve enjoyed meeting so many of your fans!

The Infamous Most-Read Post

So Long, Larias – The Last Post

Love Songs (In The Key of Gallagher): Wrenching Coda to Another Perfect, Discordant, Improbable Season of TV’s Best Show

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Let’s just put it out there: who’s happy with the button that was placed on the epic #Gallavich love story at the end of season five of Showtime’s Shameless, in the episode perfectly named “Love Songs (in the Key of Gallagher).” Can I see a show of hands? Huh, none. Okay.

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Cameron Monaghan and Noel Fisher in Season 5 Episode 10, “Southside Rules,” of Shameless |Photo: Chuck Hodes/SHOWTIME

Well, let’s not keep bantering back and forth with what if’s. Lay that one at the feet of Noel Fisher. According to show exec John Wells in the Hollywood Reporter:

[I]t’s really a decision for Noel to make. He was going to do a movie and wasn’t prepared to sign on for another year, so I have to check back in with him in a few months and see. He has a very thriving film career, and we really just hired him for a few episodes when we started, but we keep expanding it, and he always comes back when he’s available. So, some of where the characters end up will be dictated by availability, but it [also] may be an interesting time for Ian to discover how important Mickey was in his life. It’s that thing that often happens when you’re younger: you have a relationship that’s really difficult and passionate and messy, and then you go away from it and you discover the rest of the world, and sometimes you come back to that first person anyway.

Look, let’s be practical. I love Noel Fisher. LOVE HIM. He has a talent that takes my breath away. He is so good as Mickey Milkovich — his electric chemistry with Cameron Monaghan notwithstanding — that he leaps off the screen. But, he’s a young man with a big future. He’s a Ninja Turtle (and I don’t mean that figuratively); he’s filming the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie soon and it looks like it will conflict with Shameless.

And you can moan and cry and gnash your teeth all you want, but if YOU had the chance to make a Hollywood blockbuster, you’d do it too. If Noel can come back and Mickey can be put back into the narrative in a meaningful way, I’ll be at the front of the cheering section, but if he can’t, well, there’s never, ever — EVER — been any sentimentality in Shameless. It’s what we love about it. And it never set out to make you happy.

Here’s the thing: thank Noel and Cam for creating a couple that transcended sexuality, that transcended norms, that showed the world that sometimes what makes you fall in love is finding the person you need to find to find yourself, to find your place in the world, to find out how to understand the world just a little bit. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn’t, but almost always, it is utterly and completely unforgettable.

“I like the way he smells.”
—Season 4, Episode 11

#Gallavich

RECENT OTHER #GALLAVICH POSTS: Team Gallavich          Shamelessly Looking for Something Else

Indiana Loons

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sticker,375x360Lots of flap about Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law that was signed into law this week by Gov. Mike Pence. And for many years, television has set the quirkiest and oddest sitcoms in the Hoosier state. Leslie Knope and her band from Parks and Recreation, the Hecks from The Middle, “Indiana Mole Woman” Kimmy Schmidt … it seemed as though every looney tune came from Indiana.

When I lived there, I took great umbrage at that.

Now? Turns out TV was right!