Am I just a homo, or did anyone else get a homoerotic vibe from this show? Think about it; cute teenage boys, frequently shirtless in locker rooms, and other times, not to mention the ongoing scene of a dirty boy in tattered shirt chained up in a dungeon. Come on! Anyone else notice this, or am I a freak? ;-)
<<No, you're not a freak, you're something worse - how old were those kids, 12, 13? >>
Actually, at least one of them way way older than that. Christine was something like 18 WHEN THE SHOW STARTED in 1979! That means she was in her 20's during most of the time she was on the show. I'm sure that Jono Gebert (the original kid in the dungeon and in front of the firing squad) was also in his late teens as well.
Other than Vanessa or Dougie, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that at least some of the other kids were a lot older than we thought.
Wrong! Christine was 15 when the show started and left when she was almost 20. She was the oldest cast member and the rest were much younger. So you are having some weird thoughts on pre-teens and teen boys.
Christine was born in 1963. She was 15 when the short started and NO, none of the kids were a lot older than YOU thought. All of their birth dates are here on IMDB.
With the intended audience of this show, it wasn't homoeroticism they were doing, it was all-purpose appreciation of cute boys. Most of that was aimed at girls (though collateral appeal to anyone else was welcome too).
This just goes to show, society has changed alot since then. because of all the pedos running around free, people's thoughts of kids doing shows back in more innocent times has changed alot. No longer is it cool to show kids that bare, thus the thought of gay this or that, oh they must be freaks etc.
There was nothing wrong with it whatsoever when it aired, otherwise it wouldn't have aired to begin with!
People have changed as has television itself! No era will ever be the same from whatever it use to be, times change and things either improve alot or get much worse. Simply cos the kids walked around freely with less clothes on doesn't make'em gay or freak-ish, for all you know the studio probably was like a furnace at times with alot of heat!
You haven't taken into account the now adult child actors from the series that have grown up and are now doing adult jobs in the industry in Canada! Gay Overtones? i think not.
ST4
"He is one, we are three, it is the strength of three that will defeat him...together. General Zod"
Am I just a homo, or did anyone else get a homoerotic vibe from this show? Think about it; cute teenage boys, frequently shirtless in locker rooms, and other times, not to mention the ongoing scene of a dirty boy in tattered shirt chained up in a dungeon. Come on! Anyone else notice this, or am I a freak? ;-)
Why can't it JUST be erotic? Girls are turned on by that stuff, too, you know. Besides, I believe there were girls in the dungeon too.
I spent my entire childhood growing up. What a waste.
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You ask, "Am I just a homo", then try to place the PC card. That's like fire and ice. Don't know if you stand for being politically incorrect, or politically correct, cause it sounds like you stand for both, which would warrent the question, "Why even ask about the shirtless boy thing?". I mean, people were more politically incorrect back then, but we were also more decent. Strange that, in this day and age, people are more PC, yet are more indecent. I DO think we've gotten worse, as a society. Like I say, for constantly saying we've come so far, it's more like we are compensating for the removal of decency and politically incorrectness.
I don't think they were intended to be "gay overtones". It's like Doctor Smith and Will Robinson hanging around together on Lost In Space, or the whole Batman and Robin thing, or Marcie and Peppermint Patty in the Peanuts comics/cartoons. That is to say, the creators didn't concieve the material in question to represent any kind of gay relationship, it's only in retrospect that someone looks back and says "Wait a minute...". Tim Burton said that was the very reason why he didn't use Robin in the Batman movies he directed, because he knew that issue was gonna come up, if not on screen, than certainly in the audience.
As for You Can't Do That On Television, the sometimes shirtless boys were meant to appeal to girls in the audience. But, the thing is, there's gay teenagers, too, and they probably thought Kevin or Brody or whoever appearing on screen without a shirt on just as enjoyable. And remember, it's perfectly ordinary for 13 or 14 year old to be attracted to 13 or 14 year olds. It's only in adulthood that it seems vaguely creepy.
I grew up on this show and never picked up on any of that. The examples you mention were intentionally done to either set up a joke (prime example - the skit where Alisdair is naked in the library while studying body parts) or to fit with the scene (the boys were actually fairly well covered-up in the dungeon scenes).
So no, no gay overtones that I can detect. Although one could make a definite argument for WAM fetishism underlying the slime/water gimmicks.
If I ever go down, I hope I don't get the Potato Judge.