(Another video below that doesn’t show up in a reader, if you’re interested. And if you’re not, the short version: Jessica rides a bike and squeals with joy.)
Uh-oh! Now I can go ANYWHERE (where there is a bike path and not too many scary cars)! I can come to YOUR TOWN (as long as it’s within 5 miles or so)!
Ian is a gigantor! He dwarfs my puny leetle girlie bike!
Ian crush tiny bike!
Yay awesome bike!
It’s been a scorcher in New York this week, with temperatures peaking at a nasty 96 this afternoon. While Jessica and I were able to retire to the AC blitzkrieg that is a movie viewing at the local cineplex (Dark Knight: really great), our poor cats were left at home to bake in their onyx fur. Digby spent the day spread eagle on her back in the hallway. Apparently this exposes the maximal amount of belly-chub to the air, allowing her to radiate heat more efficiently. Erwin, on the other hand, pursues his cooling more, um, doggedly. (Ed: there’s a video that seems to not show up in readers… click through to see!)
Nothing much going on here.
The Super Special Surprise Prize from the last contest is officially on its way! Yay!
We are all very happy!
Hola, bitches. Ian here. Isley recently outed me to the world for using Velveeta in making chile con queso. Now, I’m the first one to admit that this is kind of skeevy. Plain Velveeta just doesn’t taste like cheese. I think it’s fair to say that Velveeta:cheese::Crisco:butter. You can use the former in place of the latter with certain benefits, but you don’t want to eat that shit on a sandwich.
<jessica> Well, ACTUALLY - speaking of tater tot casserole and mayonnaise sandwiches and things…I’m not gonna say it was the BEST grilled cheese I ever had, but I had an interestingly Velveeta-ed grilled cheese at this bar called Swig one night. It was, like, a club, first of all, which - how did the toast the middle slice of bread??? It is a mystery. And second of all, it was made with these thick-ass slices of actual block-Velveeta (not even the shrink-wrapped sandwich slices!), and I did not hate it. So there. Though also I was eating it at a bar, which might have contributed to my complacency. Christ, it’s kind of depressing sometimes when I’m blogging and I accidentally type out yet another warning sign of alcoholism. </jessica>
<jessica> How worried were you guys that my “well, actually -” was in reference to my love of Crisco sandwiches? </jessica>
So, anyway, last night I made Spanish rice, and as per usual there were tons of leftovers. When it came time to warm them up for dinner tonight, I decided to drop some science and make some non-processed-chile-con-queso. I scoured the tubes for a recipe for queso that didn’t call for Velveeta. This is surprisingly difficult, as you can check yourself. I eventually settled on this, which seemed promising enough. I’m not a huge fan of Emeril as a guy, but his recipes have yet to let me down (bam!).
<jessica> Pow! </jessica>
But, wait! No dinner of warmed up rice leftovers and queso is complete without homemade tortillas. So, I, uh… made some.
*yawn* The pictures didn’t turn out that great, so I’ll cut to the chase.
Et voila:
<jessica> Actually, someone probably should make him post his tortilla recipe at some point. It’s the fastest, easiest, best thing he makes. </jessica>
Okay, so back to the queso. The problem with using real cheese (in this case cheddar and pepper jack) is its meltiness. Since real cheese contains curds and no oil (as opposed to Velveeta, which I’m pretty sure can be used to power your car’s internal combustion engine), it melts into a lumpy, curdy substance. Everything I’ve heard (via AB and other sources) says the lumpy melting can be mitigated by building a roux first, and then melting the cheese into this. I have used this technique fairly successfully to make cheese sauces before, so I assumed that I would work fairly well for the queso. It essentially didn’t.
The flavor was really great. The DIY pepper/onion/tomato mix was wonderful, perhaps even better than Rotel. The problem was that it was lumpy, pronounced with the umpy. The texture really overrode the flavor and ruined the queso for me. No me gustan los terrones.
<jessica> That’s Italian for, “I won’t feed your dog.” </jessica>
Though it was crappy on a chip, it tasted dandy on the tortillas with the rice.
<jessica> Eh…here’s me officially disagreeing that it was crappy on chips. Fine, it was lumpy, which was a little weird. But it wasn’t, like, weird and oily and separate-y the way you expect melted cheddar to be. And it tasted fucking great. If I were you, I wouldn’t have actually clicked through to read the recipe, so, for those of you who didn’t - he actually roasted a serrano chile and a jalapeno on the gas oven burners and blackened the outside skins before he chopped them up and put them in the cheese. (I’m just a crappy photographer, is the only reason there’s no neat pyrotechnic documentation.) It tasted pretty fucking great. I was willing to put up with the lumps. </jessica>
After the fact, I looked up tips for reducing lumpiness in cheese sauces. I found two suggestions: use high quality cheeses, and add the cheese off the heat at the very last minute. I did neither of these things. The former was because I was too lazy to walk to the nice grocery store ten blocks away, the latter because I didn’t know any better. Maybe next time? Probably not. Velveeta works really, really well for melting, and the pepper mix covers up the processed-skeeve flavor.
A couple more things before I sign off. First, Jessica discovered an excellent use for Nutella and leftover tortillas. Also, she has a cute haircut, but I wouldn’t put my finger anywhere near her mouth while she’s eating Nutella!
<jessica> Which is the more embarrassing photo of me: the one where I have butter smeared accross my cheek and am fending the cat off my soup? Or the one where I’m laying into a knife-ful of Nutella like a yeti on Christmas morning? And where does the one where I’m cheesing out with a beet stuck in my front teeth fall in the spectrum? Is this another warning sign of alcoholism, or just an indicator of my enjoyment of Ian’s skill in the kitchen? </jessica>
Second, every time I make something in the oven I burn my goddamned hands. Because I’m a klutz? No. Because my “hotpad” can only handle temperature up to 114 degrees Fahrenheit? Yes. It sucks, and I need a new one. Luckily, my crafty lady-partner can fabricate a set of hotpads using only an old pair of jeans and some scrap fabric, lickety-split.
<jessica> She sounds awesome! </jessica>
(Ed. By popular demand, the tortilla recipe)
1.5 cups bread flour
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
.25 cup fat (shortening, butter, lard, or some combination thereof [I usually use shortening])
.75 cup hot water (as hot as your faucet will produce, but not boiled or anything)
Add the first four items to a bowl and squish together until the fat is integrated and mixture clumps on squeezing. Then add the water in thirds, thoroughly mixing in at each step. Knead the dough 7-10 minutes, then roll out into a tube and divide into 8-12 parts. Roll the parts into balls, place on a plate, and cover with a warm, damp cloth. Let the dough balls rest for 20-25 minutes, then roll out into flat rounds. The type of fat used seems to affect how thin you can get them rolled out. Then throw them onto a frying pan on high for 45 seconds or so on one side and then 15-30 on the other side. The first pancake rule holds: the first few don’t turn out that well. Usually you can tell when they’re ready to flip because bubbles have formed and expanded to a large but manageable size; squish the bubbles down on flipping.
Okay, I look like a weird Frankenstinian tranny here, but my hairdresser is so darn cute I couldn’t help but post this.
Anywho! Haircut!
I’m a dyke! I’m a hot French chick!
<ian> Or perhaps you’re just a recapitulation of your 18-year-old self! As evidenced by… </ian>
<ian> Oh, god… so hot… wanna go hang out at Dillons and then watch Roger Rabbit? </ian>
Ian’s in Rhode Island! You know what that means: party in New York! Wooooooooooo et cetera. But, in addition to wild parties, one of the very best things about Ian being gone is that I get to make myself dinner. Ian refuses to eat delicacies like mayonnaise sandwiches, tater tot casserole, and ramen noodles. So this-here food blog is your recipe for a delicious Ian-Free Dinner a la Awesome!
Ingredients:
1 avocado
2 slices of american-type cheese (Not cheap, but something that’s as far from good as you can get. Velveeta is perfect.)
2 slices bread
assloads butter
2 pkgs ramen noodles (the second one is just in case you NEED it, like, later)
many beers
1 kitteh
Step 1: IMMEDIATELY upon arriving home, remove pants. There will be no pants-wearing while Ian is away.
Step 2: Prepare ramen noodles. Fancy Gourmand Tip: if you eat them with chopsticks, it’s almost like real food!
Mmmm! Looks good!
(Er…the eagle-eyed and/or obsessive-compulsive among you may notice that I’m actually using a different pair of chopsticks in that second picture. That’s because my cute ones are too hard to use. Only the ugly ones really work. Ain’t that just the way, eh, ladies? Ladies? Am I right? Eh???)
Ramen is best enjoyed immediately after removing pants, as an appetizer, even before you turn on Spike TV reruns of CSI.
Step 3: Turn on Spike TV reruns of CSI!
Steps 4-8: More beer.
Step 9: Prepare your main course: grilled cheese. Cheese placement is terribly important here. You will need exactly two slices, and there exists such a way as to cause the two of them to exactly cover every molecule of bread and also hang over each edge just slightly. If it hangs over too much, it’ll melt onto your pan and burn, but if it doesn’t hang over at all, then you won’t have enough extra cheese on the edges to combat the extra breadyness of the crusts! And you can’t have that!!
Luckily, crappy pre-wrapped slices of Velveeta have this particular strange perforation which works as a very handy guideline to help you in your cheeze-puzzle-ing.
Check out the GBD on that there! That’s craftsmanship, yo. Craftsmanship, and giant, amazing piles of butter. Everybody knows that a sandwich tastes better when cut into triangles. (According to Dr. Lewis, “the flavour molecules are released more effectively” in a triangular sandwich!) So one can only assume that the flavour molecules increase exponentially the more a sandwich resembles a brontosaurus.
WARNING: Always eat the brontosaurus head first. They say they were herbivores, but, really - who are “they?” And - you trust them?
Step 10: Ah, you’d think it would be the avocado for dessert, but unfortunately it was actually two more beers, and now you’re too full. Avocado for breakfast! More beers for dessert!
Improvements? None! Best foodblog ever!
Vanessa Hudgens was totally on the cover of CosmoGirl! (spelled with an exclamation mark, which is very annoying) this month! So, you know. I had to. (Ian pointed it out to me while we were in line at the grocery store, and the checkout lady said, “Oh, he knew which one you wanted!” which I totally at the time took to mean, “Yeah! Vanessa Hudgens! She’s awesome!” But which Ian informs me now, actually probably meant more like, “Yes, girl, you’ve trained him well to pick out the Cosmo.”) But it was actually totally fascinating! I went into CG expecting loathing equal to or greater than that which I feel for Cosmo. But, and I swear to gosh this is true - CG ain’t really all that bad. At least, you know, comparatively. It’s no Sassy or anything, but…it’s just not all that bad. Let’s compare, shall we? July Cosmo v August CosmoGirl.
On Vanessa Hudgens:
CosmoGirl: “She … offers advice for how girls can know they’re ready to be physically closer to a guy: ‘You have to think it through, not just do something spur of the moment. So that after it happens, you won’t regret it. I think girls can be infatuated with their boyfriends, and they have to remember that they come first.’”
Cosmo: “What is it about guys that you’re a sucker for? ‘A good smile…and a hot body, of course!’ Is there anyone your boyfriend would give you a free pass to hook up with? ‘…David Beckham.’”
On exercise:
CG: “[The kids on a reality show about losing weight were] diagnosed as being obese, which can cause lots of medical problems. [The following] advice can help you get toned and have more energy.”
C: “Get a killer bikini butt.”
Letters from the readers:
CG: “Generation Y has been accused of acting entitled. Is that fair? ‘Our generation is just more motivated by the media and technology. Why wouldn’t we think we have a shot at becoming famous when posting a song on MySpace can land you a record deal?’ –Candace, 15. ‘No. I don’t think you can slap a stereotype on a generation – it depends on what values you were raised with. My family taught me to value hard work and try my best in order to be rewarded and succeed.’ –Hannah, 17”
C: “I slept with this guy who said during sex, ‘My last girlfriend would never do that!’” –Holly, 31
On cooter hair maintenance:
CG: “Q: ‘I shave my vagina, but I don’t know how much is too much to shave, or whow much is too little. What do most women do?’ A: ‘First, a tiny correction: Your vagina is the canal inside your body, so I think you mean you shave your bikini line and maybe your vulva. But you don’t have to shave any of it – that hair has a purpose.’”
C: “Don’t spend tons of money getting a $100 Brazilian wax at the recommended five-week intervals – instead, just get a $50 touch-up wax three weeks after your last one.”
On activism:
CG: “Cosmogirl challenges you to find your cause!” Jordan Sparks [who is, er, apparently a celebrity of some sort?] sez: “I used to think about volunteering, but it wasn’t until I participated in American Idol’s Idol Gives Back event that I decided to do something. … Recently, I found out a close family friend had stage-four melanoma, a type of skin cancer. So I put orange streaks in my hair.” [Uh…all right. But still! CG’s trying! At the end of the article the encourage you to visit malarianomore.org to donate $10 bed nets.]
C: “Saving Men: Guys have been under attack in America for years, claims Save the Males. The book’s premise is that the feminist movement veered from its aim of achieving equality and ended up demonizing masculine things. On TV, dads are often presented as being ridiculous or inferior and needy. Fifty-eight percent of college graduates are now women.”
[I was going to add something like, “Sic on not italicizing “Save the Males” or adding in an author,” and so I looked up who the author actually was. His name is Henry Makow. His website also discusses, in addition to “saving the males”: the Illuminati; the Jewish conspiracy; the evils of college; the attempt of the ruling elite to “depopulate” the world through birth control, feminism, and homosexuality; banking cartels; Communists; and the Satanic cult that rules the world [illustrated with a photo of Jenna Bush throwing the Texas “hook ‘em horns”]. This is literally, like, timecube level shit, here. [Hey. Remember timecube? Good times.] I think this may be the single most wonderful thing Cosmo has ever done.)
(EDIT: Damnit! Ahhhh…so this is slightly less awesome than previously thought. Still fucking crazy. Just in a less-fun way.)
Unintentional hilarity:
CG: Pete Wentz, who most likely impregnated Ashlee Simpson before they got married, sez: Don’t get stuck pushing a stroller!
C: “I killed a child with my car.” The myspace photo is really what does it for me on this one.
On Usher:
CG: Mentions of: Barak Obama: 1. His penis: 0. Having sex: 0. Music: 12.
C: Mentions of: Barak Obama: 0. His penis: 1. Having sex: 4. (“As a single man, you stay up all night and get called daddy. As a father, you still stay up all night and get called daddy.”) Music: 2. Condescending attempts at feminism which turn into disinterestedly disguised misogyny: 2. (“Women want to celebrate their independence. It’s hard for a woman to give in to a man.”)
Ethnicity of models:
CG: Cover girl: Mixed race. On her string of rejections from Hollywood auditions: “I was never Asian enough, Hispanic enough, white enough, anything enough.” Models used (including men, not ads, not celebrities): 53. Non-white models: 15 (15 = 5 Asian, 2 Hispanic, 8 Black). (Also one very patient and adorable whippet, modeling wigs and accessories.)
C: Cover girl: White. “The petite blond” Carrie Underwood is an “All-American girl.” Models used (including men, not ads, not celebrities): 80. Non-white models: 7 (7 = three black couples and 1 black homeless man, srsly).
On astrology:
CG: “A key area for you in school: anything that focuses on international relations. So sign up for a Japanese history class, read African writers, or learn Arabic.”
C: “A weekend fling with a bad boy keeps you smiling all week. … Expect a tryst on the 8th, so go for a bikini wax with your buds.”
Most awful thing ever:
C: Cosmo, in their consistently one-of-the-most-wretched-sections-of-every-issue section “Sexy vs. Skanky” declares that it is “sexy” to “get out of a car all dressed up” and illustrates this with Rhianna, you know, getting out of a car. They say that it is, conversely, “skanky” to “get all undressed in a car” and illustrate this one with a picture of Amy Winehouse changing her pants in a car. First of all, I think everybody’s changed their pants in their car before - most of us just aren’t hounded constantly by paparazzi. Her car door is closed; it’s not like she’s showing off on purpose. She obviously assumed she would have some privacy inside her car. But also? Amy is obviously very sick in this picture. She’s fucking drooling. This woman is not well. What Cosmo is doing here is making fun of a sick person who cannot control herself. They might as well be saying that it’s trashy for Stephen Hawking not to stand up when a lady enters the room, or that it’s totally unfashionable for Michael J. Fox to keep wiggling around all the time.
Best thing ever:
CG: The placement of this girl’s third tiara. Goddamnit, will someone PLEASE invite me to prom so that I can wear my hair like this???
But! The single most notable and awesome thing about CosmoGirl was the ads. The difference between the ads in these two magazines was really really really striking. Comso’s ads are all, “OMG YOU’RE SO FAT BUY MY FACEWASH BEFORE YOU END UP A DISEASED SPINSTER.” and CosmoGirl’s ads are all, like, “Hey! Let’s go play soccer!” Examples:
CG: Strong, muscular, sweaty, non-white women without makeup, exercising so that they will win a competition
C: well, actually, I couldn’t find an ad for exercise equipment in Cosmo. I did find this one about blowjobs and cellulite, though.
CG: She’s not a stick-thin traditional model size, she’s not dressed uber-sexually, and she’s the fucking frontman of a band that includes two boys!
C: Four women from an actual, um, “band,” not singing, not playing instruments, and not wearing pants. The word “sexy” is in this photo eight times, that I can count.
CG: Secret wants me to go all out at my soccer game!
C: Secret wants me to take my clothes off!
And, of course, with many grateful thanks for the generous support of Dr. Crawford of the Federal Drug Administration and Dr. Ock of P.E.T.I., I hereby further my research into The Mating Habits of the Domestic Ian, as Provoked and Altered by the Publication: Cosmopolitan. So I have here two experiments: one by Cosmo, and one by CosmoGirl.
Cosmo Sez: “Buy him a big, manly flashlight or batteries for his 17 remote controls - objects that embrace the guy he is.”
Jessica Duz: Well, okay, obviously the flashlight would have been far more hilarious. But, as it turns out, we actually did need new batteries for our remote control. So one morning, I went to Duane Reade and picked some up. Upon returning home:
Jessica: “I got you batteries for the remote control.”
Ian: “What? Why?”
J: “Because it’s out of batteries?”
I: “Why are you doing this?”
J: “Because the remote control needs batteries!”
I: “I don’t believe you.”
J: “You’re very manly.”
I: [replaces batteries in remote; goes back to playing Guitar Hero III]
Later on that afternoon, he totally implied that he believed I had bought the batteries for other, selfish, reasons. While incorrect, I was not displeased with this notion of his.
On the other hand! CosmoGirl gave me a really fucking hard time finding sex advice - or even relationship advice! It just sort of wasn’t there! The closest I could come was this advice on how to kiss: “Of course, pop a mint! … Go for it! If you feel like kissing his neck or ear, do it. Just listen to whatever your instincts are telling you, and be playful. Slow things down with small pecks on the lips. It’s the best way to signal you’re ready to stop without just suddenly pulling away. And remember, you might have to do a few takes before you get it right!”
Oh, man, I was so excited about this one. It would totally be my capping point for how awesome CosmoGirl is in relation to Cosmo. So we’re at the park. We’re on a little blanket. Secluded corner. No one around. Romantic. Sweet. I pop a mint, of course! I lean over for a smooch…and…
“What?” he asks me.
“Let’s make out!” I chirp.
“No. Why?”
“Because I like to make out with you?”
“Why don’t you give me a handjob on the subway?” he asks.
Well, it’s a good point, first of all. But also? Apparently I don’t make out in public. Who knew? Or, at least, I guess, I don’t request it with words. I’m apparently a terrible scientist and he totally suspected that these were both experiments.
Sigh.
I shall keep practicing, I promise!
(Okay, but, so - semi-serious coda: WTF??? What the FUCK happens between the shift from CosmoGirl to Cosmo that makes either 1, women change so drastically, or 2, women accept this drastic change from their monthly magazine? Why on EARTH are they suddenly willing to settle for such wildly lowered expectations? First your Cosmo wanted to know your opinions on the media’s stereotypical labels of your generation, but now they only want to know your most denigrating sex secrets? What happened here? Why are these young women allowing this transition to happen? They DON’T HAVE TO LET THIS HAPPEN! CosmoGirl readers really feel like they should be moving on to Bust, or, at the very least, at least like, Marie Claire or Elle. Just…not the single most sexist magazine in print in America right now, and yes, I used to have a subscription to Maxim. I’m just boggled and frankly kind of furious that this is the step-up in womanhood. Young women are encouraged to think intellectually and work hard at sports and not pay too much attention to boys (or at least sex) but then suddenly at, like, 17 - PEW! there it goes! - and now you’re a Cosmo reader and you’re much too fat and you NEED, right NOW, to learn how to stroke your man’s perineum. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE.
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. ONCE AGAIN, CAPS LOCK BUTTON BROKEN VIA FEMINIST RAGE. YOU PAY FOR REPAIR THIS TIME, COSMO!!!!!!
These things are in our grocery store (the good one, not the crappy one), guarding the entrance to the dairy and produce. This is creepy enough.
But if you stand very still, you can see the one in the middle dancing. But slowly…slowly.
I swear to god, the celery used to move, too (slowly…), but he stopped at some point. They’re dying. The lettuce is the last of his kind. And he, too, is slowing down…and down…surrounded by the corpses of his once-merry band of fresh fruit friends.
I was thinking about High School Musical 2 the other day. Aw, hell, let’s be honest here – I think about High School Musical 2 most days. But on this particular day, I was thinking about the song that Ryan and Chad sing together, “I Don’t Dance.” The song is about, well, Ryan (Ryan is the gayest character in the series, in a totally non-sarcastic and unfunny way: he is literally gay and literally out. Deal with it, parents of tweens who did not realize this.) fucking Chad (the most homophobic character in HSM1, and still the most butch even in HSM2).
Sample lyrics:
Ryan: “Hey batter batter, hey batter batter, swing.”
Chad: “I’ve got to just do my thing.”
Ryan: “You’ll never know if you never try.”
Chad: “I don’t dance.”
Ryan: “I know you can.”
Chad: “There’s not a chance.”
Ryan: “Slide home, you score, swinging on the dance floor. … Take your best shot, just hit it.”
Chad: “I’ve got what it takes playing my game, so you better spin that pitch you’re gonna throw me.”
Ryan: “Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance.”
Chad: “You make a good pitch.”
Look, I don’t know what half of that stuff means, but I know it’s dirty.
So anyway. I’m wondering how this fits into the greater scheme of the HSM world. I go online, I google away and I come up with…nothing! Almost nothing. Seriously! Google “gay subtext high school musical” and you find one guy with two short little valiant attempts at blog posts (which, incidentally, he calls “shockingly in-depth” – oh you poor little man, you have no idea) and then a bunch of angry high school dudes calling it “gay” as an insult. (Well…and this, which Ian didn’t realize was a joke for what was frankly an embarrassingly long time.) Maybe it’s just so freakin’ obvious that everybody else figured it wasn’t worth writing about. Well. I don’t have such high standards. And I know what I must do.
I must write a shockingly in-depth analysis of the raging homosity of HSMs 1 and 2, so that future generations may google this information safely. You’re welcome.
HSM1 is a relatively straightforward coming-out analogy. The movie is about Troy’s struggle to come out (as a, ahem, singer) to his friends and his father. His best friend Chad is sort of a homophobe (In trying to explain to Troy why the high school musical is lame: “It’s not hip hop, or rock. It’s, like, show music. It’s all costumes and makeup.” [Shudders]). His dad is ultra-traditionally masculine – the coach of the basketball team and Wildcat basketball champion, class of ’81! The Coach has never worried that his son is gay because it’s something he couldn’t even conceive of. During the big attempt-at-coming-out scene:
Troy: “Hey dad? Did you ever think of trying something new, but were afraid of what your friends might think?”
Coach: “You mean like going left? You’re doing fine. Come on.”
Now, I have no idea what “going left” means, but I’m working under the assumption that it’s a basketball thing. The Coach just doesn’t get it. It’s not so much that he disapproves of homos – it’s just that being a homo is not an option for him. In fact, poor Coach is very much re-living his glory teen basketball champion days of ’81 through his son, and Troy knows it. This is both why Coach can’t possibly imagine that Troy is gay (he wasn’t) and also why it’s so hard for Troy to come out – the Coach isn’t homophobic, like Chad is, it’s just that he’d be disappointed that his son is choosing such a wildly different life than the one he chose. It wouldn’t matter if his son was “gay,” or a “singer,” or whatever: just that it’s different.
Gabriella, Troy’s supposed girlfriend, plays a surprise role here. You’re thinking “beard” at first, but not at all. Troy and Gabriella are both basically playing the same character here. They’re both young gay men coming out – in fact, they’re basically both the same young gay man coming out. I don’t mean this in any smarty-pants literary way, that she’s his feminine side or anything like that. I just mean that the writers expanded one role into two parts. They’re both the same type of character searching for the same thing. You can treat them as one person, for convenience’s sake, throughout most of the movie. She even gets her own “hey dad?” kind of scene:
Speaking to Taylor, about singing: “It just happened…but I liked it. A lot. Did you ever feel like there’s this whole other person inside you, just looking for a way to come out?”
Gabriella’s position as simply an extension of Troy leads to the question of Sharpay. Is she, too, simply an extension of her male counterpart, Ryan?
First, perhaps, it’s necessary to really explain how obvious and simple and accepted it is that Ryan is gay and out. First, the obvious and stereotypical things: He dresses trendily, he wears pink, he has physical gay mannerisms (the way he cocks his head, purses his lips, walks sexily). At one point, when he thinks he’s getting “punked” he shouts excitedly, “Maybe we’ll get to meet Ashton!” His sister is his best friend. He dances and sings. He’s a fucking theatre kid. Of course he’s gay. This all sounds just silly and embarrassing to type out, because these are such goofy stereotypes, but you’ve got to remember that this movie is a celebration of young, cheerful, fun, campy gay culture - so they’re going to positively revel in the sweet, innocent stereotypes like musical theater and teenage crushes on Ashton Kutchner. (In the sequel we also see him doing yoga with his mother, impersonating Liberace during an Estelle Williams dance sequence, aquiring a fat-girl fag hag, and of course that whole converting-Chad baseball thing. He also has this exchange with his mother:
Mom: “Tell [Sharpay] that if she worries too much she’ll get frown lines.”
Ryan: “I already told her twice.”
Incidentally, his mother calls him “Duckie,” an in-joke reference for us old folks to that other obviously-gay young man, well-dressed and a good dancer, from another teen movie.)
I think the most telling bit, though, is that Ryan is never paired romantically with a girl. Fucking everybody gets a chaste little relationship in these movies. Troy gets Gabriella, of course. Sharpay gets Zeke. Chad gets Taylor. Kelsi gets Jason. But the only pairing Ryan ever falls into is either with his sister, or, hilariously enough, with Gabriella in the second movie – both of these are women who are completely off-limits to him. Check out this hug he and Gabriella share, which Troy happens to see and get jealous of:
That terrified, disgusted pelvis, held uncomfortably 12 inches back, is of no threat to you, Troy. In fact, Ryan is paired with one other woman throughout these two movies. In the next-to-last scene of HSM2, when all of the couples walk out onto the romantically lit golf course and Troy and Gab finally have their long-awaited kiss, Ryan (on the far left, yes, in the hat) is holding hands with – that’s right – the fat girl. Ryan has found his fruit fly.
Look, Disney does an awful lot of stuff wrong. I’m sure everyone knows how I feel about the Disney “Princesses.” But they do a lot of stuff right in this first HSM movie: the sex roles are nicely balanced (not only is Gabriella an “Einsteinette” in math and science, but the school’s science teacher is a - pregnant! - woman, too), and there’s an interracial couple which just sort of passes through unremarked upon. But the handling of Ryan’s sexuality is my very favorite thing that they’ve done right. I don’t think that they’re trying to hide it or deny it by never explicitly mentioning it. I mean, fuck, it took two whole movies just to get an extraordinarily short kiss out of the two main love interests: it’s just a really really chaste movie. I think that not mentioning it is not hiding it; it’s more equitable to the way they don’t mention Sharpay’s and Zeke’s inter-racial status. It’s unremarked upon because it is unremarkable. So what? He’s gay. That’s just how Ryan is. It’s normal and they don’t care. And that’s fucking brilliant. (So why then all the brouhaha over Troy coming out? Why isn’t it no big deal for him to be gay, too? Well, it’s different – he’s the basketball star, the son of the masculine school coach. It’s unexpected for Troy, and he’s also been in the closet for so long, hiding it for so long, that they feel as though he was lying to them. Ryan never lied, never hid. And he’s a theatre kid – it’s no surprise, so it’s no big deal.)
So back to Sharpay – is she, like Gabriella, simply an extension of Ryan, her male counterpart in the movie? Is she, say, the woman Ryan wishes he could be? No, no, no. Because, one, Ryan is not a cross-dresser. He has plenty of opportunity to be one if he wanted to, with all the costumes and role-playing in the theatre department, and he never does it. (He plays - or wants to play, sigh - the very masculine Fish Prince in the talent show in HSM2.) He doesn’t want to be a woman, so he doesn’t need her to be that for him. But also, Sharpay has her own separate role to play, and Sharpay is playing another gay boy in this movie. Sharpay is the movie’s drag queen. Have you seen her hair? Have you heard “Fabulous?” Have you heard it performed at your local Drag Night yet? You will. You will.
Taylor and Kelsi, the two other main female roles, aren’t playing gay male roles. Kelsi sure as fuck looks like a boi, but I’m not sure that means anything. Maybe it’s a bone thrown to the lesbos, maybe not. And Taylor’s a BBF, I guess, but that has nothing to do with who she wants touching her cooter. Why aren’t they playing gay male characters like the other two female leads? Maybe because the male halves of their couple pairings are both actually supposed to be heterosexual?
My point here is that half the girls, even, are playing gay boys. This movies all about the gay boys. And my pointing that out isn’t, incidentally, a complaint. This is a movie about young gay men. What do I care if they just so happened to get girls to play some of the parts?
Eventually, Troy decides to audition for the school musical, outing himself to his friends (while the drama teacher accidentally outs him to his father). Troy is the BMOC, the most popular kid in school. Suddenly, by coming out of the closet, he inspires the rest of the school to do the same. In a fantastic musical orgy of personal self-realization and public intolerance, all sorts of kids start coming out in their own way: Zeke bakes! the smart girl dances hip-hop! the stoner (oh – sorry – right, I mean “skater”) kid plays the cello! “I got a confession, my own secret obsession, and it’s making me lose control,” they sing. And everyone around them sings in return, forcing them back into their closets, “No, no, no – not another word. Stick to the status quo.” This is why so many theatre kids don’t come out until freshman year at state university.
Things aren’t going any better for Troy at first. His homophobic best friend Chad tries to talk him out of it.
Chad: “…while you’re off somewhere in leotards, singing ‘Twinkle Town.’”
Troy: “No one said anything about leotards.”
Chad: “Not yet, my friend. Just you wait.”
Chad’s stereotypical view of gay people makes him think that Troy will have to conform to those limits, and he’s trying to save his friend, in the same way that, say, right-wing Christians truly believe that they are “saving” gay people by sending them to fag camps. The only gay person Chad knows is Ryan, and he thinks that if Troy is gay, then Troy will no longer play basketball or be his friend – he’ll have to start wearing pink hats and leotards and hanging out with a different group of people. The “just you wait” might even be interpreted a little more menacingly, as a threat of another sort, but…I’m going to give Chad the benefit of the doubt there, at least.
(Strangely, this whole discussion takes place in the shadow of crazy, disapproving, middle-aged-female weirdness: Chad and Troy are talking in the library, where the librarian [named Ms Falstaff, for, um, some reason that maybe someone who actually remembers their Shakespeare could explain better than I?] keeps popping in to scowl disapprovingly and “shush” them, and Chad’s argument is begun with a story about how much his mother likes Michael Crawford [who played the Phantom of the Opera] – she has a photo of him inside her refrigerator, as “one of her crazy diet ideas,” according to Chad. “Look, I don’t attempt to understand the female mind,” he says. Is all the anti-woman sentiment in this scene meant to underscore Chad’s straight-and-narrow view of masculinity?)
His father, once again, isn’t intolerant, just disbelieving. He simply doesn’t understand.
Coach: “You’re a playmaker – not a singer.”
Troy: “Did you ever think that maybe I could be both?”
The thing is, he probably hadn’t. They get into a fight about this and Troy storms away, but you can see that the Coach is already thinking about this and changing his mind.
Gabriella and Troy discuss the whole situation later:
Gabriella: “Everyone’s treating you differently because of it.”
Troy: “They can’t handle it. That’s not my problem. It’s theirs.”
Gabriella: “What about your dad?”
Troy: “It’s not about my dad. It’s about how I feel.”
Eventually, everyone around Troy comes to understand this. Troy and Gabriella play “straight” for a while: they decide not to audition after all. But when their friends see them moping around dejectedly, they all decide to change their minds and do whatever they can to make their friends happy again. They encourage them to go to the call-backs and sing their gay little hearts out. And Troy had nothing to worry about from his father, after all. “What I really want is to see my son having the time of his life,” he says, and every middle-aged gay man whose father still isn’t speaking to him sighs a jagged, teary sigh.
HSM1 is easy. Troy comes out, struggles for acceptance, and gets it. Everyone in the school breaks out of their pigeonholes, learns to accept that people can be complicated, and sings a little song. I wipe away a single crystal tear. Awesome.
HSM2 is a little less clear; it’s not quite as simple or straightforward an allegory. Personally, I think this one is almost more about Ryan than it is about Troy. For both of them, though, it’s about becoming their own man. They’re both out, they’re both fags, that’s great – but what kind of a man will each of them be? Maybe this is another thing Disney is doing right. This isn’t a movie about gay people; it’s a movie about people who are gay. (Though here’s something they got a lot wronger than they did in the first movie: the academic team is never once mentioned in this movie. The whole thing is just – dropped. I mean, Gabriella at least could have been hired as, say, a tutor instead of a lifeguard, for her summer job. She really is reduced purely to “girlfriend” in this movie – and in fact, she’s even sort of a very maternal savior-type, saving her man by virtue of her being such an awesome girl and for no other reason. Sigh. And that, of course, is why she’s the lifeguard. Because she has to save her man. [He does, at one point, jump in the pool and shout to her, "Save me!" and oh, she does, she does.] But I’m not here for the feminism; I’m here for the fags.) (Ah, but I’m here for the feminism a little bit: Troy gives little off-handed nicknames to the six young kids he is coaching in golf: Champ, Buddy, Cutie, Man, Killer, and to the last, who doesn’t get a nickname: “You look good.” Guess which ones are the boys and which are the girls.)
Sharpay is a drama queen, a drag queen, a bitch, and a boss. She bosses around her friends, her enemies, and especially her brother. HSM2 is about Ryan growing a pair and leaving her behind. (Maybe symbolizing the way a young gay man has to go through his “big gay” stage, and then leave it behind? Become not a gay man but a man who is gay? Ryan here is fighting and leaving behind the Big Gay? I’m just spinballin’ here.) “We can do whatever we want to!” Ryan says, re: summer vacation. “Everything changes!” The major plot point of the movie is baseball song-and-dance scene, where Ryan and Chad duet together and, uh, make sweet music.
“Hey pitcher,” Ryan says at the beginning. “Gimme the ball.”
Oh yeah. Ryan’s done being the bottom. It’s his turn to pitch.
You could say that the whole “playing for the other team” metaphor was there in the first movie, too (with all the basketball stuff). But it really comes out nicely in this song, with all of its hit-you-over-the-head metaphors about “how I swing” and “pitching” and “scoring” and “you’ll never know if you never try.” Half the baseball uniforms are sleeveless. Jesus, that’s good stuff.
I don’t think Chad is gay. But I think we’ve just been witness to his first bout of youthful exploration. Maybe that fits in with the theme, too, of all of these boys trying to figure out what kind of men they’re going to be.
“Hey Evans!” he says. “I’m not saying I’m gonna dance at the show. But if I did…what would you have me do?” He’s not a fag or nuthin’…but what do two guys do together, anyway?
Oh, Ryan will be happy to show you, Chad.
And – seriously? They’ve traded clothes in the next scene. Really. Suddenly they’re wearing each other’s clothes. Straight teenage boys just don’t do that! Nor do they jerk off ketchup bottles so suggestively, I might add.
And, oh, I dunno, I guess Troy’s doing stuff, too. But don’t worry about him – he’s gonna dance it out.
“I will never try to live a lie again,” he tells us, leaping to and fro. Incidentally, that’s just got to be an homage, right?
(And but also rumor has it that Zac Efron is going to be in the Footloose remake, which is, god, so cute.)
And what does all this have to do with Dirty Dancing? I dunno. But something.
Troy’s about half a second away from chuckling fetchingly, running down that aisle, and jumping right up into Gab’s waiting arms.
Huh – I hadn’t really noticed that before. We’ve got Pretty in Pink, Footloose, and Dirty Dancing references. I really do believe that Ryan’s gayness isn’t hidden in these movies. Ryan is out, I honestly honestly believe that - and maybe Disney doesn’t know it, but damnit, Kenny Ortega knows. Peter Barsocchini knows. But, okay, I’m willing to admit that perhaps there are references that are a little hidden - Troy’s coming out, Sharpay’s drag. And maybe these jokes are meant for the same people who see “Bet On It” and think, “Dance it out, Kevin Bacon. Dance it out.”
And, uh…I guess this is where my analysis starts to wander away and putter out, because I’m growing disinterested. But here is this picture, as my parting gift to you:
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