was to see the guys running around in their tighty whiteys! it was in the opening credits - and pulled from one of the episodes if i remember correctly. the underwear was so bright and white - it was blinding. LOL. obviously fresh out of the package right before filming. still funny to me that it was in the credits of every episode.
shareI thought it was a great opening shot...the best I can remember
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why do people only suspect the worst right away.
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umm. why does saying that there might be some homosexual overtones to the show (even if it is what an individual viewer might bring to it) mean that they are "suspecting the worst right away"? man i hate that line of thinking. oh, that's right - homosexual = bad.
however - i would agree with you on this point - the good-looking guys running around in their underwear in the opening credits really did not make the series successful in and of itself. but guess what - it didn't hurt it either. the straight female viewers and the gay male viewers got a little thrill - and then sat back and watched the rest of the episode...
as you said this was all "carefully planned and done by producers with one purpose in mind ... to keep and increase ratings"
I got the DVD last week and it's a shot from the pilot, if I'm not wrong!
I used to love watching this show, but I have to this date not seen all! So the DVD is a gooooood thing!
I think you are right 'irishchicago' - the two guys are very attractive! And I think they have from the get go a amazing chemistry! I would even go as far as saying that there is a very obvious homoerotic under-current!
j. U. d. E.
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I never saw it as anything more than a buddy show. The three guys were all straight as far as I could see. If the gay guy viewers got the same thrill as the straight women, so be it. The only thing that got me was that only Perry King was old enough to be a Vietnam veteran. Bray and Penny were way too young. Like most TV shows, they'd have flashbacks that were supposed to take place in Vietnam in 1972 and they'd look the same as they did in 1984. But that's TV. People stopped watching this show because of "Moonlighting" and the last show acknowledged it. They should have kept it, because as I recall, the replacement fared no better.
shareIf you look back now, pretty much every action-oriented TV show or movie from the 1980s had some gay subtext. Just watch any Schwartzeneggar action movie, with his oily shirtless chest and giant phallic knife.
"Sucking at darts is not a super power!"
Your point being those things don't attract many women too? Any buddy film can be said to have a gay subtext. Yet, I don't understand why female "buddy" pictures are rarely accused of having lesbian subtexts. Friends of the same sex in TV and fim were once presumed to just have a brotherly or sisterly affection for each other. Now everything is gay-lesbian.
I'm not denying it's possible. Many screenwriters are gay and old-timers freely admit that they slipped such subcontexts into films from "Wings" (1926) to Ben-Hur (1959) and others after that, long before "Brokeback Mountain." I just think it's gotten out of hand.
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." - Sigmund Freud
"Sometimes a big knife is just a big knife." - pmiano100
Female "buddy" pictures aren't assumed to have a lesbian subtext? Since when?
shareSince as long as I can remember. I didn't say "never", I said "rarely". Perhaps "rarely" was the wrong word, but it certainly is not "commonly" assumed. I concede that you can no doubt pull out a list of exceptions, but that is anecdotal. In American society women have long been allowed to physically show affection for each other far more than men. Men don't casually hug and kiss each other as women do. I remember an episode of "Friends" where they were watching TV and talking. Monica sat at Rachael's feet and had her arm wrapped around Rachael's legs. I don't recall any critic commenting on it, but if Chandler had done it to Joey they would have.
I'm not saying there is never a lesbian subtext in female buddy pictures. I am saying it is not usually "assumed" unless blatantly obvious. People argue whether there was such a context to "Thelma and Louise." If they had men, it would have been assumed to exist by critics - at least today.
Direct quote from Commando:
Matrix: "You can beat me... You want to put a knife in me. Look me in the eyes. See what's going on in there while you turn it. That's what you want to do to me, right? Come on, let the girl go. You and me. Don't deprive yourself of some pleasure. Come on Bennett; let's party."
Bennett: "I don't need the girl -- I don't need the girl!!"
That doesn't sound gay to you?
"Sucking at darts is not a super power!"
Actually it sounds sadomasochistic. You can put a gay spin on anything if you want to. I do admit, however, that in some sick minds sex and violence go together. Bennett was talking about violence, and he could have had a gay thing for Matrix, but then again, maybe not.
shareNo-one is saying that Bennett was gay for Matrix in the movie's internal continuity. I am talking about undertones.
"Sucking at darts is not a super power!"
I'm only saying that while it's possible, things can be overanalyzed and "read into" scenes at times. That's possible too.
shareAnd I'm only saying that this is old news. I am far from the first person to suggest that pretty much every action movie made in the 1980s has gay undertones. So it's not just some esoteric view that only nutty psychoanalysts in New York believe.
"Sucking at darts is not a super power!"
And I am not the only person who thinks it was an exaggerated reaction to the gay liberation movement that hit it's stride in the 1980s. Considering that there were no doubt such overtones in *some* movies going back to the 1920s, what's the big deal about the 1980s and who says "pretty much every action movie" made then has gay overtones. I have only heard claims about *some.*
shareI think this website says it best:
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/80actionguide.cfm
"Sucking at darts is not a super power!"
Combined with Bennett’s
Freddie Mercury ‘stash and haircut and chain mail tank top? No! Not gay at all!
On the other hand, if The Village People had done the sound track . . . you could say “Gay as a picnic basket.”
"The world conforms to your perception of it"
share80085
So it goes.
Nobody wore those shorts like Magnum PI...
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