Ask the Flying Monkey! (October 19, 2009)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Send it to aftereltonflyingmonkey@yahoo.com! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: Dear Omniscient Primate: What do you think of the strongly implied love between Dean Winchester and Castiel on Supernatural? Everyone is talking about “Wincest,” but it seems that the potential and actual romance between a man and an angel doesn’t get enough focus. Do you see any chances of an on-screen kiss between the two? -- Marc

Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Castiel (Misha Collins) do some
awfully close talking in a recent Supernatural episode

A: As much as it saddens me to say this, I think you’re practicing wishful thinking, probably because Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins are two of the three hottest actors currently on TV (the third one being Jared Padalecki!).

That said, the actors definitely have a terrific chemistry together, probably because – and again, it saddens me to say this – they’re both considerably better actors than Padalecki. But I would call the Dean/Castiel relationship a “bromance”: that is, an extremely close, but ultimately non-sexual friendship.

Now all that said, the producers of this show aren’t stupid. They know onscreen chemistry when they see it, and they also monitor online buzz. They know exactly what kind of impact a Dean/Castiel kiss would have on the fans, and since they’re not brothers like Sam and Dean, I wouldn’t say it’s completely out of the question.

Still, Supernatural has already – hilariously – acknowledged the “Wincest” thing a couple of times, so they might be a little reluctant to go back to that well, especially since if they ever did do a Dean/Castiel kiss, it would almost certainly be as some kind of joke. 

Q: Disney has just promoted its second openly gay man to a major position -- first the head of the studio, now the head of Disneyland. I just thought you should know. -- Zach

A: I appreciate that, Zach. Disney has promoted gay men to major positions before, but I’m not sure they’ve ever done it twice in one week. The two men are Rich Ross (the new chairman of Walt Disney Studios, who is Hollywood’s first openly gay studio chief ever) and George Kalogridis (the president of the Disneyland resort).

Now I’m not trying to knock Disney, because they’ve (sometimes) been (somewhat) better than the other entertainment entities when it comes to LGBT rights – and they’ve definitely stood up against multiple boycotts from the insane anti-gay bigots in the Christian right.

But I’m not sure how much credit Disney deserves here. They didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that either man is gay – it was uncovered by writers and bloggers, based on old press reports and the fact that Disney mentioned that Kalogridis was moving to Southern California with his “partner” in their in-house email.

Truthfully, I think this is more a question of the changing times. It’s now officially okay, at least at progressive companies like Disney, for even corporate executive types to be out and proud. That’s a big deal.

Disney's George Kalogridis (left) and Rich Ross

Next page! Aaron Carter needs a hankie, and The Charioteer trailer needs an actual movie.