the bone zone

God forbid a woman in her 40s try to host an event on a cursed murder island 😤

emperor nero with tiger, 1876.

it's all fun and gay crime and then suddenly they're confessing their love for each other while one of them bleeds out on the floor. there's no heterosexual explanation for this (saying the thing you only say to superhot babes and family)

2x09 The Union of the Wizard and the Warrior

so we meet this character and he's stereotypically gay right. queer-coded in every way. then we find out he's married to a woman and we're meant to believe he's camp straight. now, this is a comedy, and comedy has a long history of making jokes at the expense of effeminate men, and there's also a long history of deriving humor out of an audience's stereotype-based assumptions. (clue 1985's famous "i'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife" ending line comes to mind). so one could assume it's just a subversive joke and then it's no longer relevant to the plot; he's straight but campy, the end.

but even outside of the clear homoerotic elements of his 'friendship' with gamby (his actor, of course, calling it a love story), there's other weird layers going on with russell's sexuality. moreso, his own perception of it. that's what's tripping me up. i have questions about why he's even depicted as so... mincing and flamboyant, because the VP writers are intelligent comedic writers who don't strike me as the type to rely on such a simple old-timey cheap trope like 'haha fruity man = funny' - but i haven't found bts interviews on how his character was developed, so i guess i'll never know what the thought process was there, besides maybe the humor of teaming up a gruff danny mcbride-typical character who relies on being a loud-mouth with a character whose tendencies are more in line with, you know, evil gay people. because i have met really shitty gay men (and women, actually) who remind me of russell, that shady petty type of back-handed insidious behavior. even that's a stereotypical gay man quality! so then, why make him straight? just 'cause it'd be 'funny'? again, that one's a mystery.

what i can analyze, however, is his sexuality in-universe. see, with a character like that, once you find out they're 'actually straight', you either go "ohhh so he's just camp straight. ok" and move on, or you go "...that's a closeted fag if i ever saw one". i feel like i've seen viewers of the show gravitate to one of these two, but i don't know if the show itself particularly points to either, at least not in a cut-n-dry way. largely because russell's odd sexuality isn't his most prominent trait, at least once you get to know him. his most prominent trait is that he's batshit fucking insane. he's meant to be psychopathic, narcissistic, or both (or just generally a cluster b babe because he's pretty histrionic too), and very possibly to a genuine personality disorder extent because we see his own behavior ruin his life (although it's always hard / morally iffy to try to apply real-world psychology to tv characters, as we know). i think russell's actually a great example of a real-world psychopath though, because in psychology you always hear that psychopaths are more likely to be, like, that wall street douchebag that rips people off as opposed to a serial killer or something, and russell's a good example of that. he's a very real-world monster, which is what i like about him. like, i've met that bitch.

so that's russell's attraction to women summarized. i'm gonna move on to him and men (and him and gamby hehe) in a bit, but first i have two other things to mention. first, as i said before, it's hard to know why they decided to write russell as so campy, that's something only mcbride and hill could say (although i'm sure walton goggins would have thoughts that i'd love to hear lol) - i'm more intrigued by russell's presentation of himself as campy. usually flamboyance in a man is either a social indicator (i'm here i'm queer! move im gay) or embracement (or reclamation) of queer identity - or it's a sign of closeted sexuality. again i'm gonna get into the concept of russell being closeted in a bit, but right off the bat, usually genuinely closeted men are over-compensatory. usually they try to appear macho so people can't 'tell', and definitely won't assume, they're gay. so what the fuck is the deal with russell doing the exact opposite? this is one of the cattiest bitches i've seen in media to date. this is, as the elders say, a flamer. and he's also deeply socially aware (although, admittedly, does seem to have gaps in this ability). like, he has to be acutely aware he comes off as gay. so why is he surprised and defensive the one time he's asked about it (which, also bizarre to me. homosexuality is like an unspoken spectre that haunts this show lmao) by belinda's kids? you're telling me no snot-nosed brat at that high school and no asshole teacher's ever brought it up to him before? gamby clearly assumes it initially (and i find it funny his insults towards russell are more homophobic until he finds out he's married, and then he stops calling him a cocksucker 😭). russell overcompensates a little in bragging about, like, pussy or whatever, but his manner is what reads as gay, and that is... his ass is performative in his flamboyancy, if anything. which??? that's what throws me off.

so as a whole, he just functions very differently. which is what leads me to my next thought; i don't think russell experiences sexuality in a normal way, heterosexual or homosexual. i do believe that he loves his wife, but i don't know if there's any indications that he's sexually attracted to her. there's a few mentions of sexual attraction to other women, but they're all fairly performative; like someone trying to pass themself off as being sexually attracted to women. he mentions sleeping with 'lots of women', he pulls up a straight porn site when his sexuality's brought into question and asserts he's 'not so gay now'. essentially, it's all talk (until late s2, when it comes across more as a sign of him spiraling than anything). in actuality, he's loyal to his wife, but from what i remember, it's a pretty sexless marriage. he kisses her once after he's just scored a win over a man who was threatening him, so that's ego-based; and he tries to initiate sex when he's feeling insecure over the other teachers making jokes about him having a small wee-wee; so, also ego-based, just in the opposite direction. aka, his wife, who's very pretty and very sweet (i'd wife her up in a heartbeat fr), is only sexually useful to him when he needs an ego boost, or when he's feeling full of himself. which, his misogyny is a whooole other thing. christine in general is treated more as an accessory; a pretty and successful doctor on his arm in public, which looks socially good and russell cares endlessly about how he looks socially, and she's nothing but emotional support in private. once christine leaves him, the most he gets up to by way of heterosexuality is in the spring break episode, where he gets a lap dance where gamby can see it, and leers over janelle's friend to gamby. which. idek what to do with that one FSJDKF he's so fucking rotten in every way. but point being, in that ep, it's like heterosexuality is treated as a bonding activity for these two men. which. lol. point of all this? russell isn't attracted to women because he likes women, he's attracted to them if they offer him something. which calls to mind an aspd trait; "ego-centrism; self-esteem derived from personal gain, power, or pleasure." he's a deeply insecure man, using supposed heterosexuality to feed his ego. if a beautiful woman gives him her time, it's because he's worth a lot, AND if people see it, even better. because that's a sign of social success. i don't know if i believe he's actually attracted to women's bodies, or minds for that matter.

especially because when we meet his abusive ass sisters its clear theyve given him a lot of shit over the years about being feminine, although, again, queerness is never brought up, although it's hard for me to believe that was never something they used against him. plus he's from the fucking south like you know his ass got called slurs growing up. maybe marrying his wife got people to knock that off, which is why he has pictures of her on hand so quickly when belinda's boys 'accuse' him of being gay. that's his defense. but then, again, if he's weird about people thinking he's gay, why... does he act so gay lmao? is it reclamation? that's my best bet. him taking it back for himself. because it's his nature n he's not gonna let people use it against him like it's a bad thing.

there's also the fact that he can use being perceived as gay to manipulate his primary targets - women. we see on multiple occasions that russell's weird around men, especially manly-type men. they make him uncomfortable. especially if they're physically threatening. he's a lot more comfortable in the company of women, because he operates more like one. in a generalized sense, but also especially because one of the jokes of the show is that the teachers act like teenagers; and russell's like if regina george was a middle aged man. he's a mean girl. and he seems more than happy to gossip with the other popular girls and then talk shit about them behind their back. and it's easy for him to befriend them (calls to mind another aspd icd symptom; "incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them". my socially awkward ass could never), only he's not charming in the way an exploitative man would typically be towards women; he moreso exploits the fact that straight women are easily charmed by gay men. and i think that's a particularly interesting element with belinda. gay white men disarm woc in particular bc of,, assumed solidarity, i suppose? i think in a room full of white strangers belinda went "oh, the gay one's probably safe", and despite lee's shitty intentions, they're initially fairly close in the early eps of s1 - and then he ended up being the worst of the bunch lmao. point being, so much about russell is an elaborate ploy to get what he wants; is his flamboyancy an example of that? is 90% of his identity just shit he's developed to manipulate people, that he just now wears as a general costume? man idek.

so finally, russell and men. that one's a bit harder to analyze because it's a lot of reading between lines. there's two lines in early s2 that seem to imply he's at least experimented with men sexually - the 'ive been in a lot of gangbangs before' line (🤨) and the 'every straight man tries dick in college, christine' line, which to me is the most damning. i feel like that gives more insight into his deal. he probs fucked around with bisexuality in college, when he felt it didn't mean anything and he could dismiss it, and ultimately, regardless of his findings, decided the best way to set himself up for a successful life was to bag a successful woman, attraction be damned. and he probably has a pretty black-white perception of sexuality; in his mind, he has a wife, so he's straight, period. no bisexual nuances or grey areas, and certainly his demeanor doesn't mean a damn thing. which is a very old-timey perspective, actually. the tvtropes page i linked at the beginning of this mess says something i think is relevant to this; "up until the 70s or so, men were assumed to be straight unless outed, no matter how feminine they acted." i think russell operates by this, and he's probably surprised that in the 21st century other people don't, and in fact typically assume the very opposite. a feminine man's gonna be assumed to be gay unless proven otherwise, and even then it's gonna be questioned.

so, okay, it's safe to assume russell's probably settled into identifying himself as heterosexual, in a 'im married to a woman and i only watch straight porn so HA' way. well then there's, first, how he interacts w other men on-screen, and, of course him and gamby. like i said, manly men seem to make him uncomfortable; particularly when they're the rough-housing sort. possibly cuz it reminds him of his sisters (and therefore his trauma). (...is his feminine nature just getting as far away as he can from his tomboy sisters, so he's nothing like them?) we see this both with jackie and ray who, weirdly enough, he also fawns over a bit in attempts to appease one and kiss-up to the other. (worth mentioning that in the same instance he kisses ray's ass, he's more than happy to be catty towards gale and insult her looks.) i think there may be an element of admiration, for these men who are nothing like himself; i think that's an element with gamby as well. a lot of 'straight' men do some weird shit where they idolize other men because they're like an ideal version of masculinity that they aspire to. frankly, it's faggy as shit. but i digress. then there's that odd little moment he awkwardly, uh, feels jackie up i guess? maybe not feels him up but feels the need to touch him for some fuckin' reason. which was an odd choice when jackie's a known bigot who calls russell 'princess' a moment later in a derogatory and more than likely homophobic way.

then there's him and gamby. in line with what's in the previous paragraph, russell seems to admire that gamby's capable of physical toughness. the two scenes that come to mind where russell first seems... compelled by gamby are when he's using a baseball bat to destroy belinda's shit, and when he punches out jackie. two moments of very masculine aggression. russell tries to be tough (the fucking la croix cans...) but at the end of the day he's just not. he has anger, certainly, but he folds whenever threatened with bodily harm lmao. what he excels at is underhanded manipulation. which gamby is also good at, AND he's physically capable of taking care of himself and will actually step up if threatened, not pussy out. so i think russell finds that admirable. he doesn't do the fawning shit, however, because i think he's conscious of a power dynamic within their fairly intimate relationship and he wants to keep himself as the one with the control. so during moments of excitement he'll impulsively jump on gamby - one of many arguable cracks in his repression - but otherwise he avoids that. although... fsdfk i could write a whole nother long ass thing on just russell & gamby (fucking freaks) because funny enough i think if anything gamby's more explicitly attracted to russell. which i think russell's somewhat aware of, or possibly just aware that the way he blurs lines with his fruity little existence makes gamby uncomfortable and he can exploit that. there's several scenes where russell saunters towards gamby and sort of uhhh dominates him thru words and eye contact while gamby looks around for an escape but also simultaneously seems a little into it and SJDKF 1) hot. oops and 2) we only really see him do that with gamby, and it feels fucking loaded. like a very sexually charged power play. and notably he especially does it in early s2 when they actually consider each other friends but russell's also a little power-crazed and feels the need to keep gamby in his place. where he belongs... under russell... lol.

the confession scene in the finale reads as romantic, which i think the writers and actors intended, but i don't know if it felt romantic to gamby and russell in the moment. i think to them it... almost transcended romantic love, or platonic love, for that matter. it was admitting they cared for each other in a way nobody else ever had, because they saw each other in ways nobody else ever had. which to me is a very special pure form of adoration. cuz i do think these two men adore each other, and i think they're both abhorrent people (...one more than the other), so that's pretty special. and i think they do wanna fuck nasty too.

so is russell attracted to men and repressed about it? it's certainly easy to read him that way. is he in love with his male best friend? it's also easy to read that as true, too. so i guess my main question is, why the hell would such a flamboyant campy guy be in denial about being gay?? what would cause that level of self-denial?

-this party where gamby is going to be jealous and somehow both he and russell are going to get up to general mischief/minor crimes

-cameo from [CHARACTER REDACTED]

-sexual tension! at the church service