Atwitter this week the gay blogs have been.
And not just the gay blogs, the mainstream media as well. Everyone seems tweaked over some shirtless shots of “Harry Potter” (actually, the actor who plays him, Daniel Radcliffe, at left), who at 17 looks 17 and so sports a modestly adult body. This body comes standard with such secondary characteristics as five-o’clock shadow and those wisps of hair that taper from belly button to pubes, lovingly called “a treasure trail.”
Here’s what’s roiling those who are roiled by such things: Radcliffe has very famously played a child — a child increasingly younger than himself as the Potter movies lag the Potter books by about two and a half years. (When the series ends, Harry will be all of 17*.)
The commotion is not so much about Radcliffe’s rather staid display of shirtlessness but the fact that the pictures were taken in conjunction with the actor’s coming debut on the London stage in a play where he will be — try not to yawn — briefly nude in a few artfully dimmed scenes.
The play, of course, is Equus: Once a sensation but now a rather creaky, windy bit of psycho-babble: Radcliffe’s character blinds horses, but what he’s really doing, you see, is looking for God. In all the wrong stables.
Though Equus was once taken quite seriously when first performed in the 70’s, the play owed its healthy run — as well as, we assure you, this unnecessary revival — to its puerile flashes of epebe-o-flesh, aimed directly at the sweet spots of elderly bachelors everywhere.
Naturally concerned parents are concerned. Out of the woodwork they come, that rustic band of home-schoolers who believe the best way to prepare a child for adulthood is to wall them off from the real world. And so one furrow-browed talking-head opines on CNN that she just doesn’t think a role model for her 11-year son should appear nude on stage. Daniel Radcliffe’s puberty, like gay marriage (which also deeply concerns her), quakes the fluid moorings of the Republic.
As an aside to all this, J. K. Rowling today announced that the last book in the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will appear on July 21 — two days after which, Radcliffe turns irretrievably 18. He has just finished the fifth film in the series, which will total seven. By the time he appears in the last movie, he should be … oh, about 37 years old.
Perhaps the real problem for those who are righteously and regularly roiled is that a boy like Harry should never be allowed to grow up. Not a boy who is so famously a child.
Which brings us to the Strange Affair at El Mirage.
“He absolutely looked age-appropriate,” claims a school spokeswoman after a grown man posed for several months as a 12-year old — repeat, a 12-year old — according to a story that appeared today in the New York Times.
The man was, in fact, one year shy of 30. Yet with the help of two fellow pedophiles who claimed to be his adult guardians, he enrolled in a series of charter schools in and around El Mirage, Arizona. There he befriended boys and introducing them to his peculiar all-male family — an “uncle”, a “grandfather” and a “cousin,” two of whom were convicted sex offenders. (None of the boys have come forward with allegations of molestation, perhaps because of the homosexual stigma involved.)
“We have several seventh-grade students who are taller and of a larger build than this individual.” the school spokeswoman scrambled to explain. To be fair, Neil H. Rodreick II, (mug shot at left), at 5′8″ and 120 pounds, is slight. Previously he served a seven year sentence in an Oklahoma Correctional facility for propositioning 6-year olds. After his release he convinced two older men, who were trolling the internet for boys, that he was a minor and they took him out of Oklahoma to Arizona.
Never staying in a school for more than a few months, expelled in one case for non-attendance, Rodreick created his own el mirage with the help of pancake makeup, a regime of all-over body shaves, and a baseball cap tugged low on his face. He even appeared to have acne, courtesy, we suspect, of blush and lipstick.
For actor Daniel Radcliffe, playing younger by a few years is merely par for the trade. For Rodreick, who had to span a discrepancy not of two years but of nearly two decades, it was an astounding daily illusion, a measure of just how far he would — and more interestingly, could — go in the pursuit of a wildly compelling sexual obsession. Neighbors remember Rodreick, if they took any notice of him at all, as a kid who did wheelies on his bicycle and surfed down ramps on his skateboard. Some, a bit more ominously, recalled that he was also a persistent silhouette at playgrounds.
He was “a quiet boy,” said one of his young classmates, innocently citing one of the hoariest clinches in the sociopath literature. A boy who alway sat at the back of the class. The schoolmate barely noticed “Casey” (as Rodreick called himself), telling her mother only when the case broke over the weekend that “he just looked like he had been held back.” In fact, his schoolwork was ploddingly average, perhaps by design — doing nothing that might alert a teacher, one way or the other.
Last month, finally, administrators noticed inconsistencies in his birth date from one record to another, as well as the spelling of his name. By this time, Rodreick had been running his scam for nearly two years.
“He played the part very well ,” acknowledged the director of the school that eventually called in the sheriff. “He did have the demeanor of a kid,” she explained. “He appeared to be very shy. He kept his head down and spoke softly.”
Yet.
“Every adult that encountered him said something here is not right … He just looked older. They kept saying, ‘Are you sure he is 12?’ … In my wildest imagination I could not have dreamt up,” what was discovered, she admitted to the Times .
The director was not alone in her — embarrassment? Roderick’s “uncle” and “grandfather” were particularly miffed when they found out the ersatz 12-year-old living under their roof was not what he seemed, and all the while they had been having sex with a grown man. Legal sex, as it turned out.
One of life’s, as they say, little ironies.
Well, Nancy Grace will be dining out on this stomach-churner for months. Somehow she’ll manage to work the death penalty into it — once her repertory company of the pious and the concerned agree that chemical castration is “ineffectual” (Nancy- speak for “too humane.”) Then everyone will cluck about the children and the culture and sex — and, who knows, the hellacious Harry Potter as well, long a thorn in the side of Christ. Smoke will be fanned nightly and energetically over the suggestion, which can no longer be stated outright but which will be implied with every arch of the Nancian eyebrow, that gay men are, after all, prone to this sort of thing.
Ironic also, and not in an amusing way, will be those very same concerned talking heads, who are always ready, at the merest ripple in the culture, to use canards about protecting the children to push their censorship agenda. Distraught over harmless vulgarity, promoting a fantasy world where the media is child-proofed and sugar-coated, they end up blinding their young charges to the hash and sudden way the world really works. Leaving them vulnerable on the playground to forces more unsettling than a glimpse of Daniel Radcliffe’s treasure trail.
Ah, Hang-’em-High Nancy has long been on our radar screen.
A former prosecutor who never met a man who wasn’t guilty,
Grace is one of the most reprehensible — and entertaining — scolds on cable television.
See:
Nancy Grace on The Michael Jackson Verdict
Nancy Grace on The Duke University Rape Case
Where is dannys dick?
Let me get this right…The “uncle” and “grandfather” had been having sex with this guy, who was passing as a 12-year old, for several months, and didn’t know he was actually an adult (of 30 years). They are the worst pedophiles ever. Is attempted pedophilia with an adult a crime? Don’t answer. I’m pretty sure it isn’t.
“Daniel Radcliffe’s puberty, like gay marriage (which also deeply concerns her), quakes the fluid moorings of the Republic.” - line of the week!
Welcome back Mr. Calendo
Horses are so hot right now
“(When the series ends, Harry will be all of 16.)”
Harry will be 17 when the last book comes out. But great article!
Hey, Jonny
Here’s how I came up with Harry’s age at the end of the series. Harry is 10 in the first book. Check out the first line of the Chapter 2 in HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone:
“Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step…”
Each book represents a year in HP’s life so in the seventh book, he would be “all of 16.”
Or am I not reading the text carefully enough?
16, but turning 17 very near the beginning of the book, I believe. Harry’s eleventh birthday is in the first book, when Hagrid first comes to tell him he’s a wizard. Also, in the sixth book, he’s taking diapparating lessons so he can get his “license” or whatever when he’s 17– sort of like getting a driving learner’s permit at 15 and a half. So… you’re both right!
Great site; great blend of wit and sexiness!
I want to know how old he will be when he needs to check into rehab after a drugs and hooker scandal.
Luke,
Either way - it’s a blast - once you’ve been fucked it becomes more enjoyable - but then again, when your cock expands and blasts the cum into your boy it gets even better pounding away in all that lovely slippery cum - stay hard and fuck him again, that’s even better.
(To: 2HorNy, It is in his pants and he is still a minor.)
I’m amazed they let him on stage without some sort of covering.
It is the UK.
Demos,
Did you mean “Chat Room” ?
i’m mystified to no end by how a thirty-year-old man could actually manage to pass as a twelve year old, and for that long. especially living with two pedophiles. i mean, what the hell? i need to find some more pictures of this guy.
and who else could pull off that severe, over-inflated hairdo but the lovely ms. grace? someone get me the name of her hairstylist.
p.s. anyone know what demos is talking about? cause it sounds pretty hot. the use of the word “boy” in the context of this article worries me, however…
lol.
>>”…worst pedophiles ever.”
That’s a great line.
>>”…ersatz 12-year-old…”
Another great one.
It seems to me that the sort of parent who would pitch a fit over the actor portraying the teenaged wizard appearing nude in some venue totally unrelated to the Harry Potter movies is EXACTLY the same deranged home-schooler who boycotts and protests these movies for containing witchcraft and being thus un-Christian. So hey, no loss there.
Nancy Grace and Rita Cosby will spend eternity in their own little hell together. Just the two of them.
Um, Harry Potter the character will be 17, not 16, when the series ends, if he’s still alive. And at the current filming rate, which is only a year and a half between films, Radcliffe the actor will be 21 (at most). Playing a 17 year old!? Oh, SUCH a stretch.
Ok, now that I’ve actually read the rest of the comments and realised I am being very redundant in stating Harry’s age, let me clarify that plot detail. The series begins very shortly before Harry’s 11th birthday. He has been at his aunt and uncle’s house for 10 years, but he was a year (and 3 months) old when his parents were killed and he was sent there. Anyway, why nitpick? Brilliant article, especially where you project the Nancy Grace arc. Beautiful.
>>”Harry will be 17 when the last book comes out.”
>>”16, but turning 17 very near the beginning of the book, I believe. Harry’s eleventh birthday is in the first book, when Hagrid first comes to tell him he’s a wizard. Also, in the sixth book, he’s taking diapparating lessons so he can get his “license” or whatever when he’s 17– sort of like getting a driving learner’s permit at 15 and a half. So… you’re both right!”
>>”Um, Harry Potter the character will be 17, not 16, when the series ends, if he’s still alive.”
NERDS! NERD ALERT!
Gerry,
In the UK, the age of consent is 16, IIRC. That would make Daniel Radcliffe a legal adult, so no covering required.
Okay, I’m convinced. I’ve changed the age from 16 to 17. Thanks for all help.
John
We call any Male under the age of 21 a ‘Boy’in the UK.
I wasn’t implying under age sex.Sorry for the excitement caused:>)
Thorn: Thank you for the update. I had no idea the age of consent is 16 in the UK. Here in California it is 18 for some things, other things 21. I’m not sure if the UK age of consent is recognized or not. Probably not, like gay marriages etc.
Also, the other thing is. no matter how well Mr. Radcliffe is turning out, he is still way too young for me.
NERDS! NERD ALERT!
Yes, Tuffy. And proud of it.
You Harry Potter freaks.
ah thank you for a great few minutes. welcome back indeed jc. you’re the tops.
and most of my favorites have already put in their comments. a bit concerned over the obsessive age debate of harry p. i had assumed the age 37 was tongue in cheek. loosen up people.
i am not into 17 year olds but was quite stunned at his development. quite a stud muffin. he will either turn into a god or deteriorate very quickly.
pity he will be under dim lights on stage. i was present at the original equus in london and the lights were not so dim. no political correctness then.
however the plays brilliance at the time though dated now was due in great part to the great performances in typical british acting standard and not the little nudity.
not sure at 17 he has the insight and passion for the role.
the comment about legal ages relating to california…. well america on such issues always was and remains one of the backward countries on the planet. california above all but they were always a contradiction in terms. among the most conservative states in the so called union with the largest porno industry on the earth and the duplicitous morality of hollywood (show business community).
as for that ms grace. a good hairdresser would blow torch her hair, that i would find amusing.
apropos the private hell mentioned. maybe one of our geniuses wants to re-write the old and brilliant play “no exit” replacing the characters with some notables of today. those two women, georgie bush, ms rice, etc. might be fun.
cheers lads
Thorn said
“I had no idea the age of consent is 16 in the UK. Here in California it is 18 for some things, other things 21. I’m not sure if the UK age of consent is recognized or not.”
It doesn’t matter if the UK age of consent is not recognised in the USA - it is NOT THE SAME COUNTRY. He is British. The age of consent is 16. End of story.
Ahoy, Harry Potter fans.
I thought you would get a kick out of this from Dan Froomkin’s daily must-read White House Watch in the Washington Post:
That last bit is fecking brilliant!
Anyways, I am curious now that the whole age-of-consent can of worms has been opened. We know that AOC in California (and much of the US) is 18, and that it is 16 in England (not sure about the rest of the UK). How does that play out in the whole “child pornography” arena? Is a photo showing Dan’s boys in full glory, which is perfectly legal in the UK, just as ILLEGAL in the US? Does is violate all those 2257 taboos? Or is there some exception at work? Will websites be pummeled and masters jailed for showing stage shots once Equus starts playing?
And BTW, California is not particularly conservative by any means. Compared to the midwest, it’s one of the consistently bluest states in the union. Now if yr gonna bring the European norm into the picture, CA is obviously puritanical. But this IS the US, give us a break. We’re only allowed to be a little free….
*dies laughing at the comparison of the Bush administration to the badguys of Harry Potter*
Oh…god…laughgasm!!
So many topics!
I’m a life-long Arizonan, and not only do we have our weirdness in politics, but also in the home-schooling situation. I’m sure that there are good home-schoolers in other states, but I’ve run into too many down-and-out idjits seeing to the needs of their precious little darlings. I don’t know what they teach them, but “social retardation” is a pretty accurate description of the finished product.
Charter schools here fare a little better, but in the rocky time when they were first permitted, a significant number failed in the first two or three years because the curriculum was developed (such as it was) by nincompoops, followed by the teaching (ditto) by more nincompoops.
Enough on that. THANKS! for the additional Daniel photos! I thought I’d found most of them, but at least one of these is new to me. There’s also a good interview in a UK website with Radcliffe. I really don’t think he’s going to be checking into one of those fashionable rehab spas with Lindsay or her ilk anytime soon. If nothing else, the kid’s a nerd (yay, just like us), who spends most of the disposable part of his $14M worth on BOOKS. (The horror! The horror!)
One of my best friends knows Harry Potter I mean, Daniel Radcliffe, and, if it makes any difference to this line of conversation he is, infact, ’secretly’ bisexual.
One of my best friends from school has had his wand in daniel Radcliffe and it made Harry Potters hairs stand on end!
lol well if anyone cares I found a pic some of u might be interested in… (link)
hehehe
Oz
I saw the play a couple of weeks ago in London, 5th row center.. Daniel is wonderful in his role, the nude scene is only small part of very good play. He is adorable with or without clothes. Believe me the photo of him published on these sites is not his body. He is a nice 17 year old with with appropriate body and parts.