Review: Naked Boys Singing!

Robert Schrock’s Naked Boys Singing! is the biggest waste of dick since Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. But here the problem is the opposite: there’s way too much of it. Christian, restaging his original Off Broadway musical, overplays the faux pas of nudity until the whole joke becomes a deadening stunt. In the opening bit “Gratuitous Nudity,” designed to completely desensitize viewers to the male form, guys of various sizes and ethnicities flaunt their junk around stage and poke fun at each other’s embarrassment. As in any generic tourist attraction playing on Broadway, the message here is self-acceptance: A nude “maid” sings about keeping his integrity by ignoring the come-ons of his boss, dropping cute puns about his naughty bits and pieces along the way. Too bad there’s no sexual energy to speak of in a movie called Naked Boys Singing!; a real ball-buster would have kept its audience in a perpetual state of pre-orgasm, but this movie’s shrill song-and-dance about loving your body is too obvious, too literal, and too content to generate any real heat. Since there’s not an erotic image in Naked Boys Singing!, its only pleasure for gay males must be pure irony—and bad show tunes.