Naughty naughty

Gays have long waited for many harbingers of equality, such as hate-crime laws, domestic-partner benefits, access to marriage, adoption rights, and--a raunchy gay teen sex comedy? Indeed, writer-director Todd Stephens's Another Gay Movie represents a first: a teen sex comedy that pushes the boundaries of taste and on-screen sexuality--a la American Pie, Porky's, and anything by the Farrelly brothers--with a cast of all queer characters.

The film puts a gay spin on a familiar premise, as four high school graduates--jock Jarod (Jonathan Chase), brainy Griff (Mitch Morris), flaming Nico (Jonah Blechman), and clean-cut Andy (Michael Carbonaro)--pledge to lose their anal virginity by summer's end. Outrageous, explicit set pieces involve a penis extension device gone awry, leaving one character with a taffy-esque result; a gassy enema overdose; and, in the film's most explicit American Pie riff, Andy having his way with a freshly baked quiche only to have his parents walk in and notice that he also has a live gerbil shoved up his nether regions. (The latter bit of movie magic involved a fishing line and fake gerbil tail.)

Stephens lampoons many aspects of LGBT culture with equally un-PC zeal: A diesel dyke Casanova beds every femme in reach, Andy accidentally drinks poppers, and one of the boys' would-be tricks overdoses on the party drug GHB, only to be resuscitated and spontaneously break into circuit-party dancing.

"It's great that we can be as vulgar and graphic as straights," says filmmaker Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) who's pushed a few envelopes himself. "And it's wonderful to have silly gay movies instead of [being] earnest or always showing upstanding gay role models. To see people behaving badly, or gays behave in this way--that's fun. It's equality."

Stephens's previous films--he wrote the screenplay for 1998's Edge of Seventeen and directed 2001's Gypsy 83--also revolved around gay teens. The latter, a road movie involving an overweight Stevie Nicks-obsessed girl and her gay best pal, had a difficult time securing distribution. Executives, even those who loved the movie, told him it wasn't "gay" enough for pickup. "So I thought, I'll make the gayest movie ever made," he recalls. "I was really angry when I wrote it. Very frustrated. And Another Gay Movie's what came out."

Vengeance aside, Stephens, 38, had also long felt that a brashly gay teen sex comedy, targeted exclusively to a gay audience, was long overdue, so he whipped up the story with his boyfriend of 20 years, Tim Kaltenecker. "I think the audience has been waiting for a gay teen sex comedy," Stephens opines. "I know I have and wish that I could have seen this movie when I was 15 years old."

He first savored an opportunity to gauge audience reactions (and do preliminary casting) when New York City's NewFest and the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival presented staged readings of the script in 2004. Actor Jonah Blechman--who smooched Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy's Life--was among the participants. "When I first read the script I was initially like, 'This is so wrong, I could never take part,' " he admits. Eventually, however, the bisexual Blechman found himself so intrigued by his own shocked reaction and by Stephens's crossover-appeal-be-damned mind-set that he signed on as executive producer.

Icon Nancy Sinatra was tickled enough to sing the film's title song, "Another Gay Sunshine Day." And an impressive roster of names joined the cast, including Scott Thompson and John "Lypsinka" Epperson; Survivor winner-cum-convict Richard Hatch ("And we do reveal all of Hatch once and for all," gloats Stephens); Noah's Arc star Darryl Stephens; and talk show host Graham Norton, who plays a teacher possessing a monstrous, Tom of Finland-esque organ dubbed "Rodzilla." "When Graham walked around in the giant [prosthetic Rodzilla] penis and nipples, I just was like, 'I can't believe this is happening,' " Stephens admits. "But I thought that was my job--to go too far sometimes."

Yet it was a newcomer, fresh-faced New York-based actor Michael Carbonaro, who took on the most consistently audacious, daring material, from a confrontation with Rodzilla to a naked sprint down a neighborhood street ("I was feeling pretty vulnerable that day") to the aforementioned quiche-and-gerbil scene. "I burned myself during that scene, no joke," Carbonaro says. "Those were real quiches, and they had just come out of the oven. I was pushing it against me, and now when I watch the film, I'm like, 'Why didn't we use an empty dish?' "

Carbonaro says he'd be game for a sequel. Box office willing, Stephens already has one in mind. Set in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Another Another Gay Movie: Gays Gone Wild will see the postvirginal teens jockeying to have the most sex during spring break. Yet there's a slightly bigger question mark for now than whether a sequel or slew of rip-offs will be hatched--namely, what happened to all that quiche?

"Sadly, I don't think anybody did eat it," Stephens shrugs. "I think it just got trashed. Such a beautiful quiche too."