That time Paul Reubens gave Pee-wee the gayest send-off possible—in the arms of Joe Manganiello

Actor and comedian Paul Reubens has passed away at the age of 70 after a private, years-long battle with cancer. RIP.

To many, Reubens will always be known as Pee-wee Herman—the career-defining comedic character he created while performing with LA’s famed comedy troupe, The Groundlings—who went on to star in his own television series (the groundbreaking Pee-wee’s Playhouse), two feature films (Big Adventure in ’85 and Big Top Pee-wee in ’88), and became a celebrity in his own right.

For many of us, he was an inspiration: Pee-wee never let the world tell him he was an outsider—he just created a world all his own, one filled with joy and self-discovery, and invited the rest of us in.

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Childlike, whimsical, and comically naive, Pee-wee was a character unlike any other, one whose offbeat humor, specific sense of style, and innate weirdness made him something of a queer icon.

Of course, there was never any definitive answer on Pee-wee’s sexuality. Despite presumed female “love interests” in his films, he was, for all intents and purposes, asexual.

(Reubens himself never commented on his own sexuality, either, though there was much speculation, especially in light of the ’02 obscenity charges—a controversy which temporarily halted his career.)

But when Reubens made his long-awaited feature film return to the character for Netflix’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday in 2016, he did so with a more overt nod to the character’s perceived queerness than we’d ever seen before. It was basically a gay love story!

In the beginning of the film, Pee-wee lives in the small town of Fairville where he works at the local diner. It’s there that he meets the hunky Joe Manganiello—played by Manganiello himself—and the two quickly hit it off. The actor even invites Pee-wee to his birthday party in New York City, encouraging him to leave his hometown for the first time ever.

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Now, Manganiello is one good-looking man, and the film makes no effort to hide it, depicting him as friendly and sensitive but also rugged and masculine, riding his motorcycle around in a leather jacket. Pee-wee is clearly smitten with his new pal (who wouldn’t be), and Big Holiday gets a lot of mileage out of playing up the tension between this odd couple—which all feels pretty homoerotic to us.

There’s a memorable scene early on when Pee-wee makes Joe a milkshake, then watches on in amazement when he slurps it down. In another—a dream sequence of Pee-wee’s—the two are seen jousting with giant straws. Sorry, but if that’s not intentionally queer subtext, we don’t know what is!

Much like Big Adventure, the bulk of Big Holiday is a road movie with plenty of comedic pitstops along the way as Pee-wee comes across all sorts of eccentric characters—a gang of female outlaws, an Amish community, an aviator with a flying car—but nothing can deter him from making it cross-country to Joe’s party.

And the feeling’s not unrequited, either. After multiple hold-ups, it looks like Pee-wee might be a no-show to Joe’s party, which causes the actor to mope around. Later on, after Pee-wee gets trapped in a well in Central Park (okay, so we might’ve glossed over a lot of plot details), Joe rushes to the scene to help.

Once rescued, Pee-wee turns to Joe and asks ,”What about the party?” His hunky friend responds: Pee-wee, we are the party.”

The entire film builds to their climactic reunion, which feels truly joyful and cathartic. You could call it a “bromance,” sure, but how many movies about two male best friends end with them riding off on a motorcycle together, arms firmly around the waist?

In a New York Times profile timed to the film’s release, Reubens himself coyly acknowledged its homoerotic undertones. When the reporter asked him about that phallic straw joust scene in particular, he replied with a grin: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Even Manganello seemed to embrace the queer reading of Pee-wee and Joe’s romance, telling The A.V. Club he was ready for the inevitable fan fiction ‘shipping the characters: “Listen, man, ‘weird’ is my middle name. I’m ready for anything. The weirder, the better.”

You’re welcome to interpret it however you like, but we choose to believe that, at the very least, the movie was Reuben’s sly way of winking to the legions of queer fans who have adored Pee-wee—and found a sense of freedom, of escapism through him—since the beginning.

And, considering Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday was both Reubens’ last film role and Pee-wee’s final on-screen appearance, it’s not insignificant that we say goodbye to the character as he rides off toward the horizon in the arms of another (buff, beautiful) man.

Talk about a happy ending!

Paul Reubens’ legacy will surely live on in the timeless awe and wonder of Pee-wee Heman.

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