Charlie Carver doesn’t leave much to the imagination in his new ad campaign for queer-owned fragrance and candle company Boy Smells.
The video and print campaign, a queer parody of the Garden of Eden called “Nurture Your Nature,” stars “The Batman” actor as “Gay Adam” and “Hacks” standout Meg Stalter as “Bisexual Eve.” Carver wears nothing but a pair of gold booty shorts. His toned body glistens as he and Stalter feed each other pieces of fruit. A live python swings from a tree above them.
Proceeds from Boy Smells’ Marble Fruit Candle and Genderful Fine fragrance benefit LGBTQ organization GLSEN throughout June and July.
“It’s joyful, silly and sexy in a way that’s self-aware,” Carver tells me. “To me, that is what queerness sort of is, the freedom to play, the freedom to be yourself.”
While the campaign doesn’t take itself so seriously, Carver is well aware that the LGBTQ community is under attack throughout the country. “We’re living in this really scary shift where all of this anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation is starting to pass on the state level and there’s the possibility and threat of things happening on a federal level,” he says. “I think it’s incredibly important to be aware and vigilant and serious about the state of LGBTQIA+ rights in this country. But you can also celebrate who you are and who we are as a community. They’re not mutually exclusive.”
Carver, who came out publicly in 2016 after finding fame on “Desperate Housewives” and “Teen Wolf,” appeared in “The Batman” last year with his twin brother Max Carver as The Twins.
“Growing up, my favorite thing to do was to go into the backyard and into the creek and try to film an action movie with brother,” Charlie says. “Then as I started to figure out a little bit more about who I was and what I wanted to do, I thought, ‘How could I be an actor and be gay and how do I reconcile those two things?’ The last job I thought I would be allowed to do would be to play some role in a giant movie, pulling out a gun and jumping off of stuff next to Batman. It was really meaningful in that way.”
