Captain America’s Gay Younger Brother Was In A Popular Music Video

I’ll be your dream, your wish, your fantasy

I had no public role models

From Captain America: the First Avenger to every subsequently thrilling movie in the MCU, Chris Evans played Captain America until he (potentially?) retired the role in the final moments of Avengers: Endgame.

His performance turned a character we all feared would be campy beyond belief instead into a worthy hero. Some would even say a role model.

But when he retired the character, a part of me wondered who would fill that role. Not for the comic book storylines — I trust the MCU to figure that part out with every new iteration. I mean for those of us left in the real world.

I mean for those of us who took aid, comfort, and strength from seeing Captain America onscreen.

How could I ever hope for the next person to inspire us just as much?

No one could have predicted just how powerful an impact Chris Evans would have as Captain America

The MCU has made this point clear, both about the actor and the character. Putting the super soldier serum into a person doesn’t turn them into Captain America.

See also: I Can Watch Fans Cheering Captain America All Day by John DeVore

Fortunately, it seems heroism runs in the family.

But Scott Evans, two years younger than Chris Evans, would need to act fast to save a 90s music star before he took his own life.

The 90s were a tough time for superheroes

Avengers: Endgame featured a time travel heist to save the day.

Just so, the opportunity for Scott Evans to take on a role as inspirational as Captain America would find its roots in the echoes of the past.

Back in the 1990s, a gay young man finally found his voice. He rose to the top of the music charts. Through his lyrics, he helped countless people feel seen. Heard. Accepted.

His name was Darren Hayes. He was the lead singer for Savage Garden. And at the height of his fame, he was hiding secrets that would send him to the brink of suicide.

I was one of the most famous pop stars in the world. No one knew the secret pain I hid

Darren Hayes: To the casual observer, I appeared confident, full of swagger with my vaguely ’70s blow wave and a blue-black dye job that could rival Elvis in his prime. But my bravado was a carefully crafted persona, built to protect me from years of bullying at school, denial and shame about my sexuality, and a mask to hide the rapidly increasing depression that would soon become overwhelming. — Darren Hayes writing for Huffington Post Personal

Darren Hayes spent the formative years of his music career running from the truth of his orientation. He poured his grief and his passion into his music and his lyrics and his indelible singing voice. But those lyrics only hinted at the true grief behind Savage Garden’s most unforgettable songs.

Darren Hayes: I remember the first person to ever call me a faggot was my father. Then it was other school children. I was called “gay” before I knew what the word meant.

Darren Hayes: The ’80s were a horrible time to be a queer kid. We were inundated with warnings about a so-called “gay plague,” and popular culture was littered with negative stereotypes of what a gay person was. I had no public role models I identified with.

Keep in mind that in the 90s, Darren didn’t have a role model like Captain America.

Well, he did, but he looked like this.

Instead, Darren Hayes found his role models on music stages. The poetry of lyrics, the instant hook of a good beat, the meditative mood of his voice could empower him to speak his truth and connect with audiences across the world.

Darren Hayes: I made an impossible, magical pact with the universe that I would become an entertainer and that I would one day make an audience weak at the knees and make an entire auditorium forget their problems.

If he tried hard enough, sang hard enough…he could forget the problems that threatened to end him.

But every element of success threatened to suffocate Darren in a lie

See if you can remember this story. A gay person tries their hardest in a cishet relationship, marriage, family. Eventually, they can’t run from their truth. Eventually, they have to take off their mask.

Darren Hayes: By the time Savage Garden was a household name, I had married my college sweetheart and essentially tried to pretend my attraction to men was just another secret. I believed that since I’d never acted upon it, this part of me was something I would never have to deal with.

But once Darren accepted was gay, the pieces began to fall into place.

He ended his marriage, even though it “felt like destroying innocence.”

He ended Savage Garden, too, though that wasn’t entirely up to him.

He pushed for bolder, queerer representation in his music and his music videos.

He’d never felt so free — so worthy.

He’d need to be if he wanted to survive what came next.

“Have you ever cried about your childhood?”

Darren Hayes: I learned there were fears that audiences would think I was “too gay” and that my image needed to be completely overhauled so as not to scare off fans.

Essentially, I was to be neutered.

As far as Savage Garden and Darren Hayes (okay, and a lot of other stuff), the years between then are kind of a blur for me. I pieced what happened together afterward.

Once the producers saw the rough cut for his music video “Insatiable,” they insisted he reshape his image. They pushed for him to accept what was beyond his control.

The music studio insisted that audiences would never accept a singer as gay on the outside as Darren Hayes was on the inside.

They kept hitting him to the ground. He kept getting back up.

The same thing happened to Captain America. No matter how many times you knock him down, he’s ready to take some more.

The hero’s journey

When Savage Garden broke up, it would be decades before Darren Hayes would create the music video that features a hero for a new generation. The one who helped symbolize what finally made him whole.

Twenty years is a long time to wait for redemption. It makes the five years between Infinity War and Endgame seem like not so long. At least Tony got to share his quirkiest ideas on the front page of Goop.

Imagine if he’d actually lived to old age?

The music video that told us we were in the endgame (or at least starting Phase IV)

Now I know Chris Evans has done a lot.

He’s extremely good looking. He’s been in a bunch of good movies. He was the only good part in a bunch of bad movies.

Impressive, very impressive.

But let’s take a look at the guy on his left.

Captain America’s brother could do this all day

Darren Hayes: My new music videos are a personal triumph for me because I’ve been in charge of every aspect: my clothing, the art direction, and yes, even the man I made out with in “Let’s Try Being In Love” — the proudly out actor Scott Evans, who is phenomenally talented and, in my opinion, most handsome Evans brother (yes, he is Captain America’s brother, if you must know!).

Scott Evans achievements include (Pop Sugar):

• presented the Oscar for best production design to Hannah Beachler from Marvel studio-mate Black Panther
• rushed to escort best supporting actress winner Regina King up the stairs after the train of her gown got caught
• beloved stint on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live as Oliver Fish 2008 to 2010, a young police officer who eventually becomes romantically involved with another male character
• series of guest spots on other TV shows, ranging from the sci-fi drama Fringe to the crime series White Collar to HBO’s dramedy Looking
• recurring role again on Netflix’s comedy Grace and Frankie

And last but not least — certainly as much a herald of things to come as Captain America: the First Avenger proved to be — he kissed the singer who helped so many of us feel seen until it got better for us, too.

My life was going to change whether I wanted it to or not

Darren Hayes: I actually re-created this feeling in my recent music video for my song “Let’s Try Being In Love,” and the tears I cried on that set were as real as the ones I cried 20 years ago.

Darren Hayes: Because I have embraced myself fully in my art, I no longer feel the shame and stigma around my sexuality or my mental health. I openly speak about both because I believe they are connected, and by speaking about what most embarrasses us, it’s my hope that bringing light to sadness drives away the darkness.

I began this article hoping for a hero, but you know how these things go.

It looks like I’ve already found one. Two. Three. A whole bunch of them.

What? You wanted more?

See also: Captain America Looks Like a Twink by James Finn

Two of them are Scott Evans and Darren Hayes.

Scott Evans, brother of Chris Evans, inspires me and my queerness as surely as if he’d worn Cap’s shield himself. I’m so happy to see him in that music video.

Darren inspires me, too. As many years as I’ve spent trying to be as pure as Captain America, I’ve found comfort in admitting I’m just me. There’s no need to run from what I used to fear was darkness.

A moment of death, a moment of hope

Faced with his mother’s final breaths, Darren listened to her as she passed her final words.

His mother apologized for passing on her depression, but Darren cultivated an attitude of gratitude for what many of us — including me — instead so often try to eradicate as thoroughly as Thanos snapping out half of existence.

Darren Hayes: I see [my depression] as a superpower. My depression comes with some downsides, of course, but it also allows me to see and feel emotions that are invisible to many people. There’s a spectrum of color and feeling that is off the charts for many, but available to me and my art. All of that came from the warrior, the survivor, who is my mother.

I told her, “I wouldn’t want any other blood rushing through my heart than yours.”

As for me?

I used to run from my queerness. I used to run from my transness. I’m still running from my depression. But thanks to a radio music god and Captain America’s gay younger brother, I might finally stop running from all three.