Love, Simon: at last Hollywood is sayg ‘I’m gay’ | Love, Simon | The Guardian

Contents:

• LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
• 'LOVE, SIMON' IS A GOTDAMN LIGHTFUL ROM, AND 'S GAY AS HELL
• SIMON IS GAY
• LOVE, SIMON: AT LAST HOLLYWOOD IS SAYG ‘I’M GAY’
• LOVE, SIMON? DON’T LOVE, SIMON?: A DEBATE ON THE LTLE GAY MOVIE THAT COULD
• GAY THERAPIST DISCS “LOVE, SIMON” OM A GAY MEN’S MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE
• A ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT A GAY TEENAGER? WHAT TOOK SO LONG?

LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?

The new movie Love, Simon reprents somethg new: a look at what ’s like to be a gay teen that’s as slick and mastream as n be, like any other YA romantic edy. As his profile at school evolv, he’s mocked for beg gay by the jocks, but elsewhere his search for a boyiend is met wh a zealo enuragement that saps the movie’s tensn.

Plenty of gay kids are supported by those around them, but how many are appld and rooted on by the school en masse, as Simon is, as they seek love?

'LOVE, SIMON' IS A GOTDAMN LIGHTFUL ROM, AND 'S GAY AS HELL

Can a love story centered around a gay teen who is very refully built to seem as straight as possible appeal to a generatn that’s boldly reventg genr and sexualy on s own terms? There’s no reason that the first gay romantic edy for young viewers necsarily need to look so much like the pat, flat rom-s wh which today’s teens are barely faiar. The culture, even a ago, was awash anti-gay rhetoric and msagg, om shows like The Office to movi like The 40-Year-Old Virg.

SIMON IS GAY

(The former relentlsly teased s lone queer office drone; the latter, a liberal-md edy, psed the actn for a lengthy sequence of mean gay jok. Love, Simon feels like a film rpondg to an entirely different culture, like one which gay marriage was never legalized. That cisn both acknowledged that equaly for gays had won the day and opened the door for far more tertg and challengg fights, on the next generatn will lead.

It has been a phenomenal sprg for out gay actors popular entertament, and one of the bt thgs about is how much ls remarkable that is now than would’ve been a ago. But there’s an pable every-boy qualy to Robson that mak him the perfect poster boy for a mastream Amerin edy yet a really ill-ftg one for gay dienc. Listen to a theater’s reactn to the big Simon/Bram kiss at the end of the movie and tell me you don’t get swept up the possibili for Lonsdale to play gay romantic leads for the next two s of his reer.

There, Pollari played another gay kid, albe a really troubled one; his performance was a revelatn, and though he didn’t officially e out the prs until he ma the Love, Simon rounds this sprg, was no surprise given the emotnal telligence he’d brought to his performanc. Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why hasn’t been quiet about a lot of s them, but they have managed to lowkey create one of the most straightforwardly queer shows on TV simply by wrg a multiplicy of gay characters — wh varied personali, experienc, and loyalti, no ls — and stg several gay actors to play both gay and straight rol. Tommy Dorfman, who plays rint lerary-magaze maven Ryan Shaver on 13 Reasons, is the only out gay actor playg a gay character on the show, but the 26-year-old actor brgs plexy to a character who might have read like a one-dimensnal bch on the page.

LOVE, SIMON: AT LAST HOLLYWOOD IS SAYG ‘I’M GAY’

Still, for anyone who grew up readg about on-set satg mors for every show om Beverly Hills, 90210 to Dawson’s Creek to Roswell, feels like a breakthrough and of self to have h TV shows where we n sually gossip about gay relatnships the same way we n about straight on. A reprentative for Mil Heizer shot down the mors of a Brandon/Mil romance last year — and now Flynn is datg Osr-wng gay person Sam Smh, so now we n all wre our own longg fanfictns every time Jt and Alex are a scene together.

We sometim make the mistake of mandg perfectn gay media, and Love, Simon and 13 Reasons Why fall short of perfectn to varyg gre and for var reasons.

LOVE, SIMON? DON’T LOVE, SIMON?: A DEBATE ON THE LTLE GAY MOVIE THAT COULD

The Homo Sapiens Agenda, ” “Love, Simon” is about seventeen-year-old Simon Spier (Nick Robson), who is your ordary high school boy wh a close-kn circle of iends and a lovg fay, except for one secret that he has kept om them. One day Blue, another stunt at his high school, posts that he is gay, and Simon immediately msag him sayg he knows how Blue feels. But Simon was jt Simon, and beg gay is only one of his numero quali addn to his sense of humor, love for his fay and support for his iends.

The edy the movie was very effective munitg the stggl many gay teens have to al wh relatn to their iends, fai and muni. An actor om the film Love, Simon has e out as gay.Joey Pollari, who plays Lyle, a Waffle Hoe employee, me out durg an , sayg there were clear parallels between his experience and that of the film's protagonist, Simon (played by Nick Robson).“His experience was siar to me,” Pollari said. I thk maybe two people were shocked."Pollari, who has played a gay character once before TV seri Amerin Crime, said he stggled wh a sense of shame before g out.“A lot of the trouble was self-shame.

GAY THERAPIST DISCS “LOVE, SIMON” OM A GAY MEN’S MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE

)Ben Rothste/20th Century FoxAnd there is somethg to be said for isolatg Simon’s sexualy as his sole pot of difference, to highlight the trials of g out when beg gay is somethg one n believably hi. Even Simon’s ternalized homophobia, as evinced by his attu toward Ethan, will be relatable to anyone who’s supprsed some part of their inty they were tght to believe is ls than. When Simon imag how much more fortable he’ll feel beg gay llege, a fantasy sequence set to Whney Hoton’s “I Wanna Dance Wh Somebody” fds his dorm room walls plastered wh gay ins om Whney to Audrey Hepburn, and a swarm of classmat cked pri flag lors dancg their way onto the quad wh Simon reluctantly tow.

” After Simon is outed onle to his classmat, Ethan wonrs why Simon didn’t tell him that he’s gay, nsirg he’s the only other out kid school. Cast & crewUser reviewsTrivia2018PG-131h 50mSimon Spier keeps a huge secret om his fay, his iends and all of his classmat: he's gay.

A ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT A GAY TEENAGER? WHAT TOOK SO LONG?

When that secret is threatened, Simon mt face everyone and e to terms wh his Spier keeps a huge secret om his fay, his iends and all of his classmat: he's gay. Tolerance has s mercial benefs; a gay film need no longer appeal exclively to small or specialised when Betiful Thg opened 1996, the UK age of nsent for gay men had only recently been lowered om 21 to 18 (still two years higher than the heterosexual one). Lbians and gay men were banned om servg the armed forc, the sid Sectn 28 was seven years away om beg repealed while phras like “civil partnership” and “marriage equaly” were as unfaiar then as “social media” and “trigger warng” Get Real, a Brish g-out movie that followed two years after Betiful Thg, feel-good material still had to acknowledge the possibily of vlence and homophobia.

Photograph: RONALD GRANTThe -stigmatisatn of homosexualy has removed om drama one of s olst standbys: the threat of ostracisatn and social .

Audienc the 1960s uld well prehend the distrs of the barrister, played by Dirk Bogar, who is blackmailed over his sexualy Victim, jt as their 1980s unterparts appreciated the sndal of a married man wh a gay lover Makg Love. She wants to play footsie, he wants to watch most strikg achievement of Love, Simon is s promotn of a gay character om sassy sikick to thentic hero. "Oftentim, when you have someone at the lead of a film who is also a gay character, for some reason they have to be gog through some emotnal crisis, whether ’s disease or a dg addictn or bad fay life, " says Robson.