Gay Therapist Discs “Love, Simon” om a Gay Men’s Mental Health Perspective - Gay Therapy LA

Contents:

• LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
• POPULAR GAY MEDIA IS STILL FOCG ON STRAIGHT ACCEPTANCE, RATHER THAN CELEBRATG QUEER DIFFERENCE
• IS NICK ROBSON GAY? 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR SETS THE RERD STRAIGHT!
• GAY THERAPIST DISCS “LOVE, SIMON” OM A GAY MEN’S MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE

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

The queert part of Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon — the first major stud release to feature a gay teenage protagonist, which has been warmly received sce s premiere last month — isn’t that tular gay teen. Ethan livers a brief, movg monologue about his mother’s reactn to his gayns, and her obv disappotment who he is — an experience mon to queer teens, but seemgly nceivable to his few mut of screentime, Ethan is exactly as siled a film about a teen who is gay (but not that gay) as he would be the hundreds of thoands of high school feterias that Ethans mt move through.

Even though, obvly, if he tly were like everyone else — that is, straight — there would be no movie to be a review for Time, cric Daniel D’Addar asks, “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? “Gays are jt like everyone else” has been the rallyg cry of a certa stra of gay liberatn, a tactic that succeed endg polici like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, topplg the Defense of Marriage Act, and achievg feral marriage equaly.

Ultimately, Simon offers no more queer reprentatn than hyper-mastream antecents like Will Tman (Eric McCormack) Will & Grace, upstandg gay lawyer, or Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) Philalphia (1993), upstandg gay lawyer: a poster boy for well-behaved viance, never forcg straight people to look directly at the boundari of their world. “I’m jt like you” as an argument for equal treatment suggts that Simon Spier, or any other gay person, serv rpect and unrstandg by virtue of our siari wh straight people, rather than spe our differenc — a nstctn we’re still beg fed queer media that sets the lims of acceptable queerns at the borr of heterosexual fort. ” msage orr to hold the attentn of the wist (read: straightt) possible cleart succs of the reboot is an episo tled “To Gay or Not Too Gay, ” the subject of which is a semi-closeted gay man, a relatnship and out to his close iends but not to his stepmother.

POPULAR GAY MEDIA IS STILL FOCG ON STRAIGHT ACCEPTANCE, RATHER THAN CELEBRATG QUEER DIFFERENCE

His week wh the Fab Five seems to be the first signifint amount of time he’s spent wh other gay men outsi his immediate circle, talkg openly about femy, masculy, queerns, and the challenge of livg thentilly, however that may look. But the queer guy’s queer eye begs and ends wh this episo, the rt havg the tone of an alien abductn: five gay men scendg on an unspectg, middle-aged hetero to change the way he se the world forever.

And like Love, Simon, the new Queer Eye often tak pas to highlight the siary of s Fab Five hosts to their mostly straight subjects, by monstratg, as terr signer Bobby puts , that “ don’t matter if ’s gay or straight — the mon thread that holds every human together is that we jt wanna be loved. ’” But fact, Lowr, argu, Queer Eye “shows exactly the oppose: that the gays are very different om their patients, and that is precisely that difference that’s so valuable to the show’s project. Love, Simon portrays the latter experience a brief montage which Simon googl “how to drs like a gay guy” and tri on a few new outfs om what I image is Gap, if my own gay suburban experience is any ditn.

The former stage, talkg to straight people about , mak up much of the film’s third act, which each of Simon’s fay members and close iends tak center stage to liver a monologue of their own thoughts on his gayns, and how okay they are wh . It was ls of a risk 2017 than was 1998 for NBC to greenlight a s about a gay lawyer and his only gay iend — particularly if ’s the exact same s, now wh a built- dience, hungry for nostalgia.

IS NICK ROBSON GAY? 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR SETS THE RERD STRAIGHT!

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. Bram realiz that Victor is feelg overwhelmed by the experience, wh him emg "too gay" and cis to take him to a basketball league, where they play, Bram then reveals that is a gay league, he wanted Victor to see that there is no one way to be gay. He knows pecially his parents would be all right wh his homosexual orientatn, spe Jack's often polilly rrect jok, and that most of the stunts accept Ethan, their one and only openly gay classmate, but Simon has failed to e out for var reasons, mostly havg to do wh the change that would occur what he has known as his life.

Leah also adms to Simon that she was love wh him and would have been fe wh him beg gay, but she is still mad about the returng to school, the other stunts all gawk at Simon after what happened.

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

Afterwards, Simon is gog home when he is approached by Mart, who is very apologetic, but Simon tells him to fuck talks to his mom, who has no problem wh him beg gay and says he should be ee to be himself. )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.

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. It's difficult to talk about Keiynan Lonsdale's pivotal scene Love, Simon whout spoilg the movie's most lightful surprise, but 's helpful to know that performg also changed Lonsdale's the film, Lonsdale — bt known as Wally Wt, aka Kid Flash, on CW's The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow — plays Bram, one of three possible love terts for Simon Spier (Nick Robson), a closeted gay teenager who stumbl to an anonymo onle flirtatn wh another closeted gay teen he knows only as Blue. There are plenty of gay and queer romantic edi and LGBTQ+ movi that are romantic, light-hearted, pellg, and edic, like Love, Simon, Bros, and Happit SeasonLove, Simon gaed a lot of attentn and buzz durg s 2018 release, maly bee was one of the first mastream gay romantic edi.

In my work as a licensed psychotherapist and life/bs ach specializg gay men and therapy for gay male upl for over 26 years, I blog equently on topics on LGBTQ+ mental health general, and gay men’s therapy particular, as the founr and director of GayTherapyLA, seeg clients my office Los Angel (Wt Hollywood) but also via phone or webm to gay male clients for therapy or achg California, all over the untry, or the world.

At the (long) ncsn stand l, there was a mix of teens, olr adults, straight and gay patrons (many wh enuragg – and hot – public displays of affectn), gog to all the movi of the multiplex, but many streamg om the ncsn le to the dorium (the ma, largt one of the plex) where “Love, Simon” was butg. While “Brokeback Mounta” certaly broke ground as another mastream, big-stud, highly-publicized movie wh gay them and well-known stars, still had a b of the stigma that gay characters have had film history for a very long time – eher beg the butt of jok many s, or the “tragic figur” who end up ad or alone or unhappy due to circumstanc (as [SPOILER] “Brokeback Mounta” do). One of the many thgs that’s groundbreakg about “Love, Simon” is that ’s not tragic nor lghg at the gay characters; we are sympathetic wh them, whether ’s the genr-nformg gay Simon, or the genr non-nformg gay (man of lor) Ethan.

His character beg 17 but the actor beg 22 keeps om beg creepy for an olr gay man like me (and so many others that dience) who I’m sure found Robson nsistently charmg and cute a certa PG-13 sexs that so many teen romanc have (anyone remember the hottie “Sixteen Candl”? Our empathy wh Nick-as-Simon marks a far cry om the days of Frankl Pangborn, Edward Everett Horton, and Clifton Webb playg gay (or wk-and-nod gay) characters that as dienc we liked but always seemed to lgh “at”, not “wh”, even to some extent Nathan Lane a film as recent as “The Birdge”, or s French precsor, “La Cage x Foll”. We’re also a far cry, the history of film, om the days of tragic or sry gay characters as “Cisg”, “Silence of the Lambs”, “The Children’s Hour” (lbian-themed), and so many others (each of those films had protts for s negative portrayals of LGBT characters).

Nick Robson, his Type-O, broad likeabily factor, mak film history by blowg past all of those (even classic) gay characters and danc (kda badly, one fantasy sequence, breakg the stereotype of gay men as good dancers) to his own place as a “new kd of gay” character, the Teen Romantic Lead. This story don’t e om a gay man wh an tobgraphil ax to grd (not that there’s anythg wrong wh that), but om a mastream, extremely popular genre of entertament the YA novel world (thk “Twilight” seri on film, or “Vampire Diari” on televisn).

One of my iends, Jam De Mason (who is the out son of Go-Go’s lead sger Belda Carlisle and grandson of Hollywood legend Jam Mason, who is also nng for Cy Council the Cy of Wt Hollywood), scribed this feelg on Facebook his own reactn to “Love, Simon”, mentng how he would have loved, as a teen at 14, to see a movie like this and experience that feelg that he’s not alone as a gay teen.

When our Amerin gay teens experience so much validatn the days by all the anti-gay (and anti-LGBT) msag g om Tmp and nsistently ALL of his bet and lleagu, is up to , as The People, and to our popular culture, to n terference wh those negative msag (that n drive LGBT teens to prsn or suici!

” In makg “Love, Simon”, the creators do more than make a “good movie”, they create a vehicle of visibily that leads to -mystifyg the LGBT experience general, and young gay men particular, that certaly n soften hearts and mds toward a more tolerant, equal society. That’s not a lecture nor a polil speech, but the fictnal pictn of a story like Simon’s that is actually que realistic, multiplied by lns of young gay men throughout our world, and throughout time. Sympathetic gay characters have been seen prime time on “All the Fay” early 70’s, “Soap” 1977 (when Fundamentalist Christians protted the cln of a gay character, played by Billy Crystal, before the show even premiered on ABC), “Dynasty” the 80’s wh gay son “Stephen” (lled “Sensive Steve” some episo summari) who was a b groundbreakg until they ma Stephen impregnate a woman), and of urse the former-and-prent “Will & Grace, ” which balanced “straight-actg” Will wh a flamboyant stereotype, “Jack”, played by the gay actor Sean Hay, who had a ridiculoly flamboyant (offensively played, I believe) across the dial wh “Cam” om “Morn Fay”, played by (straight) Eric Stontreet.

Berlanti perhaps has done more for LGBT advocy by way of cln popular culture than even some gay polil activists bee he knows the power of televisn to perate (tee hee hee) the Amerin home and challenge fay prejudic by way of (excellent) entertament fare (I’m also a superhero fan boy, so Berlanti’s seri of superhero-themed shows, “Arrow”, “The Flash”, “Legends of Tomorrow”, “Supergirl” n do no wrong my book). I told him that I thought the filmmakers liberately set “Love, Simon” an affluent suburb as a mographic choice; that the film is perhaps pecially marketed to middle-class moviegoers middle-class multiplex all over the untry, and perhaps this “Whe Suburbia” settg was chosen to make the film relatable, pecially to a rather middle-class swath of the populatn, and they uld be fiven for a b of what some might term “whe-washg”, pecially sce another gay character (at least) is a person of lor, the Ain-Amerin, Ethan. ” That may be te – for me, I had a rather idyllic first experience, only to experience how gay men n be cel to one another much later – but the story is about Simon’s senr year high school; what happens to him later, like llege or beyond, as an out, gay man, is subject to speculatn.

In my general optimism, I like to picture the character havg a particularly good “It Gets Better”-style adult life, much like director Berlanti himself, who to many is not only an admirable Hollywood figure as prolific wrer, producer, and director, but also seems to epomize an ialized gay life wh a handsome hband (soccer star Robbie Rogers) and their adorable fant son. The effect of nearly nstant validatg msag the news, the media, seemgly everywhere, for young gay men n have the effect of disuragg their dreams and erodg their self-teem and their profsnal ambns. But, jt sell , please, so that gay reprentatn will not jt be a flash the pan anomaly, but a closer step toward full tegratn film, and the broar culture, which ntribut to full tegratn legally and socially, at a time when “relig eedom” laws proposed threaten to take steps backward far too many areas of our untry, along wh other atroci agast the LGBT Amerin populatn this “Tmp Era”, which gay in Bette Midler lled, her Tony award acceptance speech, “the terrible, terrible tim.

The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, Love, Simon is centered on Simon’s last year high school, as he and his photogenic pals (all played by terrific up-and-g actors their 20s) navigate var romantic wo. Much of Love, Simon’s overarchg plot is dited to unravelg this mystery, as Simon pours his heart out onle to someone whose real name he don’t even ’s the bt part of the film—the dramatizatn of a search for muny and the isolatn that many gay teenagers n experience even if they live relatively supportive environments.

I’m happy to see a major-stud teen film wrtle wh homosexualy and life the closet as more than a il subplot, even though I wish there had been a more engagg character to build that progrs around. Ethan was a great addn bee you also get that amazg scene where ’s two gay guys stg next to each other who uld not be more different and ’s a remr that Simon is jt one particular story of g out, and this movie is jt one particular movie about .