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HAPPY HOLIGAYS: EVERY 2021 LGBTQ+ HOLIDAY MOVIE
For Lifetime, which last year had “The Christmas Setup, ” the channel’s first-ever movie starrg gay leads, the move was a big one: the premiere of “Unr the Christmas Tree, ” s first movie featurg lbians as the uple at the center of a holiday romance.
Meanwhile, Hallmark ma a smaller step by settg “The Christmas Hoe 2: Deck Those Halls, ” a sequel to 2020’s “The Christmas Hoe, ” which featured Jonathan Bent and Brad Harr as a gay uple lookg to adopt. The dispary between the extents to which the Christmas-obssed ble channels are focg on LGBTQ holiday ntent 2021 is nsistent wh their rpective cisns ma on the matter last year, when Lifetime st a gay uple as leads “The Christmas Setup” and Hallmark featured s first homosexual uple as part of an ensemble “The Christmas Hoe. “Even though we’ve got ‘Unr the Christmas Tree, ’ which is a real highlight, we’ve got several others the mix that are clive, whether they’re gay upl or jt characters, we’ve been tryg to make sure that people are reprented across the board, ” Lifetime head of programmg Amy Wter told TheWrap durg an Oct.
When “The Christmas Setup, ” Lifetime’s first-ever movie starrg gay leads, played by married--real-life uple Ben Lewis and Blake Lee, buted last year, Wter told TheWrap she had been lookg for a project starrg LGBTQ leads for some time, but was very agast somethg “really sacchare. “The fact that big Hallmark — the greetg-rd divisn — overturned Bill Abbott’s cisn on the Zola ad shows that the pany is ser about diversy their mographics, and we’re seeg lots of baby steps the 2020 and 2021 movi wh gay and lbian B-stori.
MAKE THE YULETI GAY WH THE NEW LGBTQ CHRISTMAS MOVI
(Durg the Abbott era, spottg a queer uple was like tryg to fd a gay character a 1940s movie that somehow slipped past the Productn Co. Trapped for eight months wh strangers (Sarah Booth and Ian Lake), Alex faced horrible punishments and beatgs that were tend to cure her homosexualy. Based on a harrowg te story, when 15-year-old Alex (Addison Holley) revealed she was gay to her vout Mormon parents, they feared so eply for her soul that they took her om their Southern California home and placed her agast her will a nversn therapy home Utah.
After realizg she would have to subm to their l orr to survive, Alex was eventually allowed to attend school, where she beme iends wh a boy that was the print of the gay-straight alliance.
Savg Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That’s When My Nightmare Began. To learn more tails of Alex’s story, and to hear her own words, check out her memoir, Savg Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That’s When My Nightmare Began.