Love, Simon is a tone mastream movie as foregrounds a gay character, but might have been outpaced by real life.
Contents:
- LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
- SIMON COWELL IS GAY, ACRDG TO UNRVER FOOTAGE SHOWN AT TULISA TRIAL
- 'LOVE, SIMON' IS A GOTDAMN LIGHTFUL ROM, AND 'S GAY AS HELL
LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
* simon is gay *
There’s a precent for stori about gay teens g to themselv. 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.
SIMON COWELL IS GAY, ACRDG TO UNRVER FOOTAGE SHOWN AT TULISA TRIAL
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? A tone that feels overdue–the first mastream teen edy foregroundg a gay character–may have been outpaced by real life.
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.
'LOVE, SIMON' IS A GOTDAMN LIGHTFUL ROM, AND 'S GAY AS HELL
(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 is a rrective to that, prentg a universe which beg gay is, fally, O. Love, Simon feels like a film rpondg to an entirely different culture, like one which gay marriage was never legalized.