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

Contents:

• 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR OUT AS GAY
• IS NICK ROBSON GAY? 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR SETS THE RERD STRAIGHT!
• LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
• LOVE, SIMON: AT LAST HOLLYWOOD IS SAYG ‘I’M GAY’
• ‘LOVE, SIMON’ STARS SAY GAY TEEN ROMANCE WILL SAVE LIV
• WHY ‘LOVE, VICTOR’ STAR MICHAEL CIMO TOOK A GAY ROLE AGAST INDTRY ADVICE

'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR OUT AS GAY

Are the actors "Love, Simon" actually gay?

I've heard a uple people say that the actors aren't actually gay. "Pollari, who has played a gay character once before TV seri Amerin Crime, said he stggled wh a sense of shame before g out. Nick Robson stars the new movie Love, Simon about a high-school stunt’s g out journey and fans might be wonrg if the actor is gay or straight real life.

Ellen asked Nick if he hated at all to play a gay character and he said that he went back and forth wh director Greg Berlanti about . 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.

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

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 GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?

(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: AT LAST HOLLYWOOD IS SAYG ‘I’M GAY’

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.

‘LOVE, SIMON’ STARS SAY GAY TEEN ROMANCE WILL SAVE LIV

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. He'd e out privately to Greg Berlanti, the film's openly gay director — as well as the executive producer of The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.

Love, Simon isn't the first time Lonsdale has played a gay character. “If people thk, Oh, he looks gay — well, sure!

WHY ‘LOVE, VICTOR’ STAR MICHAEL CIMO TOOK A GAY ROLE AGAST INDTRY ADVICE

Wh the rporate clout of 20th Century Fox behd , Love, Simon is the first gay teen movie om a major stud.

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. The ultimate spiratn among gay teachers, however, mt be Mart Donovan the 1998 edy The Oppose of Sex.

“I don’t want to be jt theoretilly gay, ” he says, sportg a rabow neckerchief and a much younger boyiend. 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. In makg gayns s subject, while treatg as no big al, Love, Simon pulls off a rare njurg trick wh s hero’s sexualy.

"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. And 's te; plenty of LGBTQ+ movi om the last few s have centered on trma some form or another, like Boys Don't Cry (about a hate crime agast a trans man), Milk (about the murr of California's first openly gay polician), Philalphia (about AIDS and discrimatn), Monster (about a gay serial killer), Bent (about gay men durg the Holot), etc.