'Love, Simon' actor out as gay | SBS Voic

Contents:

• 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR OUT AS GAY
• LOVE, SIMON IS A GROUNDBREAKG GAY MOVIE. BUT DO TODAY'S TEENS ACTUALLY NEED IT?
• IS NICK ROBSON GAY? 'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR SETS THE RERD STRAIGHT!
• LOVE, SIMON? DON’T LOVE, SIMON?: A DEBATE ON THE LTLE GAY MOVIE THAT COULD
• 'LOVE, SIMON' IS A GOTDAMN LIGHTFUL ROM, AND 'S GAY AS HELL

'LOVE, SIMON' ACTOR OUT AS GAY

Countls movi (and books and songs and TV shows) plumb the agony and elatn of teen romance, but “Love, Simon” brgs h perspective to the genre by focg on an experience unseen g-of-age tal: What high-school first love might be like if you’re film treats 17-year-old Simon Spier’s qut for love and self-acceptance wh the tenr, timels, Hollywood touch of John Hugh: It’s a classic story of a first csh ma groundbreakg by centerg on a closeted gay Robson is Simon, a shaggy-haired high-school senr who scrib his life as “totally normal. Simon is gay — he’s known ever sce a recurrg adolcent dream about Daniel Radcliffe — but has kept his sexualy a secret om fally fds an outlet after an anonymo post on the school’s onle gossip fom. A stunt llg himself Blue nfs that he’s gay but hasn’t told anyone, and Simon wr to him, g a psdonym.

Mart threatens to expose the exchange — and Simon’s gay stat — unls Simon agre to set Mart up on a date wh wh any story set the emotnal mefield of high school — pecially the era of social media — dramatic social chaos ensu for everyone. He says he was “a closeted gay high-schooler” himself and celebrat “Love, Simon” as the first mastream Hollywood g-of-age film wh a gay succs of “Black Panther” and the momentum behd #MeToo are propelled by the ia that reprentatn matters, and “Love, Simon” is part of that nversatn. “Love, Simon” is a universal story, even if you’re not a gay teenager.

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

Love, Simon has won over many gay fans wh s tale of an unassumg hero nontg the challeng of g out high school. But not everyone the LGBT muny lov an op-ed for The New York Tim, Jab Tobia reunted how he was "a verable genrqueer ms" after seeg the movie -- the first about a gay teen to be ma by a major stud, 20th Century, who is genr-nonnformg, bemoaned how Love, Simon privileged the whe, heteronormative character, while silg a more effemate character of lor, Ethan.

"For over a , the unspoken le of gay cema and televisn has been that gay men n be sexy protagonists -- as long as they are mascule gay men, " Tobia wrote. "Feme or genr-nonnformg gay men, on the other hand, are sexualized edic relief. ""Mascule gay men are central characters, unrstood as attractive, powerful, tertg and dynamic, " they add.

"Feme gay men, genr-nonnformg folks and trans people are, at bt, gut stars, nied real plots, romantic story l or central posns the story.

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

"Tobia said Love, Simon "flirted" wh this "right type of gay" trope through s ma character, Simon. It sparked paful memori om their own school experience, where mascule gay men "profed om my existence" by stg themselv as relatively "normal" to straight peers. None of this ever happened when jt you were You know what they say, one gay is a snooze, two's a hilar hate crime.

The Homo Sapiens Agenda -- as a major victory reprentatn. "Moore did not see Ethan as a foil but rather as a character that giv more pth to the spectm of diversy wh the gay muny.

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

"An apology om Simon may also have been outsi the ken of the ma character, who has spent his young life fearg how his existence may change as an out gay man. Are gays and lbians generally accepted by North Amerin society? Lookg at the advanc civil rights, would seem that the liv of gays and lbians have much improved.

But the fact is homophobia hasn’t disappeared, ’s merely stealth mo. It is media reprentatns of gay men that the new “stealth homophobia” most clearly shows s face. Gay men are out and proud on some TV shows — the new rnatn of Queer Eye for stance.

But Queer Eye still offers effemate gay men who make lgh when they remend sk products or drs hair.

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

This year’s Osr wner for bt movie, The Shape of Water, portrayed a sympathetic olr gay iend (played by Richard Jenks) who is gentle, effemate, and of urse, sad — an archetype that has domated Amerin cema sce Sal Meo’s Plato Rebel Whout a Cse. Recently, I saw the gay rom- film, Love, Simon downtown Toronto. The theatre was filled wh llege-aged stunts who mostly seemed to sympathize wh the leadg character — a gay, closeted, high school stunt.

‘Love, Simon’ is nsired to be the first mastream teen romantic edy wh a gay lead character (played by Nick Robson, send om left). That Love, Simon is beg hailed as a breakthrough gay film is credibly ironic.

The Guardian recently reported that “mastream cema has begun to treat gay love stori like any other romance. There is no nudy, no sex and very ltle physil proximy between the gay characters what purports to be a gay romance. Love, Simon mak clear why homophobia is not about to disappear any day soon.

Of urse all gay men are not effemate, but Wtern culture, male on male sire is evably associated wh effemacy bee sex between men volv one man submtg himself to another. Guy Hocquenghem, one of the first queer theorists, wrote about this his 1972 book, Homosexual Dire. To be sure, we have ma civil rights advanc gay rights sce those days, and rapidly sce 1969.

In this file photo, a member of the gay muny wearg a swastika and a sign statg ‘Fascism is alive and well and breedg Toronto’ walks past a police officer as he leav a police missn hearg, Toronto, Ont., Feb.

Four years later 1973 the first Gay Pri events began to pop up across Canada. The Cy of Toronto officially regnized Pri Day Toronto around 1981 — the same time that the police Bath Hoe Raids Toronto galvanized support for the gay and lbian muny. Durg the 1980s HIV and AIDs was a public health crisis for the gay muny.

Gay men blamed homophobic lawmakers for their lack of support for rearch and treatment.

And fally, imag of gay and lbian upl are everywhere the days — or at least seems that way.

TD Bank has featured lovg gay and lbian upl s advertisg mpaigns — along wh Ti, Red Rose Tea and McDonald’s. A gay movie, Call Me By Your Name, recently took home an Osr this year, followg the tradn set by Moonlight last year.

Stealth homophobia. Dpe this progrs and the legalizatn of gay marriage many untri, toleratn of diverse sexuali is pretty much nfed to large wtern ci.

That’s jt Ontar; try beg openly gay or lbian Jamai, Rsia, Uganda, Lhuania or Zanzibar. ” Homophobia still eply affects people livg wh HIV.

But as cril theorist David Halper remds , si the morn associatn of homosexualy wh femy we n see “the force wh which earlier pre-homosexual sexual tegori ntue to exert their thory. Homophobia has been around for a long time.