Sorry, to warn you: There will be spoilers.
Last night I found myself in a packed theatre with a bunch of other Torontonions all gathered at Dundas Square waiting for Love, Simon to begin. My theatre was picked as one of the few that got a special early screening of the film.
All photos taken from IMBD
I loved the film. I thought it was cheesy and adorable and perfect. Everything a teen romcom is meant to be. And it was so simplistic in a good way.
But today I keep seeing an article going around with the headline “Love, Simon is a groundbreaking gay movie. But do today’s teen actually need it?” and this kind of irked me.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t actually read the article. I skimmed it, and I think I get the point. Simon is a white male living an American dream lifestyle: he has a nuclear family, both his parents are still together, the children are a boy and a girl, so one of each. Both his parents were popular in high school and both have successful careers. The movie doesn’t really address racism or sexism or barely even gay-bashing of any sort. Simon’s coming out is taken relatively well. There is an incident where he gets made fun of, but his drama teacher and his school support him and stop it immediately. Even the other out kid at school, Ethan is not really shown in any negative light. Every time he gets made fun of he has something quippy to say back which only makes him more popular.
And despite the fact Simon spends most of the movie being blackmailed about his sexuality, and that sucks… it’s still probably the easiest problem that gay kids face at school or in life. So yeah, Simon leads a pretty privileged life.
So I get if the point of the article is to point out that we don’t need another movie about a privileged white kid who comes out and it’s all fine. I’ve seen a lot of people comparing it to Call Me By Your Name (which is a great film, you should go see it if you haven’t), because Elio and Simon are really similar. But the films are not.
Today’s teens do need this movie. It may be really cheesy and really predictable… but it’s also a stupid romcom, and there are not enough lgbt stupid romcoms out there. Like proper feel-good slumber-party-pizza-and-popcorn gay movies. There are dramatic ones, like Moonlight, and Call Me By Your Name even, or the Colour Blue (and even those there aren’t enough of). But I can list so many hetero romcoms off the top of my head full of white males who have perfect lives and get the happy ending. And so many of them are cookie cutter (look at the year of No Strings Attached and Just Friends… literally the same movie came out in the same summer just with different actors and titles).
So sure, Love, Simon isn’t perfect. But it was a good movie, and it was a cute movie. It was a cheesy teen romcom and today’s teens do need to see that. Even when everything about your life is perfect, like Simon’s is, coming out is still hard, and the world is still scary for the minority because people who don’t live it don’t understand. It’s not represented in media enough, especially not with main characters, and especially not in such a casual way. Simon was strong, he wasn’t afraid after everything he stood up for himself to Martin and the kids who tried to bully him and he didn’t let people walk over him because there was nothing wrong with him. He also wasn’t afraid to go find Blue, he went to the carnival, the most public place and he put himself out there, after going through the most embarrassing thing of having his emails leaked. At 17 I would have never been able to do any of that.
No one died, no one lost their family or got kicked out. He just got a happy ending. And it was wonderful.
Also the director’s gay and Keiynan Lonsdale is an angel. And everyone was really funny in the movie. Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner were great (“that’s what I thought we thought, we’re good parents” “yeah, we’re good parents”), Tony Hale was so funny, as was Natasha Rothwell. She had some of the best lines in the film (“I was an extra in The Lion King and now I’m doing this”/ “This is mine now, I’m going to sell it on ebay and get my tubes tied”), I loved her.
I didn’t really like the book when I first read it, partially because they named their dog after Justin Bieber, but also partially because I read it so quickly that I didn’t really take it in. I thought it was kind of unrealistic and really sappy but not in a good way. But now that I’ve seen the movie I’ve come to realize that that’s what’s so great about it. It was just a heartwarming, feel-good movie, and Simon is actually a really great character.
Also the advertising for this movie was so good. All the gay puns were on point.
And the soundtrack. Jack Antonoff did a great job (who’s surprised though…). I listened to Wild Heart (by The Bleachers) all the way home. Spotify it. Trust me.
Interwebconvos 