Animal Pictures, founded by Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne, produced a film last year called Crush, now streaming on Hulu. It’s an entertaining coming of age comedy I wish was around when I was growing up. It’s writing speaks to the sublime spectrum of sexuality while emphasizing how we’re here to express ourselves and find our people along the way.
There is a wonderful bi character in the film who is an artist and is somewhat private about both. AJ Campos played by Auli’i Cravalho is smart and perceptive. She feels real and more fully formed than your typical teen movie character. Honestly, I wanted her to be the protagonist or for us to have a starring spin-off to look forward to! Crush delivers on a lot of levels. Paige, it’s main character sets out to write an essay about her “happiest moment” to get into the Cal Arts summer program. While dealing with common themes from lots of movies, Crush solves this and other problems in completely new ways and is a total blast to watch! It’s the queer rom-com I didn’t know I needed!
I haven’t seen a high school queer comedy that provided this many laughs since But I’m A Cheerleader, starring Natasha Lyonne. That being said, I love that she chose to produce this one! This time the themes aren’t heavy like that 1999 satire about conversion therapy. In fact, it’s cool to be queer at the high school in Crush and the main character’s mom, played by Megan Mullally, is incredibly supportive. She even borders on too supportive, providing awkward comic relief. I love that this is a direction rom-coms are going in. It’s a genre I love to enjoy!
Yellowjackets, on Showtime, is one of my favorite shows on TV. The creators do a wonderful job of transporting the viewer to high school in the 90’s, and since I graduated in 1999, I was instantly on board. These characters are unique and nuanced in their attractions and I was thrilled to see the show’s cast includes at least four queer characters. “Van” or Vanessa Palmer is played by Lauren Ambrose and really won me over from the start. When we visit her in modern day, she owns a video store somewhere in PA. This show features some of my favorite music and movie references from the 90’s and really channels how media can bring us back to a very specific time and place.
I remember watching the mesmerizing Angelina Jolie in Gia (1998) on HBO and subsequently discovering Foxfire at the video store (1996) starring her, Jenny Shimizu, and Jenny Lewis. These films led me to find All Over Me (1997) starring Leisha Hailey before she was cast in The L Word. I still love listening to the soundtrack from Velvet Goldmine (1998). It transports me right back to seeing it’s colorful musical montages and costume changes for the first time! The world was different then, but we are still dealing with a lot of the same inequities today.
Most of my favorite queer films from the 90’s get progressively bleak as they play, and for good reason, times were tough. I do have a dark sense of humor, and maybe the repetitive nature with which I watched these films is partly why. Yellowjackets definitely translates some of the melancholy of the times, which is just as relevant now. But despite it’s heart-breaking subject matter, I really appreciate it’s celebration of female friendships and all of the women the show employs in front of and behind the camera.
I’m not afraid to admit that I’m more sensitive to watching the queer movies I mentioned from the 90’s now. Maybe it’s because times are still tough and possibly getting tougher. When rewatching, I’ve been known to stop or fast forward them to create the queer joy I need to see today.
That’s why finding a current film like Crush is so affirming and uplifting! I had to share it’s name with you, no matter what your age, because it shows queer women being dynamic and unique individuals! It shows us creating art, finding love, experiencing success like wonderfully complicated and creative human beings. Crush shows queer women supported by their friends and family. And above all, this movie really makes me laugh! Our stories can be fun and fulfilling to watch, over and over again through to the end! That's what I want for us…to see bi+ characters experiencing joy in wonderful ways at any age because that is the reality I want to live in!
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