I just got back from seeing Love, Simon. It was a great movie, and I encourage you to go see it… Unless you’re like the people who were sitting directly behind me.
Let me elaborate. [Spoilers for the movie below.]
The girls sitting behind me were probably in their mid to early teens. They were very rowdy throughout the trailers. A trailer for some romcom comes on and one of them says “It looks like it’s a good movie, but I don’t want to see it since it’s not gay.”
Okay. So either they’re a bunch of LGBTQ kids who (like me) are excited to see a major film with a gay protagonist. It’s rare enough.
But once the movie starts, things go downhill. They continue with a super loud commentary. One of the first things they say when the protagonist and his male friends appeared was “Okay. Which one’s Sh/ro, and which one’s L/nce?”, obviously referencing one of the of the most popular ships in the V/lton fandom. Hooo boy. We’re in for a ride.
I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, and try to tune them out except to ask them to stay quiet a few times. (They acknowledge me and then ignore me.)
Whenever the protagonist was on screen with a boy, any boy, they’d start chanting “my ship! My ship! My ship!” They would squeal whenever he showed any interest in any boy. One literally said “squee.”
Yup. We’ve got some teenage girls fetishizing same-sex love between men.
Great.
It’s a touching story, and there’s a scene where the protagonist and his father have a heart-to-heart about his sexuality. It’s very touching, and I’m bawling my eyes out, because I never got that from my family when I came out. I’m jealous, and happy for the protagonist, and just overwhelmed with emotion.
At which points one of the girls behind me pipes up “I’m almost having an emotion!”
That’s when it becomes abundantly clear. These girls aren’t here ‘cause they relate to the story. They’re not trying to relate to the protagonist’s experience or emotions. They don’t care about the struggles he’s facing as a gay teen who’s been forcibly outed against his will. They’re here, they came to see this movie, just because they wanted to see some guys smooch. They’re missing the entire fucking point.
Because this isn’t a story about a romance. No. Sure, it ends up with the protagonist in a relationship, and his love for his penpal plays a major role in the plot, but it’s mostly about him being gay, being afraid of the social consequences, facing homophobia, growing up in a world oversaturated with heretosexuality where that’s the norm, coming to terms with his sexuality, and just generally his coming out story. The romance is a side plot.
They scream and squeal, and during the final scene when the protagonist meets the boy he loves, they get up and scream, and squeal at the top of their lungs. They chat “my ship! My ship! My ship!” and say “If they don’t kiss, I’m gonna punch someone!” After they do kiss, the girls say “Best movie ever!”
They leave, joking about how loud they were. “Should we apologize to that person for being so loud?”
“Lol no. I’m not sorry.”
“Yeah. We’re always gonna be loud. Friendship!”
“Friendship!”
And they left gushing about how cute their ship was. Even though they “shipped” the protagonist with almost every boy who so much as breathed in his direction.
People who experience same-sex attraction are real people with real struggles. We exist, and we were in that theater and you fetishized the fuck out of an entire group of people.
Don’t do that. If you’re just there because you heard some boys are gonna kiss, either keep it to yourself, or stay home.
