i will never understand why so many queer people insist on how "love simon is for the straights" and it's like yeah there were some problems with how simon's outing was handled by his friends but i don't think some people understood the impact that film had? i remember seeing the trailer, in theaters, on new years eve 2017. i had realized almost a year earlier, at the age of 12, i was queer. seeing that trailer, being a scared 13 year old girl who had only came out to her lesbian best friend at that point, and seeing a mainstream popular film about a closeted queer teenager that was geared towards me and other teenagers about coming out and being queer and being ourselves-- that meant everything to me.
and when i read the book a week after i saw the movie, it was my first ever queer book i ever read and love, simon was the first queer movie i ever saw. to see a mainstream movie that dealt with being queer and coming out and seeing myself in film for the first time? it meant the world.
so no, love, simon is not for the straights and it's inherent. the writer of the book, becky albertali, is a queer woman. the director, greg berlanti, is a gay man. the love interest, blue, was played by a queer actor, keiynan lonsdale. and there are probably so many other queer voices who made that film so saying "for the straights" is just diminishing every single queer voice on that film and frankly, just an ignorant statement: a film that is unabashedly queer will never be for the straights.