What “Love, Simon” Would Have Meant to Me
For the first time in history, a major Hollywood studio has released a teen romantic comedy with a gay protagonist. I can’t help but wonder what it would have meant to me had it been released when I was 18.
[Warning: Spoilers of a film currently in wide release are strewn through this article. I have tried to make them fairly vague, but this article should be avoided if you want the film’s plot to remain a mystery.]
Two weeks ago 20th Century Fox released Love, Simon, marking the first time a teenage romantic comedy with a gay protagonist was ever backed by a major studio and given a wide release. As a gay man and a cinephile, I was excited for this film since the moment the studio announced it was happening. I had a feeling that a film like this would tap into emotions and memories that no feature film ever had. Nevertheless, when I finally saw it last night I was unprepared for the overwhelming amount of emotions that befell me.
Thankfully I saw it with a dear friend who encouraged, rather than mocked, my ugly cry (we’re talking Claire Danes in Homeland) because I sobbed for the majority of the film’s last 45 minutes. Now, I am not typically a big movie crier. I may have shed a tear or two in the climactic emotional scenes of last year’s Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name, but nothing compared to this. It isn’t that the…
