![]() ![]() You pretend to like shitty masc things (sorry, gents of Radiohead). Years before he is interesting, at all.īut that’s another element that I think this movie got right: When you’re gay in high school, you have no chance of being yourself. Years before he realizes that choreographed dancing in a group of other youths in different colored shirts is something we all go through. Matt: Bowen, some gay high-schoolers like rock music! Case in point: me! I saw Ashlee Simpson in concert twice in high school! Let us love rock! In the words of Jennifer Garner, Bowen, “you deserve everything you want,” including a perfect movie that catered very specifically to your own musical tastes (centered on whatever bleach-blonde pop chanteuse Spotify is featuring this week), but Simon is different! It will be years before he realizes the power Whitney has over him. I’m cracked that y’all are relating to this person with no there there. To quote an old John Early joke, “I wasted so much time in high school trying to like Radiohead instead of learning to use my butt for sex.” There are no contours to Simon’s queerness, and he thinks dancing to Whitney Houston with color-blocked outfits is too gay. He has Kid A on vinyl! He has “April 4 - Radiohead” scrawled on his chalkboard wall! I literally thought “I bet he has an Elliott Smith poster,” before clocking his Elliott Smith poster two scenes later. Simon is a perfectly likable cipher, but the movie goes to great lengths to give him specificity and then wildly fails. But to call Love, Simon a modernly gay John Hughes movie is blasphemous, even though I still haven’t forgiven him for Long Duk Dong. ![]() Look, I’m not saying people shouldn’t enjoy aggressively banal queer content like this, because even Meghan Trainor should be played at bear bars. ![]() ![]() Shit’s fucked up! Bowen, I give you the floor to discuss this, an LGBT John Hughes movie just for us!īowen: Shit’s definitely fucked up, especially if Josh Duhamel is playing the Everydad. I should also just quickly add that my vastly white high school was able to perform both The Wiz and The King and I, because both of those were appropriate, apparently. I couldn’t really relate to the high school performing Cabaret as the spring musical because my superintendent was a conservative monster who wouldn’t let us do Grease because of the “inappropriate content,” but I could really feel this school and the thickness of Simon’s tough and relatable situation. Having to approach your dad while he’s working outside in a down vest over flannel so he can cry about having “missed it”? That was Josh Duhamel doing Rich Rogers drag, and he deserves an Oscar for it (so does the costume designer. The extremely uncomfortable situation of having to sit on the couch next to your parents while they made jokes about gay characters on television? Been there. But so many elements of this film rang true for me. I’m a romantic and an impressionable boy who loves any movie that really prioritizes its arena-pop soundtrack (thank you, Jack Antonoff! Love you bish!), but I’m also aware that this movie was designed specifically to destroy me emotionally and I sort of understand those who feel alienated by it. Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, two strongly opinionated queers and hosts of Las Culturistas, put their friendship on the line yet again in order to debate the merits of the Greg Berlanti–directed flick, and settle once and for all whether or not we should love Love, Simon. While some - including most critics - are swept away by what they see as a John Hughes-ian coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama, others are firmly in the detractor camp, saying its portrayal of queer characters of color is cursory at best. Love, Simon, the first major studio film to receive a wide release while centering on a gay teen coming out and navigating romance, is already polarizing queer audiences. ![]()
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