okay this is not the blog for this but i’m gonna explain myself anyway. i know this story was written by a bisexual woman. and the movie was directed by a gay man. i know there were queer actors. i know this film was important to so so many people. it was important to ME — i wasn’t allowed to watch it when it came out; i watched it in silence on a plan at 1 in the morning looking over my shoulder. i wept and muffled the tears into my hand. this movie was revolutionary.
it was still straight pandering.
i don’t mean that it was a bad representation of queerness. i don’t think it was; i think it was pretty good, actually, especially for the time it was made. but the message, and the point of the film, is straight pandering — the point of the film is to normalize gay people. on one hand, that is validating for queer people. on the other hand, this film is directly written for straight people. this is a letter to them. this letter says: look how normal we are, look how alike you we are, please please please find it within yourselves to treat us with respect.
this is not me reaching. this is almost a direct quote. in fact, let's look at the opening lines, from simon, to the audience (emphasis mine):
"I'm just like you. For the most part, my life is totally normal...My dad was the annoyingly handsome quarterback who married the hot valedictorian. And, no, they didn't peak in high school...I have a sister I actually like...And then there's my friends. Two of them, I've known since pretty much the beginning of time...One of them, I just met a few months ago, but it feels like I've known her forever. We do everything friends do...So, like I said. I'm just like you. I have a totally, perfectly normal life. Except I have one huge-ass secret...
from the very first line! "I am just like you!" if he were talking to other queer people, there would be no 'but'. no need for the "huge-ass" secret. we have the same 'secret', after all. no need to tell us. but he is not talking to queer people. he is talking to non-queer people, he is talking to straight people. this entire story, in simon's voice, is directly addressed to straight people.
that doesn't necessarily mean straight-pandering, sure. so far it's just straight-addressed. except there is an appeal in there -- a please, please, accept me, i am like you, i am not a freak, and, worse, i am not like those other freaks. i am normal. i am like you, see that i am like you, that, like you, straight person, i am normal. the association is straight = normal; and, therefore, queer = freak. this ideal is further cemented with ethan's entire character -- who is not only queer, but is gender non-conforming (GNC).
ethan 'looks' gay. he is feminine, he is open, he is flamboyant. before he is called ethan he is called fag. the first time we see him, he is being mocked; in fact his entire character is a bit of a caricature: here, look, see simon, gay and normal, and see ethan, gay and Other. were this film not straight-pandering, the idea might be: here is simon, here is ethan; both gay, both 'normal'. instead, ethan is posited as Abnormal. his Otherness, even, is presented as the reason he cannot be treated normally:
SIMON: Wish Ethan wouldn't make it so easy for them.
there! right out of the gate! right out of simon's own mouth! [ethan's] queerness is his own targeting. if ethan were normal, like simon, like the straights, he would not be so mocked. but because he is visibly queer, because he is GNC (think about the implications of that, maybe, think about the 'LGB' movement, the 'gay people against trans' movement, think about queer infighting that has gotten so so so much worse in the years since that movie came out), he is bringing it upon himself.
obviously this is a pretty clear and blatant case of victim blaming. and the victim blaming isn't necessarily the problem -- that is a great opportunity for growth! this would be the point on which we, as an audience, could reflect upon at the end of the movie; look at where he started, like all of us, hating ourselves by hating each other, and look at where he has come. this would make his character arc very clear.
except...that doesn't happen?
even after martin outs him. he spends his break isolated and terrfied, as is to be expected, and then there is this brief brief second where an arc is teased.
this is where i might differ in opinion from some people. is love simon straight-pandering, or simply sanitized? both? neither? what's going on?
in my personal opinion, the sanitization is straight-pandering. it frustrates me that everything about us must be as close to cis and non-queer as possible to be presented to the mainstream (it frustrates me that we strive so hard to be mainstream at all, but that's another conversation). the sanitization and the straight-pandering comes in because even when simon is tearing through his closet, looking for way to signify himself, to wordlessly tell other queers he is like them, he cannot commit to it. even in this fantasy movie, even in this rom-com happy ending all loose ends are tied and everybody clapped (literally, everybody clapped, it is too much fantasy to let queers -- to let us -- be our total, uncensored selves.
because this movie is straight pandering.
it's really obvious to me in simon's college fantasy. it hit me when i was 17 even, watching this film and crying from the joy of it; the self-hatred was so evident i stopped and recognised it. in simon's actual, unwitnessed mind, he is so embarrassed by flamboyant non-straightness that he cannot entertain it. he must announce it to the IMAGINARY AUDIENCE, DO YOU GET THAT, IN SIMON'S PERSPECTIVE WE, THE AUDIENCE, ARE THE FICTIONAL VOYUERS OF HIS LIFE, WE, THE WATCHERS OF THE MOVIE SIMON IS NARRATING AND ADDRESSING US THROUGH, ARE THE STRAIGHTS HE IS TALKING TO, that is is seperate from the faggy queers.
SIMON: Maybe not that gay.
isn't that awful? doesn't that hit you? there's no re-evaluating at the end of the film. even when simon does get the chance to talk to ethan, one-on-one, he cannot come to an understanding. he doesn't get it. in fact, he is still separating himself from ethan! ethan makes himself vulnerable and tell simon that his mother pretends that he is straight and it kills him. ethan, the non straight-pandering voice says, out loud: i am different and i am proud of it. i am gay and obviously so and any other implication is a betrayal of my soul. i am a fag. i am flamboyant. i am not straight, and i am proud of that. i am PROUD.
when the dumbass VP assumes simon and ethan are dating, simon cannot correct himself fast enough.
simon is not evil. he recognises his ally and brother in ethan, he is careful and civil with him. but he also recognises the position being ethan's friend and being associated with ethan puts him in. it's explicit in the bullying scene! in the VP's office! should simon fail to fervently and frequently align himself with straightness, with 'normalcy', he will be assumed as one of those gays. he will be that gay, the weird ones, the ones who 'shove it in our faces, you know?' the uncomfortable gays. the gays that cannot be made into corporate interest.
you can have all the gay writers in the world. but what a major gay movie, backed by corporate sponsors and literally addressed to fucking straight people, cannot be a genuine and true representation of queer, in both senses of the word. it cannot show the other. it has to, by virtue, align itself as closely as possible with the straight people funding it, with the cheque-writers in the room going hm, that's a little too gay for me.
love, simon begins with one idea: i am just like you, but i have a huge-ass secret.
at the end, the secret is revealed. but simon is not desperately vying to be just like his straight audience any less.
