![]() A popular one for a Christmas movie? Absolutely not. At the end of the film, pushed to the brink of losing Abby for good, Harper does a 180 and comes out to her family. With no allies, Abby finds friendship in Harper’s old flame, Riley, who is ostracized as the “town lesbian” with a medical degree. Harper’s conservative family pushes her further into the closet Harper prioritizes her hometown reputation over her girlfriend. Girlfriends Harper and Abby (a closeted and out lesbian, respectively) head home to Harper’s family’s for the holidays. She said, “Growing up, I loved holiday movies, but had never seen myself represented in one and always hoped that someone would make a movie that made me feel more seen.”Īnd what Duvall created was a world that looks familiar for a lot of queer people. Ahead of the film’s release, Duvall and I chatted on the phone. And yet it also managed to rub a lot of its viewers the wrong way. From a critical standpoint, it’s it’s a better written, better directed film originally intended for a theatrical release. Happiest Season, written and directed by Hollywood veteran Clea Duvall, has all the credence and star power that The Christmas House doesn’t. That’s an unexpected Christmas conundrum. The chatter around the former was overwhelmingly positive. On social media, the latter was critiqued as antiquated for its finale scenes, accused of shortchanging its main characters by falling back on tired stories about being outed. Three days later, Hulu released Happiest Season-a lesbian holiday dramedy with a star-studded cast: Kristen Stewart, Aubrey Plaza, Victor Garber, and Dan Levy. Mean Girls’ Jonathan Bennett stars as one half of the network’s first prominently featured gay couple. First out of the gate was Hallmark’s schmaltzy family film, titled The Christmas House. In this backwards holiday world, the best queer Christmas films are as fantastical and predictable as their straight counterparts.Įarly this holiday season, networks and streamers announced that a whole slate of queer titles would debut this year. All the aspects of a good LGBTQ story-nuance, meaning, and perspective-are liabilities. That leaves queer holiday films in a bizarre place. ![]() More often than not, a holiday film's success doesn't come down to direction or writing, but audience perception, particularly when it's landing on television. Make sure you’ve seen every film to ensure more are made.īut in the Christmas movie genre, the rules of cinema aren’t the same. It’s a step forward for representation, and as a queer person, you want to gobble it all up. In 2020, every major network hawking holiday films is boasting an LGBTQ-centeric narrative. Fifteen years later, sifting through holiday movies for a gay character isn’t as difficult. Granted, representation wasn’t exactly a priority in 2005 pop culture, so Thad (a gay member of the deaf community) and his partner Patrick (a Black man folding himself into one of the WASP-iest family in cinema) were pulling diversity overtime. ![]() 20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock // Shutterstock Keaton, Giordano, and Claire Danes in The Family Stone. When you see an idealized version of your own story, you internalize it. If you made it one, you were the asshole. The insistence that in someone’s world, being gay wasn’t an issue. Thad happened to be the first gay character I’d seen prominently featured in a holiday movie. But their treatment of it, at least for me, wasn’t. They quite literally liken being gay to “handedness.” It’s unremarkable and average. The Family Stone-as manic and critically panned as it may be-attempted to create an idyllic world that doesn’t tolerate LGBTQ intolerance, just a year after the first state in the U.S. The Stone family, progressive beyond their years, practically crucify her. She stumbles into the topic of Thad’s sexuality and hits every branch of the offense tree as she tumbles downward. It all started after Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) awkwardly put Thad on the spot. You are more normal than any asshole sitting at this table. ![]() Not particularly because I was actively trying to learn the sign (it is, admittedly, super handy) but because it’s what Sybil (Diane Keaton) says to her son Thad (Ty Giordano) following a chilly dinner conversation about his sexuality. I learned how to sign “asshole” in 2005, thanks to The Family Stone.
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