I was so excited to watch this movie. So excited. A holiday rom com center in around a queer couple on a major network AND one with many queer voices and folx behind the scenes? After a long and hard week, I was SO ready to get in my cozies, soak up the Christmas tree and have my big ol’ bi heart feel seen and get into the holiday spirit.
And instead of experiencing the feel good beautiful holiday love story I was so ready to receive, I spent almost the entirety of the movie feeling triggered, angry and frustrated. And also openly weeping because so much of this story depicted aspects of my own journey as a queer and polyamorous human and damn, was it hard for me to watch.
I deep dive into this at length in todays of the Live Your F*ck Yes Life podcast, but here are the Coles notes (YES I mean Coles and not Cliffs. Y’all Americans took that shit from us Canadians and repurposed it and COLES CAME FIRST BITCHES).
For one — and this is MAJOR and damn am I so tired of it — there were hardly any BIPOC on screen (god forbid a main character — we need to do better) or any representation of body diversity — ‘cause all queer folx are obviously thin *rolls eyes* This movie centered around privilege in more ways than I know how to count and while it’s true that these experiences reflect *some* of the LGBTQ+ experience, it is not the norm BY ANY MEANS. It’s 2020. We need to do better.
Moving beyond those very deeply important things, this movie, as sooo many rom coms have been for years, was, in my opinion (and take that with whatever grain of salt ‘cause I can only ever speak from my own experiences and my understanding of this work from years of therapy and research ‘cause I’m a communication and relationship dynamics nerd), fraught with SO many problematic relationship dynamics:
To name a few that I speak deeper around in todays episode:
intense lack of consent
emotional abuse that gets rewarded
bullying on SO many levels
divorce-shaming
homophobic parents who magically change their mind overnight
…and that’s just scratching the surface.
And that can…all be, I suppose, downplayed because “it’s just a story! aren’t all rom coms or cheesy holiday movies like this?” or “at least there’s representation!” — I stand by this one for sure, and I know many lesbians and LGBTQ+ humans who are grateful for this piece of it so HELL YEAH, at least we got a minor win there. But for gods sake, the LGBTQ+ community is not new. We’ve been around for a fucking LONG time. We’ve been kept in the closet. Navigated so much of the shame and triggering experiences around coming out and it’s exhausting. This movie is, in my opinion, not for the queers — as it has been marketed to us for months. I honestly don’t know who it’s for.
I’ve spent the last few days speaking with MANY of you in my DMs on Instagram and have been ruminating on my thoughts and after almost a hundred of you asked me to do an episode around my feelings, I knew I needed to turn on the mic.
So head on over to todays episode of the pod to hear my deeper thoughts and feelings around this, and some personal anecdotes of my own life that I’ve never shared before.
I’d love to hear your thoughts after you listen. We’ll be talking more about this in the NEW Live Your F*ck Yes Life patreon private Facebook group too so if you’re a member (or hop in and become a new member, I’ll see you in there!
And for all of my fellow LGBTQ+ — no matter what your experiences or where you’re at in your own coming out journeys — I see you. I love you. You are so fucking enough.
