Does Gay Hollywood Have Room for Queer Kids? by Jacob Tobia for NY Times“But the most frustrating st
Does Gay Hollywood Have Room for Queer Kids? by Jacob Tobia for NY Times“But the most frustrating story line comes via the character Ethan. A black, femme gay guy who wears ascots and keeps his hair long and straightened, Ethan has been out at Simon’s school since sophomore year. He is the gender-nonconforming queer kid who blazed his trail ahead of everyone else and bears the brunt of the bullying and harassment because of it. He is openly bullied in front of Simon; he retorts in powerful, queenly fashion to his tormentors as Simon remains silent, watching and cringing.As a genderqueer kid who has always been too femme for their own good, Ethan was the only character in the film that I could relate to. And he is relegated to narrative obscurity for most of the movie. He is a sideshow, a subtle foil to show how palatable and masculine Simon is. He is the narratively irrelevant queen to Simon’s well-adjusted gay boy. Simon’s palatability hinges in large part on Ethan’s presence, and the film never really does anything to acknowledge that.A message that gay young people receive over and over again throughout our adolescence is that you need to be the “right type of gay” — masculine, not flamboyant, a man’s man — to be respected, to be affirmed by your family or to be romantically desirable. These messages hurt. They sting. They linger. And they don’t end with adolescence, evidenced by the many online dating profiles proclaiming “no fats no femmes.”“ -- source link
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