once love, simon opens the cinematic doors for lgbt rom coms it’s over for hetero bitches
just found out that people are boycotting this movie because the author is straight…….honestly if y’all let this movie flop i’m coming for everyone’s throats! no mercy! this is such a fake woke agenda! love, simon doesn’t deserve this! if y’all wanted to boycott an lgbt movie call me by your name was right there but y’all let that bitch prosper!
I actually looked up the author, Becky Albertalli, a while back when I was first getting hyped for Love, Simon, and from what I found (and please let me know if I’m wrong, this info is coming from a few quick google searches) she hasn’t just created multiple, well-written LGBTQ characters, she also worked for years with LGBTQ teens and support groups, particularly for gender nonconforming kids. If that doesn’t tell you how far this woman is willing to go to aid LGBTQ folk, I don’t know what will.
YEP. She addresses this in the very end of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda in her acknowledgements – she wrote the book with the help of a multitude of LGBTQ teenagers. She wrote what she knew from experience, but for the things she did not have experience with, she sought the wisdom of the people she was writing the book for. She is a genuinely awesome ally.
this post probably doesn’t need my input because the reasons given above should be enough to convince anyone that boycotting this film is the worst idea the lgbt+ community has ever had, but it’s getting my input anyway, because the fact that people would even think of boycotting this actually upsets me.
becky albertalli is a truly amazing author. she’s amazing for what she does for her fans, and the quality of her work, and her general enthusiasm, but more than anything she’s here for representation. her books have got gay characters, lesbian characters, pan characters, bi characters, jewish characters, asian characters, black characters… her second book, the upside of unrequited, literally features jewish interracial w|w parents. this woman hasn’t just thrown a white male gay kid into one of her books and been like, “hey, guess my representation duties are over!”
and yes, she’s straight. she has a husband and two adorable kids – but as has been said, she has worked extensively with lgbt+ young people, while working as a clinical psychologist.
as had been alluded to above, the acknowledgements for “simon vs the homo sapiens agenda” end thus:
“to the extraordinary lgbt and gender-nonconforming children and teens in my life (and your extraordinary families): you blow me away with your wisdom, humor, creativity, and courage. you probably already guessed this, but i wrote this book for you.”
she wrote this book for us. for us. she wrote a beautiful book filled with adorable characters, that tackles important lgbt+ issues without it having to be tragic. she wrote a book that’s happy and funny and brilliantly-written, that contains representation that’s not just positive, but human and real and inspiring.
and that’s why the thought that anyone in this community would even consider boycotting “love, simon” baffles me beyond belief. i understand that people want movies and books that come from lgbt+ authors, that people want more w|w representation not just the more marketable m|m representation, that people want as much diversity in mainstream cinema as the world deserves. of course i understand that, because i want those things too. they should already be a feature of mainstream media, and the fact that they aren’t is frustrating – i get it.
but the reality is that we’re not quite there yet. we should be, but we aren’t – and yet movies like “love, simon” present an opportunity for this to change.
the only way to get more representation is to support films that contain representation. it’s as simple as that. and in “love, simon” we have a gift to the lgbt+ community from an amazing author that contains groundbreaking representation for a studio film. if you boycott this, if you stop this from becoming a success, if you send a message to hollywood that we don’t want movies like this – you can say goodbye to any thoughts of films with even more diversity in the future.
even more than that, you’ll miss out on a story that’s kind and warm and sweet and is sure to be unmissable on the screen. you’ll miss out on a studio film without over-sexualisation or tragedy, about a gay kid, made by a gay director, with a queer person in the role of the love interest and multiple people of colour.
“love, simon” is a movie with the power to change the world. the world shouldn’t need changing, but it does, and supporting this film is the way to achieve that.
the film isn’t going to be perfect. no one is expecting it to be perfect. but it’s going to do a lot more for the lgbt+ community than any other of the hundreds of films that will come out this year, and yet no one’s thinking of boycotting them.
stop trying to make it problematic. stop trying to make it into something it’s not. stop making assumptions about what it’s going to be, because i promise you, as someone who’s read the book multiple times, that the representation is much more than one white gay boy, even in this one film.
if you don’t want to watch “love, simon”, no one’s going to force you – but if this movie is ruined by misinformed people who haven’t read the book and don’t know the power it could hold, i will be intensely, magnificently pissed off.
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