Love is not love.
This romcom is gay, gay in every way it could be. It is both honest and open while being pristine and proper. It seems like it’s being real but it feels wrong, bit like a breast implant. It shows the nasty, gross and horrible side of the gay community while also making an unrealistic love story where two gay people end up happy and in a functioning state, both doing what they love. It balances the hookup culture with the monogamy while sprinkling in the types of love in the queer community, like polyamory and open relationships. I appreciate that this movie showcases some sides to the community that all people may not have seen in such an easily digestible format before.
The movie does a pretty good job at dropping in some elements of queer history without overloading you and making you feel like you’re in a lecture, although if you were in a history lesson, you would probably be learning about how Hitler had one ball or how St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. A lot of that explanation comes from Bobby, who is the Cis White Man of the year at the gay awards (presented to him by a factual representation of Kristin Chenoweth in every situation). Bobby is opening an LGBTQ+ history museum in New York with a group of queer folk who represent different aspects of the community. We have the angry bi, the pretty trans girl, the emotional androgonous person, put together lesbian and of course, TS Madison. The story hinges on the opening of this museum, what the final exhibit is going to be (personally liked the idea of a room where people can just shut the fuck up) and if they can get the funding for it. The exhibit goes through many forms, Gaybraham Lincon, Gay wedding and Post Gay before landing on room with stage at the very end. We wouldn’t have gotten to room with stage without the help of our Hallmark staple love interest, Aaron. He is the straightest gay man you could find (not hating, basically my type). Aaron hates his job but loves the gym, and spends 80% of the movie without a shirt on. He does boring legal stuff to allow people to leave $100,000 to Cher when they die, until he meets Bobby at a club for a gayting app where you meet, chat about actresses and then go to bed. They meet at this party, chit chat while drinking shitrockets and then kiss at the end of the night before Bobby gets trapped in a vogueing wall.
They both continue on with their lives until one texts the other and they arrange a non date, date. They go walk around New York and see movie, a classic gay love story between two men without technoligy where it ends on one of them dies or decides they’re not gay no more. Bobby and Aaron leave the cinema and walk back to Bobby’s where they then decide to group sex and casual it out, until date two which is half on a blanket and half on the grass. They chat, wrestle, go back to Aaron’s house and continue to wrestle until it’s sex time.
At this point, they obivously have to go to Provincetown and meet Harvey Firestien because this a gay movie. They go there with the intention of pitching some funding to a TV producer who is won over by Aaron’s manipulative tactics of listening. The two then celebrate by sitting by the beach and talking about how gay Bobby is. Bobby openly shares how he has been told he’s too gay his whole life, this is something I can’t relate to so fell asleep for the rest of this scene.
Somewhere along the way, one of Aaron’s classmates from back in the day comes out as a gay, but he’s like butch and stuff so it’s nice for everyone around, one of them straight gays. #likeifyoulikethatimgay
Anyway, after the Ptown trip, we get a nice montage of social activities the gays do until we hit Chirstmas. They attend a nice social gathering with Henry who truly is the belle of this movie. Aaron suggests a threesome with newly gay Josh who he had a crush on in highschool. Thankfully Steve joins in to make a nice even foursome where everyone can get some, except Steve. The next morning, Bobby expresses he isn’t interested in polyamory so Aaron invites his parents down, and Bobby to join in the Christmas fun. Bobby goes all gay on them by doing the queer New York tour and then arguing that kids should also be taught about queer history. Aaron hates that and he gets in a taxi, leaving Bobby to get his own. They then don’t talk, but moan about it to everyone around them, this part was very gay.
So the next bit was a meeting at a club, a conversation by a bridge and a resolution that they’re not going to be together, but the plot doth twist when they miss each other and Aaron begins making chocolates while Bobby writes a country song. We then go to the opening of the Gayseum, where the room with stage comes into play. Bobby preforms his country song, proposes a 3 month relationship before time jump, they are doing well and feeling great. Hate to do this, but…Overall, I thought this was a cookie cutter romcom that was a lot funnier than it should have been, I think the concept of this movie is a lot more important than the movie itself and I hope it spawns many many gay romcoms that are better than it.
History is recorded by individual human beings with their own beliefs. Which has led to “Gay history” being almost erased entirely.
"Gay history", of course, is just history which includes mention of an individual’s sexual orientation. Same-sex relationships were regarded as simply another expression of human sexuality in the cultures of ancient civilizations and were not considered "shameful" or "sinful" until after the rise of Christianity.
Although it has been claimed that there is little evidence to positively identify figures of the past as gay or lesbian, this fact in itself argues for how easily same-sex relationships were accepted, as though they were not even worth noting. Earlier historians do make mention of some people’s gender preferences while biographies of men like Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar written in the Common Era downplay or ignore that aspect.
Achilles and Patroclus are well known from Homer’s Iliad (8th century BCE) in which they are depicted as very close friends who grew up together and joined the expedition of the Mycenaean Greeks in the war on Troy. When the Greek leader Agamemnon, takes Achilles’ mistress Briseis without his consent, Achilles withdraws from battle and the Greeks begin losing until Patroclus puts on Achilles’ armor and leads his men in battle. Patroclus is killed by the Trojan prince Hector, and Achilles avenges his death by killing Hector and disgracing his corpse. Patroclus appears to Achilles in a dream asking they be buried together, and Achilles’ grief over the loss of his friend suggests an intimate connection. By the time of Plato (l. 428/427-348/347 BCE), it was understood that the two were lovers as made clear in Plato’s dialogue of the Symposium. Achilles’ relationship with Briseis has been interpreted in the present as suggesting he was bisexual, but that is a modern concept. Sexual relations with people of both genders or, in some cultures, a third gender was simply considered sex.
The manicurists Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum are claimed by some scholars to be the first same-sex couple in recorded history. They were both personal attendants of the king Niuserre of the 5th Dynasty of Egypt during the period of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE). After their death, they were placed in the same tomb which was decorated with images of them embracing and touching nose-to-nose which was a gesture scholars recognize as a kiss. Both men were married and had children which had led some scholars to conclude they were brothers, not lovers, but this claim fails to address other images in the tomb in which Khnumhotep is pictured in the place of honor which would have usually been held by Niankhkhnum’s wife.
One of the most famous accounts of same-sex couples from ancient China is the story of the relationship between Duke Ling of the State of Wei (r. 534-493 BCE) and the courtier Mizi Xia. The Duke was married and had a son but preferred the company of his male lover. Mizi Xia once borrowed the duke’s carriage without asking permission to go visit his sick mother and, instead of receiving the harsh punishment that anyone else would have been met with, was praised by the duke for his filial piety. Another time, when they were out for a walk, Mizi Xia offered the duke half of a peach he was eating, and the duke was touched, saying, "How great is your love for me. You forget your own appetite and think only of giving me good things to eat!" The phrase "love of the half-eaten peach" became the byword for same-sex relationships afterwards. Both of these events were later reinterpreted by the duke after he had fallen out of love with Mizi Xia who disparaged his former lover saying, "He once took my carriage without asking and offered me a half-eaten peach, so there’s no telling what he might do." The end of their relationship is usually left out of retellings but was actually the main point of the passage by the philosopher Han Feizi (l. c. 280-233 BCE) who was warning courtiers of love affairs with fickle royalty.
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