Love, Simon is a teen rom com about a closeted, passing as straight teen boy and his desire to reach out to a possible romantic interest which clashes with his desire not to be treated by others as the other. Another teen blackmails him in order to make his own love connection. I considered seeing this movie in the theater since it is groundbreaking to center a gay character as the focal point of a mainstream movie in a heteronormative world, but I ultimately did not because I don’t prioritize movies with teen leads, and I stopped watching movies billed as rom coms decades ago.
Everyone bemoans depictions of violence in the media, but as you get older, you realize how dangerous rom coms are. They generally promote behavior that would be considered crazy or criminal in the real world. Healthy relationships demand more consistency, calmness, openness and ordinariness than media depictions would have the average viewer believe. Fortunately Love, Simon is self aware of how problematic the world is and cleverly represents many types of landmines of privilege similar to William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth, although the latter is more my style and huge swaths of this movie left me bored because I was not a teenager when I was a teenager. I would cut out a majority of the first half, which consists of average teen hijinks such as partying and happily follow around the drama teacher, Ms. Albright, not the vice principal, instead.
Love, Simon used high school as a microcosm of American society. I was initially startled by the blackmail premise since most rom coms only involve how to get two people together. It was absolutely essential to have a straight white guy disrupt the trajectory of everyone’s lives by inserting himself and his agenda on people who are happily living their lives with no negative effect on him or others other than he wants something from them that they are not willing to give and instead of getting to know them as people, threatens them with marginalization. He would like to believe that he is an ally and seeks to empower others, but he does so in a controlling manner that never recognizes others’ free will and humanity, but only sees them in relation to how they relate to him.
Love, Simon is an adaptation of a teen novel written by Becky Albertalli called Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, which I have not read. I have no idea if the casting reflects how the characters look in the book, but judging by Albertalli’s exuberant endorsement of the movie, the film at least accomplishes what she intended the novel to convey. Simon sees himself as normal, which includes being gay, but to understand how Simon defines normal, you have to watch how he treats others who can be marginalized by others’ perceptions of them. When he sees another openly gay, possibly gender fluid kid being teased, he is not angry at the bullies. He huffs, “I wish Ethan wouldn’t make it so easy for them.” He is annoyed of the image of being gay while claiming that once he goes away to college, he will embrace all the cultural accoutrements that come with being gay; however later on, after he claims his identity, other than a brief exchange, he does not change, which is fine. No one needs to be anyone other than he is, but I do think that it is tragic that he self-segregates himself from talking to the only other gay person in his school (it takes 88 minutes before they interact) which prevents him from discovering if they would even get along or not.
The problem is that when Simon says normal, he means white, male and straight, not human. Ethan is normal. He just happens to dress nicely, have longer, styled hair and a vocal pattern that sounds gay, but many heterosexual men from certain socioeconomic backgrounds sound similar to him. The school administration, i.e. the voice of authority, reflects this belief because they only intervene when bullies taunt Simon, not Ethan. Simon’s friends are also normal, but Simon unwittingly sees them as less than normal because none of them can pass. Because his image conforms to the majority, he gets and does not question his privilege as someone who presents as straight, white and male until his actions reflect how manipulative and harmful those subconscious beliefs are when they are acted on in the real world.
I am from New York City, but apparently I can be naïve or at least I was extremely fortunate because I never met a racist gay person until I came to Massachusetts. It simply never occurred to me that someone who had experienced discrimination would not see the parallels in other areas and would be prejudiced. I knew that happened in other minority groups (side note: every human being can be prejudiced, not everyone is racist depending on the power structure of the society that is being examined), but I had simply never encountered it until a white, male gay friend echoed FOX talking points about the Michael Brown case. How human was I to him if he believed insane things about black people as a whole or was I “different,” “one of the good ones?” After several failed attempts at educating him to be better and see others as he wanted to be seen, needless to say, I politely cut him out of my life.
I’m not saying that Simon is intentionally racist because throughout the course of Love, Simon, he does change when confronted, but he would never have acted differently if he could have been safe. This phenomenon was noticed by the trans community after the Supreme Court of the United States announced the decision on marriage equality and has always been noticed by the minorities within the LGBTQ community, especially when going to spaces that are supposed to welcome them or if they dare to remind others of the brown stripe in the Pride flag. It is normal to want to be accepted as one of the majority, but that usually means subconsciously adopting their prejudices and excluding others so you can belong. The difference between Simon and his blackmailer is that he actually knows the people that he hurts and how they deserve so much more than he is willing to give them in order to make his life better. He only cares about his own choice and autonomy.
I loved that Love, Simon constantly and wordlessly communicated the sudden discomfort when someone who does not love you says or does something to you that seems superficially friendly or beneficial, but is substantively toxic and objectifying. For instance, even people cheering on Simon’s quest for love see him as entertainment for their pleasure, a mild diversion, not someone with a life. When his friend, Abby, wears a Wonder Woman costume, she is completely joyful, but immediately gets self conscious and uncomfortably aware of her body when another person compliments her.
Love, Simon is worth your time if only to check out a pioneering mainstream movie although there are plenty of independent films with gay people as the protagonist. The minds behind the movie are definitely impressive to hide such incisive commentary in a teen rom com.