wanted: happy queer films
IT IS STILL HELLFIRE GALA MONTH!
So, Patricia and I have been watching movies together (meaning we watch movies at the same time and then voice chat to discuss them after) since around February. It started out as an MCU watch, and then now that we’ve caught up we’ve added other movies (and series!) to our list. Since this is the Hellfire Gala Month, we decided to watch queer movies.
As I was coming up with a list of movies to watch, I realised that SO MANY of them are depressing af, or have unhappy endings, or both. So I decided to share a short list of the happy ones.
First, the movies we’ve watched so far:
- Saving Face
I was especially angry early in June because of all the homophobic shit in the #TetapBangga hashtags, and I needed a happy queer story that’s also very Asian. Of course, this is the first movie I thought of! It’s been so long since I last watched it, and I think I love it so much more now (and a lot more than The Other Half of It.) The mom is so gorgeous, and the romance is so cute! I love that even though there’s the obligatory angsty middle, it doesn’t have anything to do with one of the characters being dishonest or cheating or other stupid BS that’s common in straight romcoms. Queer romcoms shouldn’t use terrible straight romcom tropes!
- The Broken Hearts Club
Like Saving Face, this was an old comfort watch of mine, before You’ve Got Mail took over my life. Like Saving Face, was the first time I watched it in a long time. I somewhat remembered it as a “not happy but not unhappy” story and remembered the romance most of all (hence my remembering it as not-quite-happy), and had categorised it as bittersweet. But upon rewatching, I remember that this is first and foremost a coming-of-age story about a group of friends, and even though the friendship between these guys might be unhealthy at some points, it was so comforting to younger me to see these people find a community of queer people.
- Deadpool
Okay shut up, Deadpool is totally a queer story because Deadpool is queer! And anyway it’s a movie starring a bisexual character who has a thing for Wolverine, so. I enjoyed it a lot and it ended happily so yay for the fact that queer people can have happy endings and be extremely violent super-nonheroes!
Other happy movies in our list:
- But I’m A Cheerleader!
- Better Than Chocolate
- Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
- Love, Simon
- The Prom
- Laurence Anyways
- The Happiest Season (although this does follow the stupid straight romcom "being dishonest and stupid" trope)
- What Did You Eat Yesterday? (tv drama series)
If you have other happy stories to rec us, reply to this email!
Continuing last week’s book recs…
Amazing queer kid lit:
- Snapdragon by Kat Leyh which is one of my favourite recent MG graphic novels. Nominated for this year’s Eisner!
- King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender which is one of the best non-fantasy MG books I’ve read ever.
- Tea Dragon Society, Tea Dragon Festival, and Tea Dragon Tapestry by Katie O’Neill. Besides the fact that tea dragons are the most perfect creatures ever, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to live in a book as much as I want to live in the world of these books.
- The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag because Molly Ostertag is amazing.
- Cattywampus by Ash Van Otterloo - I haven’t read this one yet but the cover makes me want to SO BADLY.
what’s the sitch, again?
- MCO 3.0 is extended, hahaha. I’m still not sure if this means I have to take even more ALs or if I have to work. Either way, I hope it’s strict enough to actually work.
- New blog post! I finally continued my Diana Wynne Jones Re-Read Project, and my comments on The Tough Guide to Fantasyland can be found here.
- Lately I’ve been picking up my Blythe hobby again, so I’m slowly updating my blog, and am going to focus on updating on my new IG here
- That's all for this week, hope you'll stay safe!