Love, Simon & Representation

I've never watched a LGBT movie in a theater.

I've only watched one LGBT movie that ended on a happy note.

I've certainly never watched a LGBT Rom-Com.

I've been trying to write this for days now and nothing feels right. It's hard for me to adequately express how much this book and movie meant to me. When I first came out to myself one of the first things I did was watch movies. I went onto Netflix and went to the 'LGBT' section and tried to find movies. In short, they weren't good. I watched "Loving Annabelle", "Carol" and "Blue is the Warmest Color". They were depressing, full of angst, scandalous and somehow always had a dramatic ending. Then I tried watching TV shows. There was only one 'lesbian' TV show and that was the 'L Word'. I couldn't stomach through the first episode because of how ridiculous it was. Everything felt the same. Then there was the infamous Office episode called, "The Gay Witch Hunt" where Michael outs Oscar to the whole office and humiliates him. When I watched more popular TV shows the gay character was 'less than' and often times they were the butt of the jokes. They didn't end up with anyone, they would take the abuse and then or they would ultimately leave the show. Luckily, that's changed to a certain degree.

I first heard about Simon vs. The Homo-sapiens Agenda when I was a senior in high school. It was book that was coming out soon and it was big deal. I never had the courage to pick it up though. I wasn't ready to read it. After some time I forgot about it and then the trailer came out. I watched it and immediately remembered what it was. I was so excited to read it and watch it. By the time I had read it I read a lot of LGBT books. I had never watched a LGBT movie that did the community right. DL and I went to see the movie together. I had to tell my family that I was going to see Black Panther again because I knew they wouldn't approve. As soon as we sat down in the theater I had butterflies in my stomach. I wasn't nervous, I was excited. I was excited to actually watch a movie about the LGBT community that I could relate to. I knew I would laugh and get emotional but I never expected the movie to mean as much as it did. About halfway through the movie the story took a turn. There's a part after Simon comes out and he's talking to his mom. He asked her if she knew that he was gay and she says no. She goes onto explain that she felt like he was holding his breath for two years. After she said that there was this immediate click. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Then she told him that he was able to breathe now, he could be himself and explore who he was. But one thing she said that stood out of all the rest was that she loved him. By this point I'm crying and I can hear others. There's a girl somewhere behind me, sobbing. At that point I knew that I wasn't the only person who didn't have that experience. I wasn't the only person to come out and not have their parents approve or not say that they loved you. Maybe it would have been more 'realistic' or 'relatable' to have made it the other way. That's not what people need to see though. The unhappy ending for the gay person needs to stop. Adults, teenagers and even children need to see a gay person having a happy ending. They need to see gay character fall in love. They need to see a supportive group of people who love them no matter what.

When I got home I immediately started writing in my journal. I filled my journal with pages, discussing the movie and what I loved about it. When I was done I thought about my kids and how one day they'll be able to read this. They'll probably think I'm crazy and not understand how much it meant to me. Hopefully by the time they read it there will be LGBT movies in the theater regularly. Hopefully by that point there will be a LGBT children's movie or a movie with a transgender lead. Hopefully we'll have made enough advancements that my children will never have to worry about homophobia or transphobia.

Thank you Simon. 

Thank you for paving the way.

DFTBA

-AB