Every Holiday Season, we are inundated by movies about big-city women who give up their careers for a small-town boyfriend (at Christmas), grinches who are punished for being insufficiently jolly, and kids who help Santa Claus deliver those toys (is there ever a year when he does the job by himself?). It's quite a chore to sort through the thousands for the few that are witty, creative, and not obsessed with boy-girl romance (and the fewer still with gay subtexts), but I've managed to scrounge up a few to make the countdown to December 25th a bit gayer.
10. Christmas in Connecticut (1945). The mother of all "abandoning career for small-town boyfriend" movies. Gay favorite and closet lesbian Barbara Stanwyck plays a driven, cynical magazine writer whose articles about the joys of small-town life draw the attention of a war hero (hunky Dennis Morgan), so as a publicity stunt, she is forced to invite him to "Christmas in Connecticut."
9. A Charlie Brown Christmas. The beset-upon Round-Headed Kid learns the true meaning of Christmas. It has to do with angels and a manger or something, with no Santa Claus in sight. And no hetero-romance. And a jazzy score.
8. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010). Two boys in Lapland discover the real Santa Claus and elves, goat-men imprisoned in a mountain who eat reindeer --- and boys. Lots of buddy-bonding and testosterone, no heterosexual romance. And it's in Finnish!
7. White Christmas (1954). This is a back stage comedy with no connection to Christmas except the last scene (a big plus), and in spite of the twin boy-girl romances, buddy-bonding and gender-inversion are highlighted. Plus we get the drag queen anthem: "God help the mister who comes between me and my sister, and God help the sister who comes between me and my man!"
6. Prep and Landing (2009). Wayne and Lanny, two high-tech Elves in charge of preparing each house for Santa's visit, have to save Christmas. A buddy comedy with none of the "she thinks I'm cute!" heterosexism of that "Have a holly jolly Christmas" thing.
5. Dashing in December (2020). A standard romcom about abandoning the big city to find love in a small town at Christmas, except this time it's a big city guy who finds love with a Cowboy State ranch hand.
4. Billy and Mandy Save Christmas (2005). The kids from the gay-subtext-filled Cartoon Network series, doltish Billy and sinister Mandy, discover that Santa Claus has been turned into a vampire! En route, their frenemy the Grim Reaper falls in love with an androgynous vampire named Baron Von Ghoulish.
3. Home for Christmas (2019): A TV series, not a movie, but it's on Netflix, so you can binge it. Joanna has three weeks to find a boyfriend to bring to Christmas Eve dinner. She auditions five guys and a girl, but ends up bringing the people she loves, including her roommate and his new boyfriend. Score!
1. The Claus Family (2020): Jules discovers that his grandfather is Santa Claus, and he is next in line to take over the family business! Here Santa doesn't distribute gender-stereotyped gifts. Quite a relief from the trains for boys and dolls for girls in his usual bag of tricks.
And Jules is gay-coded -- I kept waiting for him to fall in love with the girl next door, but he didn't. He's more into beefcake. A hundred light years ahead of Hermie the Elf opening a dentist shop in that holly jolly thing.
A must see is from Lifetime, 2020, and on dvd, "The Christmas Setup," starring Ben Lewis and Blake Lee, married in real life. You can tell they really love each other throughout the movie.
ReplyDeleteI think I found another one (hope I did not misread the signals or missed the mentioning of a girl): Road to Christmas (USA 2018): Martha Stewart style TV-chef has adopted three sons, who are now young adults. One of the sons is gay (the one with a dog shelter).
ReplyDeleteThis one is a stretch: The Christmas Contract (USA 2018): A Christmas party is visited by two gay couples. They are necessary to the plot: the host is looking for a fake boyfriend for her best friend, the gays drastically limit her choice... The fake boyfriend changes his shirt in front of the camera. But perhaps it is not enough.
Hetero but palatable: - Hearts of Christmas (USA 2016): Beloved nurse on a maternity ward is forced into early retirement. Her colleagues organize a surpriseparty for her. The lovestory is relegated to third place. - 12 Days of Giving (?): A man - ex ice hockey player now photographer - wins a prize and decides to use the money to help people in secret. - The Rooftop Christmas Tree (Can. 2016): Every year a man puts a Christmas tree on the roof of his house. New rules forbid this, but he does not budge and risks spending Christmas in jail. The judge orders his lawyer and the prosecutor to find a solution. The lovestory seems to be shoehorned in at the last moment. - Christmas on the Bayou (USA 2013): After a divorce mother and son spend Christmas time with grandmother in the deep south. The boy bonds with an old man, who may or may not be the real Pere Noël. He does not fall in love with the girl next door - if I remember correctly. Perhaps even the mother stays single?
THanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out.
DeleteSorry. I saw 'Road to Christmas' again on TV: The brothers could just as easily be single without being on the hunt for a new girl. And the partner in the animal-shelter just a business-partner and a good friend. I think last year I saw more than there actually was, or in my memory subtext became text. But it is a nice film, so 'palatable'. With real gay content:
Delete'Twinkle all the Way' (USA 2019): Single father "who must fall in love" has a gay brother who is married (to a man). No kissing or holding hands, just loving looks and wiping dust of a shoulder - as if they have been married for 40 years...
'The Christmas Setup' (Can./USA 2020): Standard plot (New York lawyer coming to rural hometown, etc.) but with two gay men as main characters. Passionate kissing and then the camera turns away... And they even discover that the founding father of the town or community was gay, too. Just one drawback: viewers must be able to stand Fran Drescher in full mode (but not all the time).
I didn't watch it because it costs on Amazon Prime, and with four streaming services, I figure I have enough to watch.
Delete"We're No Angels", 1955 with Aldo Ray.
ReplyDelete