Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you’re celebrating safely, wherever you are.
It doesn’t really feel like the holiday season to me at all, but my girlfriend and I are choosing to combat the general lack of cheer by watching every single queer holiday movie available on streaming platforms.
We started with Netflix’s A New York Christmas Wedding, which is the worst movie I’ve ever seen and I absolutely loved it. Highlights include a teen girl in love with her best friend, a guardian gayngel (thank you Carmen Phillips), and Chris Noth as a Catholic priest. It was everything I could’ve hoped for and so much more!
Next up was Hulu’s much-anticipated Happiest Season, which I thoroughly enjoyed despite the fact that I despised Kristin Stewart’s girlfriend’s character and actively hoped they would break up through the entire movie. It’s still very fun and there are several great holiday suits, especially on Aubrey Plaza.
Later this week, we’ll likely be watching the 2006 made-for-TV-movie A Christmas Wedding, which, naturally, we only discovered while trying to learn everything we could about A New York Christmas Wedding. It appears to be technically straight, but stars Sarah Paulson and Eric Mabius so we’re counting it as canonically gay.
And at some point, obviously, we’ll watch Carol.
If you have any other queer holiday movie recs, please let me know. I will truly watch anything in which two women kiss in the general vicinity of an evergreen tree.
— Becca
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Fiction, October 2020
You’ve maybe already heard of Memorial. It was a buzzy enough release that A24 acquired the adaptation rights before it even hit shelves, and the New York Times has already named it one of its 100 Notable Books of 2020.
So I guess I’m sort of stating the obvious when I tell you that this book is good? But it’s also a very different book from what I expected going in.
To set the stage: Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson is a Black daycare teacher. Just as their relationship seems to be on the verge of falling apart, Mike’s mom arrives in town for a visit. The next day, he leaves for Japan to take care of his dying father—leaving Benson to share their apartment with a woman he’s never met.
Before I got my copy, I read the same synopsis on several sites describing it as a “funny, sexy, profound dramedy.” Profound feels right, but I didn’t find any of the sex scenes particularly sexy and the tone skews much more dramatic than comedic.
When Mike asks Benson at one point what he wants out of their relationship, for example, Benson tells him he’s “okay” with the way things are. “Okay is good. All right is good. Most people don’t get more than that. That’s a myth.”
That sentiment feels wildly depressing. But in this novel’s universe, where most characters prefer to avoid difficult conversations, and where half of the exchanges they do have end with shrugs, it feels probably true.
I find these types of relationships frustrating to read. That said, if you liked Normal People but wished it were gay and not so white, Mike and Benson’s romance is maybe for you.
But even if toxic romantic relationships aren’t your thing, I found the relationships that both of these men have with their families (and with each other’s families) much more compelling anyway.
The book is at its best when Mike and Benson are given the chance to see their fathers as the deeply flawed people they are, and to attempt to navigate reconciliation in spite of their shortcomings. Benson’s scenes with his dad are touching, and Mike’s with his are alternately sweet and devastating.
Meanwhile, I would gladly read an entire book about Mike’s mother, Mitsuko, teaching Benson how to cook in their shared apartment kitchen.
These pieces of the book are a joy to read, and give a more nuanced look at the messy family relationships that are often relegated to backstory in novels that prioritize romance. And that’s maybe exactly what I needed this week, as a counterbalance to all of those delightfully simple Christmas romcoms.
Queer points:
+6 for an HIV-positive character whose status isn’t his defining characteristic
+9 for being possibly the first book I’ve read that has its main characters connect on Grindr
Buy it from Brazos Bookstore