I'm sorry, did Netflix make a mid-noughties low budget gay rom com, but in 2020 and with a budget, starring a bunch of big name straight white actors as New York Gays coming to Indiana to shame a Black woman?

I hate this?

On the one hand, maybe I shouldn't judge from the trailer, but on the other hand, that's what trailers are for?

I also really, really hate that the vibe I'm getting is "Liberal New Yorkers have to show up to save this girl in Indiana, where there are no queers or queer culture" as if every town in the Midwest doesn't have a battalion of middle-aged cranky lesbians ready to FITE ANYONE.

Gods, okay, I'm not going to be free until I see how bad this is.

WATCH THREAD for THE PROM.

Okay within two shots I'm mad, there's a scene where the PTA votes to see if they want to cancel the prom (to prevent the protagonist from taking her girlfriend) and EVERY MEMBER votes yay at once.

Not ONE SINGLE PERSON hesitantly or defiantly voting nay.

Here's the thing, I 100% get the FEELING of being alone and isolated, but the cinematography isn't saying "This is horror, this is emotive" it's just presenting it as fact, like we're watching a CCTV camera.

Another minor thing, if these are PTA members, why are they all thin? You're telling me there's not a single fat parent in the entire PTA? Not one?

(a single quick shot from the back so maybe I missed something but)

Ah the internet died again, possibly to prevent me having to watch this movie, but now that it is denied to me, I want it.

At least Nicole Kidman is here to carry me through this, and hopefully we redo the end of Stoker where she just does some murder after having done nothing else.

Okay so I know the joke is that the Broadway Big Wigs are supposed to be unlikeable narcissists. But that also makes them unlikeable and I want to protect Indiana from them. Call up the cranky lesbian militia, we make war on James Cordon.

Wow I HATE this.

tw: slurs (I think?)

Swim Dude: "Hey who's this girl you were gonna bring to prom, I didn't know we had more than one lesbo in town."

Is this a PERIOD PIECE? It is the Year of our Elliot Page 2020, "It's So Hard being the Only Gay in the Village" was being mocked YEARS AGO.

Principal: "[Having an inclusive prom] better represents America's values."
PTA Leader: "Well this isn't America. This is Indiana."
Audience: [Cheers]

Okay.

AHHHH! Yay! An extra with a bit part got to be fat!

...she's a homophobic mother who won't let her son go to a "Homosexual Prom."

Fabulous.

This is also like...not what Hoosier Hospitality looks like???

Here's the thing, I 100% get that this is a Heightened Reality, it's a Musical, but it doesn't FEEL like a heightened reality so this just feels like bad writing.

Anyway the Liberals from Broadway have burst in to the PTA meeting to sing at all of them about how they're bigots, and now I'm on the "Cancel the Prom" side.

James Cordon: "If they don't have gay people here why is my Scruff going crazy right now"

SIGH.

Principal: "Straight people like Broadway too."
Meryl Streep: "I'd heard that, I thought it was a myth."

This script REALLY REALLY needed to be updated for 2020.

Like, this is from a DECADE ago:

https://twitter.com/mythicnuisance/status/1337439092641042436

The Broadway Liberals have arrived at a “Cheap Poor Hotel that has no Spa or Suites” which looks pretty swanky for a small town motel but okay.

Okay so this movie has one joke (Broadway liberals going "What is a Kmart/Applebees/etc") but also I was there when a bunch of Agents here for Midwest Writers were like "What the Hell is a Rural King" so

I guess I'll allow it.

Love that this movie about a Queer Teen has had zero scenes where she and her girlfriend talk about something other than being queer, but we've got a long scene where Meryl Streep talks about how HARD she has it on a date with the straight principal.

So very exhausted with James Cordon as Fully Evolved Kurt Hummel whose Dark Sad Gay Backstory is he had a crush on a boy who didn't like him back, and didn't go to prom because of it.

???? The PTA organized two proms?? One at the school and one at another venue in secret, so that Emma wouldn't get to to to Prom?

And she didn't find out until she arrived? The whole school kept the secret? That's...nonsense? You're telling me she has literally zero friends?

It’s gone past offensive to being bad writing, I cannot believe the nonsense idea that the ENTIRE SCHOOL kept THE SPONTANEOUS RELOCATION OF PROM a secret from this girl.

You’re telling me not one person was like “Hey Emma it’s Connor from Precalc, I know we don’t know each other, but this is kinda messed up.”

Meryl Streep: "I think we can all agree we have made things worse, the best we can do is disinfect our things and go home."

Jesus CHRIST, it's SO FUNNY that this character thinks Indiana is SO AWFUL and no one calls her on it?

Listen, if someone from Indiana talks smack about Indiana we're like "Fair 'nuff" but if someone not from Indiana talks smack about Indiana we THROW HANDS.

Anyway Nicole Kidman is teaching Emma how to have confidence while the house is suddenly full of Bi Lighting and it's wild how this STILL feels incredibly straight.

Anyway I stopped to run to Aldi, ten blocks away, and passed two houses with pride flags in windows or porches. At least one rainbow COEXIST bumpersticker in the parking lot. In the checkout behind me, a blatant twink was doing checkout math with his roommates. Indiana.

Anyway James Cordon got a whole scene about how HARD it was to be a gay teen, and Meryl Streep is singing about how she's not that bad a person, meanwhile I have no idea if the protagonist is still dating her girlfriend or not.

Oh hey that was the next scene, girlfriend (Alyssa) is singing about how hard her mom pushes her -
"Improve all of your strong points,
and hide the things you lack,
'cause your mom thinks if you're perfect
your father might come back."

OH DANG, at last, I FELT SOMETHING

This is then followed up by Trent, the middle evolution between Kurt Hummell and James Cordon's Character, singing about how biblical literalism is silly and like

my gods. We've been over this. This is not NEW.

Anyway Emma breaks up with her girlfriend and asks James Cordon to the prom, then sings a song on the internet which is watched by a bunch of apparently not out kids, and I'm ANNOYED THAT I'M FEELING THINGS

I genuinely love that she's finding a queer community by Doing An Evan Hansen, I just wish it hadn't taken so DANG LONG to get here.

But also there was no build up of these queer kids, none of them are like, someone we've seen before.

I have decided that Gays don't deserve rights.

I will say, bad movie, but Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose, who play Emma and her girlfriend Alyssa, are genuinely very talented young performers and I want them to get all kinds of work off of this.

Whatever, everyone gets a happy ending, including the homophobic mom and the school bullies, which is nice I guess.

I will say, I think it's okay to not have EVERYONE be good people in the end? Some people aren't gonna do a complete 180 overnight, and that's okay?