Brax Alexander is promoting his 2020 movie, Christmas on the Square. Usually I stay away from Christmas romcoms that preach how wonderfully fulfilling small towns are, as opposed to those soulless, heartless monstrosities, big cities, because I grew up in a small town. My parents rhapsodized, almost daily, about my destiny: find The Girl of My Dreams, get married, go to work in the factory, buy a house, have kids, die. There were no other options.
There was no such thing as same-sex desire or romance. You spent time with boys in order to talk about girls or strategize on how to get girls. When you found Her, you would abandon male loves, instantly and without hesitation. They were trivial, steps on the road to the Girl of Your Dreams destiny.
I kept looking for a place where I could escape, where I could go through an entire day without the "What girl? What girl? What girl?" interrogation. Where people cared about beauty, wisdom, and love, not just reproduction. Maybe even recognized the existence of men loving men.
After college, I lived in West Hollywood, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Minneapolis: Bookstores, art museums, cathedrals, Ethiopian restaurants, Thai restaurants, stores with rainbow flags in the windows, guys holding hands as they walked down the street: heaven.
Oh, sorry, you wanted me to review the movie.
Christmas on the Square was written by gay icon Dolly Parton, and stars gay icon Christine Baranski, plus Josh Segarra (top photo and left), who has played gay characters several time (he even played RuPaul's boyfriend). Furthermore, Dolly promotes the movie in an interview in Pink News, the gay magazine. Surely this is a gay-positive Christmas romcom. So here goes:
Scene 1: A sound-stage town square in the town of Prairie View, with folks making merry. Some very hot guys rush past, doing a high-step dance number -- but they ruin it by double-taking, en masse, at the hot girl who walks by. At the end of their dance, they pair off, each guy with a girl. Yuck! This is the same brainwashing I grew up with: "Every boy will fall in love with a girl! There's no way out, no escape! You are doomed!"
A car drives past, with the evil, sunglasses-wearing Christine Baranski. She sings: "Forget the past, be free at last, gotta get out of this town." I like her -- she's the voice of thousands of LGBT people growing up in homophobic small towns, longing for a place where they can be free. Of course, she's the villain.
Amid the dancing, frolicking characters, the white-haired guy who runs the general store, no doubt Christine's Love Interest (played by Treat Williams, left) sings that "lovers walk in pairs." We only see male-female lovers.
Focus character Felicity drives up and greets the stereotyped 1950s mailman. She's the assistant of evil Christine Baranski, who continues to sing: "I know in time I'll lose my mind, if I don't get out of this town." I had the same thought many times, back in Rock Island amid the "what girl do you like? what girl? what girl? what girl?" interrogation!
I'm getting angry. They should have a trigger warning for all LGBT people who get trapped into viewing this thing. I won't last much longer.
Left: Treat Williams' butt.
Christine passes out eviction notices. She's going to tear down the whole town. Good!
More nude dudes after the break, if you dare to continue. Caution: Explicit.
In his Christmas shop, Josh Serrano and his wife talk about new fertility procedures, then sing about how much they want a baby. Good lord, it never ends..
I'll just go through it on fast fast-forward, to check for any same-sex bonds.
Nope. I couldn't keep track of all the male-female couples finding love, but the only reason guys interacted was to console each other over not having the Girl of Their Dreams, or to congratulate each other for finding Her. Where's the darn trigger warning?
Braxton Alexander's got a lot of explaining to do. Come to think of it, he has never stated that he is gay-friendly. I just assumed.
He's definitely going on the Naughty List.
So is Josh Segarra
A few more nude dudes:
Actor Derek Yates
DC Young Fly
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See also: The Feast of the Seven Fishes: All the tropes I hate, but I still liked it.
Gemstones Episode 2.5 Review: Yep, they're definitely presenting Kelvin as gay
I really enjoy your posts, but I am a bit late to this party -- do your pictures have anything to do with the movie, or are these random enjoyable images?
ReplyDeleteI usually prioritize nude photos of the actors. I'll put in one or two screenshots from the movie, also, if the review is long enough, or if a visual image is necessary to make a point, , but in this case, I didn't actually watch past the first ten minutes.
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