LGBT people are (finally) celebrating in Christmas movies

• As with other cinematographic genres, the Christmas film is becoming more and more inclusive, now with gay and lesbian characters in the foreground.

• Netflix released

  Its

  Romance Blast

  , its first Christmas comedy featuring gay lead characters

  , on December 2

  .

• A year earlier, 

  My In-Laws, Noël et moi

  , with actress Kristen Stewart, was broadcast by Sony in France. 

The end of the year celebrations are approaching, the family reunion is taking shape and, as always, the eternal single of the family is wondering. Will my parents still try to accommodate me with the son of the neighbor's cousin? Do I have to assume that I was dumped three days before December 24? Could my roommate pretend, for an evening, to be my boyfriend? If these questions may seem very familiar, it is because they are more or less those that the main character of a Christmas movie always asks himself. If, until now, the latter was rather heterosexual, the scenarios are (finally) changing.

In 

, Netflix's new romantic comedy "Christmas movie", Peter (Michael Urie) is a 40-year-old man, eternally single in Los Angeles, who asks himself all of these questions, while he's openly ... homosexual. He offers Nick (Philemon Chambers), his roommate, also gay, to come with him to New Hampshire, to spend the end of the year with his family. As in all the best works of the genre - so it's not really a spoiler - the two friends finally realize that they have always loved each other and choose to ditch everything to relocate to Peter's hometown. .

This feature, billed as Netlifx's first gay Christmas rom-com, comes a year after

Laws 

another such film from a big studio, Sony, starring a female couple. lesbians.

Some American channels, specializing in romantic comedies (Lifetime, Hallmarck Channel, etc.), have also opened their doors a year ago to main LGBT characters with

,

and

.

A "recognized" and "legitimate" community

Why this inclusive transfer of Christmas films, which are however traditionally built on a very cliché heterosexual romance? According to Caroline San Martin, lecturer in writing and cinematographic practices at the Sorbonne, it is because today there is "a recognition of the LGBT community in the society in which we live".

“A film can be categorized according to how viewers identify with it, as a social or cultural class. These days, categorization is done by recognizing a community in a feature film, which allows it to be labeled in a certain way. The LGBT community being recognized today, it becomes legitimate, which allows it to appear in a place of representation like the cinema. But the recognition of these people in the public sphere took a long time to arrive, ”analyzes the teacher.

And if platforms and studios are embracing inclusive Christmas film, it's also because recently released LGBT cinematographic works have for the most part performed well.

the drama

great critical and public success at the end of 2017, or the comedy-drama 

, which had a nice echo among adolescents and young adults in 2018.

Sacrificing the reality of LGBT + people?

But is it possible to integrate at all costs one or more LGBT + characters in this very codified genre, without betraying their reality?

This is the question that arises as you watch

.

If Christmas movies aren't known for their screaming realism, there are a lot of surprises in Netlfix's rom-com.

Like the family who fully accepts the homosexuality of the main character, the mother who organizes a romantic date between her son and his sports coach, also gay, or the hero who decides to come back to live in his hometown.

Not all families, of course, reject LGBT people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But it is quite exceptional that relatives, especially the elderly, are also open-minded.

Peter works as a communicator in Los Angeles, on the west coast of the United States, at the other end of New Hampshire, on the east coast.

If the reasons for their estrangement are not given, it is not surprising that an LGBT person leaves their small town for a bigger one where homophobia is more diluted.

It is immediately more astonishing when he chooses to return to it, even if it is the usual trope in Christmas movies.

A breath of fresh air

Should we sacrifice the marshmallow naivety of these feature films, and introduce a pinch of realism?

Caroline San Martin is not sure.

Drawing on the work of the writer Stanley Cavell, she explains that the cinema "makes it possible to highlight the possibility of a second chance".

“This faith in the second chance allows us, as spectators, to become better in society. As the character gives others a second chance, I can do that too. It does not make it possible to conduct a realistic story but to highlight the possibility of a second chance in the real world. Fiction can influence reality, ”continues the lecturer.

This even somewhat optimistic portrayal of LGBT people and those around them can also be seen as a breath of fresh air for onlookers. “It's a world where homophobia doesn't exist. There is never a point in the film when someone is afraid of being gay or ashamed of being gay. The problems have nothing to do with sexuality, but relate to the fact of not being able to be in a relationship, which is also something that heterosexuals wonder about ”, explains Michael Urie, the interpreter of Peter. to American magazine W. “This is what I needed when I was younger. We did not see positive representations of homosexuality on television, ”continues Philemon Chambers, Nick in

, with the same media.

Kristen Stewart, who starred in 

 last year, also assured

she

would have "loved" to be able to see this kind of movies when she was younger.

His is also more nuanced.

His girlfriend in the feature film, played by Mackenzie Davis, is still in the closet with his family, who sometimes display a certain homophobia.

It is only at the end that the two women have a

.

For Philemon Chambers, "this is only the beginning" because "people are not afraid to tell stories where the characters are themselves".

And like straight guys who have their good and bad Christmas movies, gays too will soon have a little more choice in end-of-the-year entertainment.

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