My Biggest Queer Crushes Are Always Relationship Crushes
From “Stand by Me” to “Call Me by Your Name” and “Sense8,” I can’t help but fall in love with love
When James Finn prompted me to write about my favorite movie crush, I knew instantly where it all started — Stand by Me. And then came Call My by Your Name and Sense8.
It was apparent my crushes weren’t on individual characters, but instead on what their relationships represented.
Stand by Me
Stand by Me was the most significant film of my childhood. It follows four boys on their search for a dead body. Like any good story, it’s journey that matters more than the destination.
Stand By Me is told through the eyes of Gordie Lachance (played by Wil Wheaton), as he reminisces about his childhood and friendship with Chris Chambers (River Phoenix).
Some may guess my crush was on River Phoenix —the poster-boy who already had a presence like James Dean. But it was Wil Wheaton and the character of Gordie Lachance I was most drawn to.
Gordie was a quiet kid who liked to make stories. His older brother, who had been his hero, had died the previous summer. His father had essentially rejected Gordie, making his life miserable.
I didn’t experience this kind of family trauma. But I did struggle with friendship in my childhood years. I was neither cool nor attractive, and often experienced the rejection of other boys.
And then here was this film about a relationship between two unlikely boys. Gordie was “nerdy,” awkward, and book-smart, while Chris was the street-smart “cool” kid. Yet, despite their differences, they were the best of friends.
I was less drawn to the characters as individuals and more drawn to the intimacy of their relationship. Gordie confided his deepest fears in Chris — fears he didn’t have the safety or courage to speak to anyone else about.
In one scene, Gordie asks if Chris thinks he’s weird. “D’you think I’m weird?” For a closeted gay boy, it sounded like, I’ve got this massive secret where I know I’m different to all the other boys.
Chris didn’t skip a beat. His response was unconditionally accepting and validating: “Everybody is weird.”
Their friendship was mutual. At different times, each of Gordie and Chris melt into each other’s arms with sobbing tears. They gave and received the kind of unconditional love a boy would want from a father.
As a boy I was hungry for that kind of friendship and intimacy. While I didn’t see it that way at the time, looking back it was probably my first awareness of seeking love and acceptance in the arms of a boy.
Call Me by Your Name
The same was with Call Me by Your Name. While I was mesmerised by Timothée Chalamet’s acting performance, I wasn’t so much drawn to the individual characters of Elio and Oliver.
Neither Elio nor Oliver possessed any real kind of magic on their own. They were awkward, neurotic, confused, and unsure.
Most films try to make magic out of love between two likely partners, when I feel we are inwardly more drawn to the magic and mystery of unlikely pairs.
It was the physical mismatch of their pairing that was most stunning to me. Their awkward aloneness gave way to beautiful intimacy the closer they got.
It wasn’t the only relationship crush I had in that film either. One of the greatest scenes in the film was where Elio sits with his father in the library. His father’s monologue spoke, in part:
“When you least expect it, nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember I’m here. Right now, you may not want to feel anything. Maybe you’ll never want to feel anything. And maybe it’s not to me you want to speak about these things, but I feel something you obviously did.
Look, you had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you.”
I think I can speak for most boys — especially gay boys — who yearn for the kind of unconditional love and acceptance Elio experienced with his father.
This was the first scene of the film where many in the cinema openly wept. It wasn’t because of sadness. It released the kind of tears that come from unadulterated beauty and male emotional intimacy.
Sense8
If you haven’t seen Sense8, you must. I won’t chew up space in this article by recapping the complex storyline. Instead, I’ll skip right to the characters I crushed on. There were four.
First, Lito and Hernando. Lito (played by Miguel Angel Silvestre) is a handsome and closeted gay actor, supported by his gorgeous live-in boyfriend Hernando.
It’s one thing to have queer representation in films as individual characters. It’s another to have healthy queer-relationship representation. Lito and Hernando weren’t only navigating self-identity, they were also finding their way in relationship against the backdrop of a heteronormative and homophobic culture.
The show also provided this in the characters of Nomi and Amanita — perhaps the healthiest of all relationships in the story. And for a trans actor to play a leading romance storyline was very powerful. They were sexy, courageous, and for every one of my friends, they were best of the show.
I don’t know how this translates to the straight world, but I imagine this feeling is universal. The need for intimacy and connection is deeply human. I would love to hear your relationship crushes.
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, My Queer Movie Crush, Then and Now.
