#There are a lot of great aspects of msp that elevate it beyond its premise and peers

[maybe-boys-do-love]

My School President low-key has some of the best color-grading, lighting, and costuming of any GMMTV production. It's not showy, not composed like a painting. It's casual, vibrant, crisp, and character-driven.

Queer, too, but prosaically. Whereas Bad Buddy asserts its queerness by subverting BL tropes, MSP synthesizes queer techniques with those of BL, which shows up in the production. We get queer-associated neons (think the ITSAY series or cinematographer Rath) in one scene and, in the next, sun and candy-coated color as chaste as Cooking Crush. Gay little cardigans over Thai BL staple school uniforms and shorteralls for the beach. The fantasy of gayness and the familiarity of living out actual gay experiences merge, so there's little of the nostalgic vaseline filter on the lens. And there's depth to the blacks and shadows that make the colors stand out more, currents of deeper emotions in a comedic world. The contrast is not gritty. Rather, its clarifying. We get to be close and intimate with these characters, their fears and burgeoning feelings.

The production isn't there to tell the story itself, but to invite us up close to the conversations, faces, and silly dances without getting in the way of the laughs or the love. Clear eyes, full hearts, and such. A high-school comedy-musical with a production that sports its stumbling desire for a rainbow sincerely and unashamed, like the gay theater-kid energy its celebrating.