#and i think allowing myself to see it as a coming of age elio and how life and people will hurt and deceive us but what we feel is still

[saifahname]

Just wait till I write a call me by your name inspired fanfic that's actually a romance

[swtorpadawan]

Fun

(For Chapter One of this series, Monsters and Masks, please click here. ) Author’s Notes: I am not conforming to the norms of Chiss aging in my head-canons. For the record, Ashara is 21, here, while Ozibaumnu is 22. “My lord… may I ask you a personal question?” Ashara Zavros, Jedi Padawan, spoke even as she continued to trudge a few steps behind her ostensible master, Lord Kallig, across the icy plains of Hoth. The two were heading back to their shuttle at Dorn Base after successfully seeking out the Force ghost of the ancient Sith Lord Horak-Mul and persuading him to allow himself to be bound to Kallig. All this with the ultimate goal of challenging Darth Thanaton, who had been hounding Kallig, Ashara, and their crew for as long as Ashara had been with them. 

Hoth was barely habitable; it was essentially a freezing orb of snow and ice floating in space. Fortunately, both Ashara and Kallig were well-dressed for the frosty climate, wearing heavy cloaks over their normal robes and thermal garments beneath. Kallig – with the customary generosity she’d come to expect from him – had even provided her with thermal sleeves for her lekku and montrals. She couldn’t imagine where he had come by the garments that seemed to fit her perfectly and were clearly designed for a Togruta like herself. (Perhaps he had met a synthweaver in all his travels?) Regardless she was grateful for the protection and touched by his attentiveness. 

The cold had proven to be too much for their speeders, so they’d ultimately been forced to park them a few kilometers short of the base and were now heading the rest of the way on foot. 

(Tauntauns would have been more practical, Ashara knew. But the smelly, hairy beasts bothered her and even Lord Kallig hadn’t been keen on them.) Kallig paused in his step and turned towards Ashara. He was still wearing his black and silver skull-mask, one Ashara now knew was the legacy of the infamous Kallig bloodline. The mask gave him a foreboding look, an appearance that he’d carefully cultivated, he’d later confided to Ashara. Allies and enemies alike responded more promptly – and more predictably – to the mask than to the Sith Lord’s actual face. Most who encountered him knew him only by his growing reputation; the man beneath – a relatively young Chiss – was ‘unimportant’ in the grand scheme of things, he’d claimed.

(This was especially important, Ashara noted, considering Chiss serving in the Sith Empire often faced considerable prejudices, even those among the Sith.) Ashara, personally, much preferred him without the mask. “Only if you promise to remember that you don’t have to call me ‘my lord’ when we’re in private, Ashara.” Kallig’s tone was gently teasing, and she could almost feel his slight smile behind it. “Call me Ozibaumnu, or you could even follow Andronikus’ lead and call me ‘Ozi’, if you like. Its only in front of others that we need to worry about titles and formality.” He gave her a casual shrug. “Such things are quite important among the Sith and Imperials.” She was touched by his consideration, but she didn’t fail to observe that although he nominally served the Sith Empire and was a Sith himself, he didn’t personally identify himself as an Imperial. That is an important distinction. Ashara observed, filing that nugget of information away for later. “Okay. Ozibaumnu.” she gave him a hopeful smile. “I was just wondering… what does a Sith Lord who isn’t committed to the dark side do for fun?” He’d turned towards her fully now, his head tilting to the side. He had shown her a great deal of patience thus far, arguably far more than her old Jedi masters had. Ashara couldn’t imagine asking that kind of question to Master Ryen or Master Ocera. Indeed, it wouldn’t have ever occurred to her to do so. But Lord Kallig was different. Different than the Jedi. Different than Elios Maliss, that Sith acolyte on Taris, and different from ever other Sith she’d met since then. Different than how she ever imagined a Sith Lord ever could be. Different from anyone who Ashara had ever met, really. “Fun, hmm?” he queried. “Yeah. Fun. You know. For recreation. For enjoyment. Just… you know… fun.” She emphasized. How could she explain the concept of fun to someone who she was starting to suspect had never experienced it? Lord Kallig seemed to be chewing something over. He finally reached up and undid the clasp on his mask, pulling it up and over his head. Ashara had seen only two examples of Chiss in person before she’d met Ozibaumnu, and both had been allied with the Imperial military, seen from a distance. After she’d joined the Sith’s crew, she recalled finding his red eyes unnerving at first, but she had become much more comfortable with them over time. The stark contrast of the red against his dark blue skin was rather exotic. His face was heavily scarred; Ashara knew the marks were from his years as a slave but had never pressed him on the details. (She imagined the stories must have been horrifying.) Still, she privately admitted to herself that his high cheek bones and raven widow’s peak hair were not unattractive. When she’d first met him, of course, he had been wearing his Kallig mask and from the way he talked, she’d imagined him being … well, much older than he was. Later, when he’d revealed his actual face back on his ship, it was only then she realized first that he was Chiss and second that he was only a year or two older than she was. Ozibaumnu often seemed a completely different man to Ashara in private. Or without the mask. Or when she thought of him as ‘Ozibaumnu’ and not ‘Lord Kallig’. She was only now starting to understand that he needed to put on the show of being a ‘dark and imperious’ figure to discourage other Sith and Imperials from targeting him or his crew. This was the culture of the Sith Empire as it existed, and it was a culture that Ashara hoped Kallig would someday overturn. Now free of the mask, the Sith Lord exhaled slowly into the cold, icy air, his breath visible in a small puffy cloud. Ashara recalled that Chiss were naturally adapted to colder climates. Indeed, they’d seen dozens of Imperial-aligned Chiss on Hoth during their time here. Far more than she’d ever seen before. She’d privately wondered why he hadn’t revealed himself as one of them. Shouldn’t he welcome the presence of his own species, after spending so long in the Empire? “Well, I don’t really know.” He finally said. “I have vague memories of… playing with my elder sister when I was very little.” His voice grew wistful for the briefest of moments, and Ashara, feeling charmed at the thought of Ozibaumnu as a small child, started to smile. “I suppose that must have been fun.” The feeling wouldn’t last. “When we were separated, however, well, that’s when the Sarnovas bought me.” She could hear the sting of bitterness and pain in his voice. “I had… duties and lessons. I suppose I may have enjoyed some of those more than others. I read extensively in their library when I could find time. And I found great relief with the biochemistry lab, but that was primarily to manage Lady Sarnova’s gardens. I’ve kept that up, as you’ve seen on the ship. I’m even proficient enough now to produce custom stim-packs, and I do find the challenge relaxing.” He paused. “But I don’t think I would call it ‘fun’, exactly. It’s just something engaging I do to keep myself mentally sharp.”   Ashara felt her heart start to break hearing about the life that Ozibaumnu had led. It was entirely unfair and put the difficulties of her own life into context. The young Sith Lord had turned away from her now, looking off into the distance at one of Hoth’s moons. Though there was still daylight out, night would be falling quite soon. Still, she was hesitant to interrupt him, enjoying this level of openness. There was time. “It couldn’t have been so different for you, could it?” the Sith Lord asked, turning his head towards her slightly. “The Jedi aren’t exactly known for providing their padawans with a spirited and carefree upbringing.” Ashara bit her lip at that. She had enjoyed her time as a Jedi, no matter how frustrated she’d grown when she felt like her Masters had been holding her back.    “Well, we were given some free time each day.” She finally said. “To learn or relax however we chose. A few of us watched holovids. Some of the others meditated or studied records on loan from the Jedi Archives. I liked sparring with the others, but none of them could really keep up with me so I usually went exploring outside the enclave where I might run into rakghouls or bogstalkers or some other local predator. I didn’t seek conflict with any of them, but I didn’t back down when they attacked, either.” Her lips twisted into a guilty smile. “None of them could stop me.” She knew her pride was a weakness, but she couldn’t quite help it. “I guess… I guess it was fun. For me, anyway.” Ozibaumnu chuckled. “I believe you. I’ve seen your power and skills first-hand.” He gave her a grin. “You’re a remarkably talented warrior.” Ashara blushed in embarrassment at the compliment, looking away self-consciously. “Uhm. Thank you.” She offered lamely. Why did it bother her so much, him seeing her flustered? Seeming to sense the sudden awkwardness, Ozibaumnu turned away again. Ashara liked that about him. He respected her boundaries and didn’t push when she was uncomfortable with something. He seemed to ‘get’ her in a way other people didn’t. “Anyway, after I… ‘left’ the Sarnovas’ service, I began my Sith training. I knew full well I was already well behind the other students, and that my Chiss heritage would make me a target for a great many of the acolytes and overseers. I had to work twice as hard and to watch my back. The others took enjoyment from tormenting others or in the failures of one of our fellows. That’s… not something that interested me. So I suppose I didn’t really get to do anything for its own satisfaction.” He paused and Ashara could have sworn she could feel his mind sort through its memories. “Since then, well, first I was performing missions for Zash and then since her… transformation, I’ve had to deal with Thanaton. My companions – prior to meeting you, that is – have been a Dashade shadow-killer whose hobbies include ruthlessly devouring Force-users, and Andronikus, who enjoys acts of piracy and games of pazaak. And I can only play so much pazaak. It’s a reasonably engaging pastime, but not something I enjoy in and of itself.” Ashara had been listening to him talk about his life when inspiration struck her. Noting that his back was still turned to her, she crouched down and put her plan in motion. “But I’m afraid I’m not very experienced with the concept of ‘fun’. Not in a long time, anyway.”     He seemed to ponder that reality for a long moment. “Oh, Ozibaumnu?” Ashara finally asked innocently. “Yes, Ashara?” he attentively turned back in her direction. The snowball struck Ozibaumnu square in the chest, crumbling on impact, but nevertheless leaving the Sith Lord covered in a good amount of snow as his startled eyes widened. Ashara covered her mouth with her hands to smother her laughter, eyes wide with mirth as the Chiss blinked and looked down at himself. “I’m so sorry!” she cried out, still desperately trying to stifle her giggles, and out of breath. “It’s just… you didn’t know what ‘fun’ was and you were just standing there… and I wanted to show you… I’m sorry!” She closed her eyes, trying to recompose herself with her Jedi training and utterly failing. Honestly, she was still a little shocked by her own conduct. She’d never in a million years have even thought about throwing a snowball at any of her old Jedi Masters. Plus, she genuinely liked and respected Ozibaumnu. He was intelligent and knowledgeable treated her with respect and kindness and offered her as much freedom as he could. He’d let her express herself and her abilities in ways she’d never been able to before, and as a result she felt she was becoming more proficient at lightsaber dueling with every encounter and was growing far more refined with the Force overall. And what was more he spoke with her, not at her. About the Force, the Empire, the Republic, the Jedi, the Sith… everything. She’d enjoyed it, more than she’d like to admit. It felt like no one was holding her back anymore. Instead, Ozibaumnu was helping her move forward. She really should be kinder towards him for all he’d done for her. More respectful. She lowered her hands from her face and sighed, trying to prepare a more sincere – and heartfelt – apology.     And that was the moment Ashara felt the snowball hitting her in the face. The Togruta sputtered as her hands brushed away the snow, looking up in disbelief at her assailant.   Ozibaumnu, the Lord Kallig, Heir to Tulak Hord and the Great Dragon of the Cult of the Screaming Blade, was grinning mischievously at her in an expression Ashara had never seen on his face before. His hand was extended outward, palm-side down. A few inches beneath it she saw a new snowball being formed in mid-air, just out of the reach of his hand, and immediately realized that while she’d been distracted trying to smother her laughter, he’d sculpted the first snowball and had flung it at her just by using the Force. Now he was plainly getting ready to send another her way. It was so playful it was almost charming. She was so startled and then entranced at the sight that she barely had time to duck her head from the second snowball as it flung itself towards her, letting out an ‘eek’ as it narrowly sailed over her montrals.   She glanced back at him. Ozibaumnu continued grinning and promptly reached out and started forming a third snowball. Ashara felt a surge of adrenaline as her natural competitive instincts took over. If he was going to throw snowballs at her, she’d defend herself in kind. She kicked out at the still-forming snowball, then reached down towards the snow to form her own. Ashara knew she couldn’t match Ozibaumnu’s telekinesis or other outstanding Force powers, but she didn’t think he was her equal in physical prowess. She found herself smirking as she hurled her half-made snowball back at him. The Sith Lord deftly dodged the projectile by deftly turning his body, in an elegant display of an economy of motion. The minimal amount of effort had been expended. Then with a widening grin and a gesture of his hand, the snow all around them started to rise from the ground. Realizing the danger, Ashara took off, calling upon her Force speed to embark on a dead run away from him almost faster than the eye could follow. She’d realized immediately what Lord Kallig – Ozibaumnu, she reminded herself – was trying to do. She’d just have to be fast enough to overcome it. As she pushed herself, the ground behind her rose in a veritable tidal wave of snow, getting larger and larger as it pursued. Just when it threatened to overtake her, she adjusted her trajectory, evading its path. The Jedi padawan had been the best combatant in her class on Taris. Maybe one of the best in all the Jedi order. She knew that as powerful as she was, she couldn’t face Ozibaumnu directly like this. But even as the wave of snow turned and pursued her, she had a plan. Ashara continued to alter her direction, ever so slightly. Ozibaumnu was incredibly powerful and intelligent, but if she timed it perfectly, it was just possible she could find the angle to take him unawares. She risked a glance over her shoulder at him and was rewarded with the sight of a still grinning Sith Lord, reaching out with his hands as he guided the ever-growing wave of snow. By now, it was nearly ten meters high and twice as wide. Despite the cold and the speed she was running at, Ashara could feel the perspiration start to build on her brow as she continued to run, still adjusting her angle. She had never run so fast in her life, but at the same time, it was so exciting. The shape centered on the Chiss Sith Lord was nearly complete; Ashara was like the free tip of a compass while the wave behind her was drawing the circle. Just before she reached her starting point – and perhaps seconds away from being overtaken by the wave of snow – she turned her route completely towards him at a hard ninety degree angle and leapt, launching herself towards him with the strength of the Force in a remarkable display of athleticism. He'd turned towards her, his red, pupil-less eyes wide as they caught hers. She’d have missed the reaction without her Force sensitivity focused so acutely on him. For a fraction of a second, she was certain that her plan had failed, and he would respond with a Force Wave, throwing her back and into a nearby snowbank. Or perhaps he might even lash out with his Force Lightning, which Ashara was certain she could not resist or defend against. Not at this point.  

But the expression on Ozibaumnu’s face was not a grin any longer. Nor was it anger or even shock. His eyes wide as he looked at her with the most serene expression. He looked at peace, with his lips slightly parted as he watched the oncoming Togruta soaring towards him. This observation registered in Ashara’s mind at the very instant she collided with him, sending both Force users tumbling to the ground in a heap. The Force wave of snow, no longer under the guidance of its master, simply collapsed just short of them, sending up a flurry of flakes. When the dust settled, Ashara, still breathing heavily, sat up and looked down at Ozibaumnu. He was laying on his back while Ashara was effectively straddling him. The wind had obviously been knocked out at him, but his eyes were still open, and looking up at her. Ashara swallowed, catching her breath as the feeling of awkwardness set in. “Uhm. You okay?” He blinked but didn’t turn away. Instead, he just nodded up at her, his eyes still wide and strangely focused.   Ashara smiled, relived. Then realizing she’d succeeded in her plan, the smile widened into a grin. “I got you.” she beamed in triumph. It had been the first time she’d bested him in any kind of training. Ozibaumnu’s didn’t react in the slightest, nor did he move free himself or to push her off of him. In fact, he was only barely breathing as he continued to gaze up at her. “You’re beautiful.” The words startled Ashara, as her jaw dropped and her cheeks flushed. He’d always been friendly to her, and they’d even bantered a handful of times. But he’d never said anything to her like that before. These past several weeks had been a whirlwind for the young Togruta. She’d seen her old masters slain, then had allied with the Sith who’d killed them. She’s left Taris behind, and since then had seen how the growing war between the Republic and the Empire was impacting worlds like Quesh and Hoth. She’d made friends – or at least acquaintances – wish a Sith Lord, a pirate, and a Dashade shadow-killer who was sometimes possessed by a Sith. She had learned new things about herself, experiencing things she’d never imagined and she suspected that her journey of self-discovery was only just beginning. That there were many more lessons ahead. And as she looked down at his handsome face and felt butterflies in her belly, she wondered if this were one of them.   The Chiss was still looking up at her, entranced, breathing heavily with his mouth agape. Ashara found herself starting to lean down towards his lips, getting closer and closer… It was at that point the silence was shattered by a voice that could be heard calling out in the distance. “My lord!” Alarmed, Ashara turned towards the sudden intrusion, her hands reflexively going for the lightsabers she kept clipped to her belt. Rapidly approaching the two from about fifty meters away was a squad of Imperial soldiers, clad in the Empire’s finest cold-weather gear. They were led by an eager man wearing sergeant stripes on his armor, his eyes wide in alarm. Suddenly very self-conscious of the fact that she was effectively straddling the Sith Lord to whom she owed her allegiance in the middle of a plain of snow, Ashara scrambled to her feet, hastily brushing the snow off her robes. She turned away as her cheeks burned in embarrassment, looking down at her feet. She could only imagine how ridiculous she looked at this moment.     The soldiers came to a stop a few meters away, the sergeant suddenly uncertain. Each of the squadmates appeared to be surveying the lay of the land.   “Forgive me, my lord. Dorn Base had a report of a sudden snowstorm… phenomena in this zone. We were concerned you’d been stranded.”   Ashara remembered that Captain Yudrass of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force now commanded Dorn Base, largely on Lord Kallig’s recommendation. Perhaps these men were here at Yudrass’ request? Ozibaumnu had, by now, risen to his feet, his back to the soldiers. Ashara watched as the Sith Lord carefully refastened his skull-mask around his head before finally turning to face the sergeant. “Not at all, sergeant.” Lord Kallig said, his voice once again slightly distorted by the mask. Nevertheless, his tone was clear, firm and commanding. “My apprentice and I were simply enjoying an impromptu training session. But I am most grateful for your concern.” “Ah.” The sergeant blinked, glancing at Ashara with a nervous look in his eyes and then back to Kallig before swallowing. “Of course, my lord. My apologies. My men and I will return to our patrols.” Kallig gave a slight nod, effectively dismissing the soldiers. The sergeant gave the order and the men turned westward, back in the general direction of Dorn base. Finally alone again, Kallig turned to Ashara, his face once again unreadable beneath his mask.     “That was fun.” He said simply. Ashara bit her lip at that, and she realized only then that she’d been holding her breath in the presence of the soldiers who had ‘caught’ them. She exhaled, finally smiling softly at him. “Yes, it was.” She answered quietly. He gave a nod of his head and she found herself hoping he was smiling beneath the mask. “Well then. We should get back to it.” Without another word, the Sith Lord began trekking through the snow, once more headed towards the base. Ashara watched him for a second, her smile turning into a grin. Then she followed, eager to catch up. Author’s Notes: Some of my younger readers may not be entirely familiar with how people used to draw precise circles. Now you know.  The Ashara Zavros romance in the SI story can be troubling if not approached from the correct direction. One of my goals with this particular character to explore that romance while avoiding the pitfalls.   I love the idea of the Sith Inquisitor or the Sith Warrior going through most of the game interacting with Sith and Imperials who are unaware you are not human or Pureblood. Its like they can pull the mask off at any time and say “What did you say about Mirialans again?” Ozi is not a big fan of the Chiss Ascendancy. They sent his family into exile and to the Empire, and then did nothing after his mother was killed and he and his sister were enslaved. So he’s not a creature of sentiment with respect to his own species. But he was more accommodating with Yudrass, an NPC on Hoth who I found memorable. Honestly, he was one of the few Imperials he saw on Hoth who seemed worth his time. This might be the beginning of a reconciliation. Frankly, its too soon to say. Finally – I was originally going to name this piece ‘Snowballs’ but opted to change it to avoid any entendre issues. (Some of y’all have dirty minds.) Tagging people who liked my WIP teasers - @actualanxiousswampwitch , @sleepswithvillains​ , @elaphaemourra​ , @starstrucknerdbatkid​ , @lyrishadow​ , @sarpndodoesrp , @introversiontherapy , @faith71504 , @cinlat , @a-master-procrastinator , @a-muirehen , @imperialparagons , @blueburds and @greyias ! Thank you all for the encouragement! Also for @starknstarwars - who a VERY long time ago did some Winter prompts, the result of which being this WIP i had almost abandoned for over a year. The lesson here is, save your work. You can always come back to it later. Also - @swtorshipping​ - For your approval. Comments are always welcome!

[alittlefrenchtree]

The King -- a post of my random thoughts half a hour after the end of the credits.

So. I’ve watched The King.

I love the photography of it. The trailer had already shown that but the movie itself was indeed really pleasant to watch. Not only thanks to the light, the landscapes and the decors but also with its way of filming its characters and framing them.

I don’t know much about history (well, next to nothing, really) but in a strictly storytelling point of view, I find the scenario simple but entertaining and good enough.

The cast is a large part of my appreciation of the movie. Tim is the main but all the men around him are doing really great jobs. Joel, Sean and Ben all gave substance to their characters and I find myself invested with each one of them which is not always the case for me with support roles. Especially when I have already so much love for the main.

I’ve whined at the first sound Timmy Hal made (and why the fuck is he MOANING all the time through the entire movie?? Stop being so damn sensual without even trying, son. Please and thank you). I had a little bit of a complicated journey with his character. I loved young Hal because he’s closer to what I’m used to with Timmy’s acting. I was quite lost when he has shifted to being a king. I’m not used to see Timmy’s character being so guarded (because I mostly kept Elio and Nic as references in my head) and I wasn’t really comfortable with being held outside of his head and away for his feeling and emotions. As the cracks in him begun to show, I’ve connected with Henry. I loved seeing him on edge, mad, loosing his temper, (falsely ?) eager and everything in between. The evolution of the character is one of my favorite thing about the movie. His fucking speech before the battle is everything. I’ve nearly cried and was so proud of him at this moment.

But I was expecting a more perfect French coming from him for the movie. The more the story progresses, the less perfect his french is which is kind of confusing. His CMBYN french was (I think) better in a sense that it was almost impossible to see that he was an English speaker when he was speaking in French. That wasn’t really the case in the King for me. Guess you can’t always have an Esther Garrel around to help you practice.

I would like to express my deepest thank you to Robert Pattinson. I hadn’t laughed that way in a long time and god, it felt good. He’s absolutely hilarious and he’s much needed in the middle of the serious ton of the movie. He has so many great lines in two and an half scenes but my personal favorites are “the little french tree” and “I enjoy to speak English, it is simple and ugly” ones 😂😂😂😂 and now I wished even more that he was there during promo. What a waste.

Catherine managed to annoy me in one scene and it wasn’t even the fault of little Depp which surprised me. Why the hell does she say she doesn’t speak english when she speaks almost perfect english right after? I thought first it was humility but she doesn’t really appears as humble so it was only false modesty then? I don’t know but I don’t like that thing. I also don’t like people who has never experienced being placed in a position of power and of dangers, especially at a young age, especially when they didn’t want to in the first place, especially when they did try to do the right thing, and allow themselves to judge people who has. Like somehow it is an easy position to fulfill. She’s right about monarchy and yet she just comes out at judgmental. Anyway.

Rob’s accent is very heavy but believable. My own mother have more or less the same when she tried to say the 6 words she knows in English 😂There is a few little moments when he loses it a little and his english becomes a little bit to fluid in comparaison of the rest but the majority of it is hilarious. My opinion on Lily-Rose’s has not really changed since the trailer (she hasn’t much more screen time than in the trailer, so it isn’t really surprising...). Hers is way lighter, like someone who is a French native but has learned some time ago how to speak english and spoke it on a more or less regular basis.

I think I’ve covered most of it. Not gonna lie, I tend to struggle to stay focused on movies that are longer than 2hours and I was afraid that The King would be a little bit too long for me, even with Timmy in it, but it wasn’t. I totally see myself watch it again in its whole at some point and not only my favorite scenes.

Ok that’s it. I’ll shut up now.

[solidarityinloneliness]

Love is a privilege… but sometimes that’s okay

This week, we focused on the topic of “Realization of the Self Through Relationship” by watching Call Me By Your Name (Guadagnino - 2017). We also read two analyses of this beautiful film by Miles Rufelds and Joanna Di Mattia. While Di Mattia argues in “Beating Hearts: Compassion and Self-Discovery in Call Me By Your Name,” that the film epitomizes a young man’s sexual awakening by creating an environment full of both “compassion and desire,” Rufelds argues in “But Seeing Through Whose Eyes: Call Me By Your Name and the Mechanisms of  Love and Fantasy” that the film is a “tone-deaf parade of bourgeois privilege.” I asked myself, do I find the film to be a representation of empathy-inducing coming of age (like Di Mattia), or a display of privilege so ostentatious that it is inaccessible to the audience (like Rufelds)? After some consideration and doing research on my own, I concluded that I side more with Di Mattia than with Rufelds. However, I feel that Rufelds’ commentary on Guadagnino’s manipulation of the viewer is an essential element that plays towards the film’s favor.

According to Indiewire, Guadagnino set the film in 1983 rather than the book’s original setting of 1987, in an effort to keep the characters “untouched by the corruption of the ’80s—in the U.S., Reagan, and in the UK, Thatcher.” A Guardian interview with writer James Ivory also mentions that scenes of Elio’s parents discussing AIDS and HIV were deleted from the script prior to production. In short, there were deliberate efforts to rid the film of any political statements. The idyllic atmosphere of CMBYN that Rufelds finds so “completely unrelatable” is a deliberate choice made by the production team. Guadagnino was never interested in making a movie grounded in reality. When Rufelds cites Theodor Adorno to state that “capitalist media lure viewers into an encompassing, inescapable fantasy,” he means to criticize films like CMBYN. In the case of CMBYN, however, this very encompassing, inescapable fantasy is exactly what the film wants.

Guadagnino takes full advantage of the Perlmans’ privilege to “enrich” the story. Precocious yet naive Elio is free to explore his sexuality because of his family’s money. After all, Oliver is staying with the Perlmans as the personal intern to Elio’s father, helping his research in return for staying at the Perlmans’ beautiful estate in rural Italy. While Oliver researches with Professor Perlman, Elio is free to enjoy the summer with hobbies like reading dense literature and playing music. All of Elio’s hobbies share in common that they are activities of solitary contemplation, a necessary process for adolescents. Elio’s revelation of his feelings for Oliver is only through a conversation about history, a topic he seems to know so well that Oliver rhetorically asks, “is there anything you don’t know?” as if to be in awe at Elio’s talent and musical upbringing. So in a way, it is Elio’s very preoccupation with privileged hobbies that allow for them to create a connection.

With this privilege as the backdrop for Elio and Oliver’s upbringing, the other key element of CMBYN’s setting allows for Elio to explore his sexuality: compassion. Di Mattia states that “the film’s fabric of compassion… provides a safety net that allows his contradictions to surface – not as character flaws, but as positive elements of his self- and sexual exploration.” By his contradictions, Di Mattia is referring to Elio’s attraction to both Marzia and Oliver. When Elio confesses his feelings to Oliver, he says it shyly, but not because he is ashamed, but because he is not used to being vulnerable. Elio says, “If you only know how little I know about things that matter… You know what things.” Later instead of making Elio’s confession a point of conflict Oliver kisses him. In the film, Oliver is both the object of Elio’s adoration, and the subject of guidance to Elio’s adulthood. Instead of bashing Elio for having feelings, Oliver guides Elio to feel and act in a way that makes their relationship feel important yet secretive.

Just from Oliver and Elio’s relationship alone, we see that the film is grounded in empathy. However, it is Elio’s scene with Professor Perlman that truly hits the nail on the head. When Elio is sad that Oliver has returned to the U.S., Professor Perlman teaches Elio to feel grateful to have made a connection with Oliver, rather than feeling remorseful about his departure. Professor Perlman says, “He was good... You were both lucky to have found each other because you too are good.” Until this moment, not once do the parents explicitly state their awareness of Elio and Oliver’s relationship. In other words, Professor Perlman is compassionate enough to observe them from afar, and intervene only when Elio needs his guidance. Furthermore, saying they are both good implies to Elio that Professor Perlman recognizes that their relationship was special. Allowing his son to recognize his own self worth and think optimistically are the two best ways that Professor Perlman can be to help Elio as a father.

Some viewers might question, “If the film is so compassionate, why does it end with Elio finding out that Oliver is engaged?” Di Mattia makes a poignant argument on this point. She states, “Guadagnino asks us to show Elio compassion too, in the truest meaning of the word - to suffer with him, and feel what he feels.” Di Mattia is referring to the closing credits sequence, in which Elio stands in front of the fire and cries. The placement of the viewer as the fire is fascinating, because the viewer becomes the fire. By becoming the fire, the audience gets to observe Elio at his most vulnerable moment. I believe that this is Guadagnino’s way of saying, “It is now your turn to feel compassionate to Elio.” The most skeptical of skeptics may think that Elio is a privileged teen without any obstacles in his life, but when he see Elio’s face after losing his lover, he must feel empathy towards him. Whether it was the film’s explicit intention or not, it is clear that Guadagnino wants the audience to understand that adolescence for queer individuals like Elio is hard, even when they have all the resources they need.

CMBYN is a rare queer film that doesn’t make a big deal out of the characters’ sexualities. In a way, I think Guadagnino is interested in creating a utopia that he hopes one day will be available to every queer person: nurturing, abundant environments where young queer individuals can explore love with partners of either gender.

I don’t think that every queer film has to depict utopia the way CMBYN does, however. To further this point, I find it useful to take a look at Moonlight (Jenkins - 2016), another popularized queer film in the recent years. Unlike CMBYN’s European upper class setting, Moonlight portrays a poor black neighborhood in Miami called Liberty City. Critics of CMBYN would likely hail Moonlight as being more grounded in today’s political reality of poverty and racial segragation. However, I would argue that CMBYN creates a lustful and compassionate utopia in a way that Moonlight does not, due to the very fact that it is set in a world so removed from reality. CMBYN’s “Somewhere in Northern Italy” setting allows Elio to fall in love, while Moonlight’s Liberty City hardly gives Chiron a chance to feel vulnerable. According to Pamela Demory’s “Moonlight, Adaptation, and Queer Time,” Moonlight is set in queer time, which she defines as “urgency of being [that] also expands the potential of the moment and… squeezes new possibilities out of the time at hand.” In this way though, I don’t think films like CMBYN and Moonlight are particularly different. Both films demonstrate a new approach to Queer Cinema, in which the film reconstructs a potentially traumatic past of a queer character into a series of euphoric and pivotal “moments.” By doing so, the viewer of such movies can begin to see that love is love, regardless of sexual orientation.

[nullum-nocte]

Gladion’s Boggart Prt. 2

@moonkxssed @toeachfuture @serenesunlight ayyyy it’s more of my fav group!! Hope you don’t mind me tagging you all since they are your characters aaand i want you guys to see 

Selene Elio and Mitsuki were left stranded in a lone hallway lost beyond recognition. Gladion seemed to put his extensive knowledge of the school’s layout to use by going complex routes that even they had trouble following from behind him. When the three had raced around once again another corner they were met with three possible routes he could've taken. One was to the stairway while the other two were hallways, the left hallway was dark- pitch black to the point one of them would need to use Lumos to see. The hallway to the right was much brighter, more inviting than the dark hallway ever would be.

Now they just had to choose who went where.  

“Why would he go down the stairs?” Mitsuki exclaimed trying to talk sense into her two other friends. “He’d hate it if someone saw him cry and going down the stairs would be a huge gamble for him!”

“Y-You just d-don’t want to be the one t-to go down the stairs,” was Elio’s smart remark hitting the nail on the head.

“You’re right I don’t! I’ll get lost without Cinnamon to help me or I’ll get stuck on the staircase for an hour.” the again didn’t need to be said as all remembered her fuming speech over the ‘blasted staircase and how idiotic wizards were.’

“Still b-bitter over l-last time, huh?” Elio mutter shaking his head in amusement at her flash of irritation knowing it wasn’t directed at him.

Huffing Mitsuki pouted crossing her arms over her chest, “Well I’d like to see you deal with sitting on the stairs for an hour bored out of your skull- Really what were the founder’s thinking when they made the stairs?? Oh sure you have plans to get to class but then stairs decide to take you halfway across campus making you late! You know how long Snape chewed me out for!?”

Selene started to tune her out remembering just how long Snape chewed her out; she was in the same room as her when it happened after all. They didn’t have the same classes but on that day Professor Snape wanted more personal hours for himself, or something along those lines so he merged both classes together.

Though the rant went along as expected Selene could agree with one thing about it…

“Wizards are weird.” Both girls said in sync Mitsuki saying in frustration while Selene said it in resignation.

Elio only laughed at that, “d-did you forget that w-we’re all magical here? And that one of my parents is magical too, so i-i’m use to all of this.” At the word this he waved towards the stairs which were starting to move. If one of them didn’t get on it right then and there they’d only be left with the hallways….

Mitsuki groaned rolling her eyes as she made a run for the slowly moving staircase, “you two owe me big time!” Was the last thing she said before managing to jump the short gap and onto the lip of the staircase managing to stick the landing. It started to move downward, (no it never got any easier watching something break the laws of physics) slowly moving Mitsuki farther and farther away.

Selene cupped her hands around her mouth bending over the drop to shout out, “If you can’t find him then go find Lillie and ask her to help!” Her voice echoed catching the attention of other students that were moving onto their next class. Mitsuki waved showing that she heard Selene before her face was finally out of sight, blocked by another moving staircase.

Turning around she found Elio was going down the right hallway leaving her with the left one. With a quietly whispered, “Lumos.” her wand tip lit up brightly showing her the way. It was dusty and old as if no one had been down this hallway in centuries.

With all the dust some faint footprints were noticeable making a soft snort leave her, “right, of course, he does down the dusty, dark and dank hallway that screams out horror movie.”

Halfway down the hallway, she heard the sound of stone scraping against stone when she turned back she saw the way she had come from was blocked!

“Gladion Aether if we’re trapped here then so help me….” Muttering under her breath her eyes burned with determination to find her friend and get out of here. No matter if this all felt like a cliche build up to a horror movie where the murder would jump out any second now and stab her.

As if wanting to feed into her fear she heard a rage-filled scream along with the sound of things being thrown around. The sound of things breaking echoed down the lonely hall, another yell following along with the crunch of something being snapped.

It was him.

She sped up feet slamming against the hard floor following the sounds of the destruction until she found him in one of the many old classrooms.

Selene openly gaped at the state of the room Gladion resided in. Desks had been turned over in his rampage, posters that had been on the wall torn off and ripped into little pieces. Inkpots and broken quills were scattered on the floor, the dark black inky mess seeping into the floor and into his shoes. Black footprints were left haphazardly around the floor, some steps smeared showing his pacing and even an instance where he had kicked a wall in his frustration.

“Oh Gladion,” she whispered hoarsely feeling her own eyes tear up. At the sound of his name, his head jerked up turning away from staring lifelessly at the quills and to her. Tear tracks glittered in the light glowing from her wand, his green eyes dull, red-rimmed and sorrowful.

“I thought I was over this,” he mourned staring away from her blue eyes, (was that shame within them?) and up to the ceiling, his hand clenching and unclenching. He laughed, low and bitter shaking his head as he sounded close to wailing once more. “I thought I could face it all. I have to kill her one day or who knows what she’ll do. I thought I was ready, now look at me having a mental break down in an abandoned classroom by just being near something that looked like her!” 

He started to pace again ink-stained hands combing through his hair leaving behind black streaks within the blond.“How many people are going to be laughing at me for being afraid of my own mother- how many people are going to spread rumors of the mudblood loving, frightened of his mother, Slytherin Selene? I doubt highly that anyone besides, our friend group and possibly professor Lupin can guess what she’s done fully.”

He can’t say abuse- the words get stuck in his throat threatening to choke him if he dears utter the word. It feels wrong- it feels like it’s meant for those children that had it worst then him. For the kids trapped in basements for hours on end in the pitch dark or kids growing up chained to the bed and not allowed to leave unless it’s to eat bathe and use the bathroom. For the ones beaten, broken and bruised beyond repair.

That wasn’t him, he always had a nice luxurious bed to sleep in was fed three meals a day, (no more no less) and was able to go to school. Even if his clothes sometimes didn't fit right, even if the words she hurled at him stung more then any slap could or the times he was put under the torturing curse- nothing ever left much of a physical mark on his skin. He was as unblemished as a boy his age could be. Even after the discovery of her lab and his slow start to rebellion her actions towards him never changed. She was cruel- would forever be so but never cruel like that- Oh Merlin's saggy balls now he's defending her in his own damn mind! She's awful! She's done unspeakable things, she keeps fresh dead bodies in the basement to sew together to try to make her "husband" come to life again. She just couldn't learn to move on like the rest of the family did, she just had to dive off into the deep end. He was disgusted by her blatant disrespect towards the dead and her shoddy attempts of sewing together a body making monstrosities he'd wish she'd just burn instead of putting freeze charms on them and hiding them away like special treasures. Just thinking about it makes him sick- no he was already feeling sick from watching her threatened his friends.

“I THOUGHT I WAS FINE!” He screams again, raking his hand through a bookshelf throwing books from their place and towards the front to smack against the chalkboard. Tears started to trickle down his face once more making his vision blurry.

“I was fine being the villian,” he choked out between breathy sobs. “I was fine being hated as long as I could protect Lillie- protect you Mitsuki and Elio!” His hands went to his head once more fingers ruffling his hair sending strands of blond every which way. 

“I can’t even do that,” his voice was barely audible only loud enough to hear if you strained your ear. “All I do is get you all hurt just for even talking with me. I hate being an outcast, I just want one damn day where I don't feel like someone’s going to hex me when my back is turned. I just want to be normal- I want to be able to hang out with you all without wondering when the next bully will come around and threaten us!” His legs finally gave out from under him, making him fall to his knees with a smack. His arms fell limp to his side, staring once more up towards the ceiling as if it had all the answers he needed.

"Why do I want to be accepted by them? Why can't I just sit down and accept that no one at this school's ever going to like me and let it be that. Why do I feel the need to prove myself- who do I want to prove myself to Selene??" He turned towards her crawling closer to her on his knees with a crazed searching look. He heaved shoulder shaking as he cried harder squeezing his eyes firmly shut as if that would stop his tears.

Gently Selene rested her hand against the top of his head, fingers gently scratching at his scalp. Instead of answering him she began to hum a low soft sound that almost sounded like a lullaby. She was petting him now coxing him to relax, slowly lowering herself onto her knees to be able to wrap an arm around him and bring him into her chest. His sobs were muffled by her robe, staining it with his tears of anguish.

“I think,” Selene gently whispered near his ear, “that you want to prove yourself to us. To show us that you can take everything the school throws at us and force it on yourself. And Gladion,” she hesitated for a split second before cupping his cheek, tilting his head upward to stare into her eyes. Her thumb moved across his cheek wiping away the tear tracks, “You don’t have to do this alone. We can take care of ourselves. It’s sweet to have you protect us but we all can fight our own battles, you need to stick to your own fights.” 

He opened his mouth brows furrowing in such a way she knew he was going to start an argument with her. Rolling her eyes at his stubbornness she grabbed half of a cauldron cake from her robe’s pocket stuffing it into his mouth. She mourned the loss of the cake she was saving for later, knowing she won't be able to go into Hogsmeade until the weekend to buy another one.

He choked, eyes growing wide in alarm staring at her in shock. His hands gripped her shoulders, cheeks puffing out with a constipated look on his face, concentrating on trying to chew the food and not die. And what a way it would be to go, choking on cake in an abandoned classroom trashed beyond belief. 

 His reaction was all the payback she needed making her feel it was worth it. She got him to shut up and make a face that wasn’t his normal frown. Unable to hold back anymore she laughed, eyes crinkling at the edges, doubling over to hide her face into his shoulder muffling it slightly. 

When her laughter finally eased up she slowly raised her head only to snort. She couldn’t help it he looked so ridiculous!  As if being able to hear her words he send her a petulant look, bottom lip poking out in his sulking. It only made her snort louder and wish to tease him, though she held off not wanting to disturb the peace that finally went over him. 

The two stayed in this position for a while and even after he audibly swallowed the cake he stayed silent. His hands moved from her shoulder falling to his side once more following with a deep sigh. By now her knees were starting to hurt and her legs were tingling in that familiar pins and needles way. It was starting to get awkward- it didn’t look like Gladion was going to start moving anytime soon. 

As if to prove her wrong he slowly started to stand eye twitching slightly at the pins and needles from his own legs. Holding out a hand he helped her up as well whipping out his wand and using a cleaning spell to get rid of the ink stains. She’d follow suit not familiar with the spell he used but easily copying his movements and pronunciation. She smiled watching as the ink stains slowly disappeared leaving him clean as a whistle.

He appeared impressed brows raised in slight surprise making her preen under the attention. Too bad he had to open up his mouth and speak.  

“Now tell me why do you end up with half done assignments if your wand work is that superb?”

“Ughh,” she groaned loudly at the comment deciding to ignore it. “come on Gladion let’s not talk about this we’re missing class!”

He frowned at the obvious subject change, though none the less he nodded following her out of the classroom. 

“Before we go-” he pointed his wand at his hair fixing it back into his preferred style and did the same for her. “there now we look presentable.” 

And with that, the two were off to try to get to their class and hope they weren't sent to detention for being extremely late.

[natures-cunning-ways]

The tipping point

This is sort of the second half of my ramblings about Oliver’s Christmas visit. (The first bit was here.)

The more I think about it, the more I think that this little scene, in Elio’s room during Oliver’s Christmas visit, is the moment the whole thing hinges on.  This is the point where Oliver is about to choose a parallel life, when Elio does nothing to stop him.

Oliver says ‘want to talk?’ which is important because, before, everything happened without talking. Before they sleep together Oliver expresses his concern about this- “We haven’t talked.”  But Elio “shrugged his shoulders, meaning, No need to”. And the next morning Oliver says “we should have talked.”  But they didn’t and they never put a label on what any of this means, or what any of it is, because at the time it didn’t feel necessary, wrapped up as they were in their little summer bubble.  

Someone should have said something- what is this thing we’re doing?  Are we a couple?  Is this a relationship?  

I’m sorry, I know I tend to ramble on so the rest is below the cut:

Now I love the fact that they don’t feel the need to name this thing between them, to box it in with words and labels.  That’s great, and it’s lovely, and it’s a fundamental part of the appeal of it.  But by Christmas the real world has intruded and since they never put a name to this thing, that’s where things start to get difficult.  

If you haven’t called what you’re doing a relationship, then who’s to say what it is?  

That’s a hard conversation to have, because who knows what the other person will say?  I don’t doubt the strength of their feelings, but I’m not sure either of them really stopped to think about where this is going- both of them know that Oliver is going to leave at the end at the end of the summer, and the less they think about that the better.  Is there any point thinking about what comes next, when you can’t change it?  This was always something that only happened in a particular place and time.

It made sense for them to think like that- because it kills me to say it but I honestly don’t see how this thing between them could have worked out.  Neither of them are at a place in their lives where a long-distance relationship between the two of them would have been easy.  The age gap and the fact that they were both men would have made it only more difficult.

When Elio reacts to Oliver saying he’s getting married, he never once thinks ‘but I thought he was with me?’ or ‘he’s cheating on me?’ or ‘does that mean we’re over?’.  Because they never thought of any of it in those terms.

The closest they come to a discussion about this is when Oliver has just got home and calls Elio. ‘I don’t want to lose you.  We would write.  I’d call from the post office- more private that way.  There was talk of Christmas, of Thanksgiving even.  Yes, Christmas.’  This might have been a good point to put a label on their relationship, because here they are, making plans to keep in touch and meet again as soon as they can. At this point I think it’s fair to say that their Christmas plans involve a continuation of what they started in the summer.  But on some level Elio has already given up- ‘his world… had suddenly drifted light years away.  By Christmas it might not matter.’

And when they do meet at Christmas they just keep on not talking- or rather, talking without really saying anything.  When Oliver announces that he might be getting married, ‘Did I mind? He asked.  “You’re being silly,” I said.’  Which of course means ‘you’re being silly, why would I mind?’ doesn’t it?  Unless it means ‘you’re being silly, of course I mind, why would you think I might not mind?  I’m devastated’.  But nobody says anything.  

They kiss. Well, Oliver kisses Elio, to be precise. But Oliver can’t do this.  At first I read this as ‘I can’t do this, because I’m not allowed, I’m in a relationship with someone else’.  But now?   It’s shortly after this little snippet- “How long do you think this will go on?” he asked wryly.  “Not long, I hope.”  I don’t know what they could be talking about there other than the pain of their separation, which leads me lean towards reading it now more as ‘I can’t do this to myself, because if I let myself then I won’t be able to stop, and this hurts too much already without making things even more difficult by confirming how you feel about me, how we feel about each other.” 

I should, could, have seized him, thinks Elio.  Yes, Elio, you should have. Because this, to me, is the exact moment where the future teeters in the balance, between ‘no, kiss me again, we have to give this thing between us a try- and if it doesn’t work at least we’ll know we gave it a shot, and when it ends we can both draw a line under it and move on,’ and ‘let’s go away and pine for one another for twenty years, always wondering what might have been’.  

But of course, they’re not party to the information we know.  They don’t know that those are the choices, and Elio thinks that Oliver’s already lost to him.  

And so, just like that, the parallel course is set.

[corcordiumheartofhearts]

My favorite parts of the movie, Call Me by Your Name

This is INSANELY long (so obviously an insane amount of spoilers), jumbled, and in order of when I thought of each item (except for the Montaigne stuff) As long as this post is, there are tons of other moments that stick out, but one has to make choices! I tried to keep comparison to the book at a minimum as one can judge adaptations on their adherence/truthfulness to the source material or completely as its own thing (both are valid), and it’s easier to do the latter in this case. I’ve also kept it mostly positive, though as I’ve mentioned previously, I did have a few issues with the film (feel free to ask any questions you might have about that or anything else CMBYN related). Also, I need to see it again. As soon as possible.

*When Elio has the nosebleed (no footsie though ugh), he goes inside and sits on the floor and Oliver comes looking for him. The way Elio asks Oliver to sit with him breaks my heart. Just a subtle hint of plea. Everything that happens during that sit-down also fucked my life. It’s burned into my very being. Every look, kiss, touch, word.

* There’s this wonderful housefly that, throughout the movie, shows up occasionally to hang out with Elio when he’s thinking about Oliver. I could probably write a paper on what I think the significance of the fly is, and my feelings about the fly, but really, it was just a fly- a nice touch by either Luca or Ivory.

* The desperation in Elio’s kiss after he breaks down crying during the peach scene. How is Timothée not actually feeling that at that moment? Talk about acting. It was spectacular. Everything about his reaction was spectacular. The crying, the sad embarrassment for crying, the clutching at Oliver. (Aside:Oliver not eating the peach was unacceptable and Elio’s reaction being switched from being overwhelmed that someone felt something for him so strongly that they would do such a thing to being upset that Oliver is leaving soon was annoying.)

* The hilarious lunch conversation with the extremely talkative, not very polite, guests. This conversation needs to be witnessed and experienced, because it’s so funny. At some point they start insulting each other- someone gets called an “asshole” I think, but the expressions and tones of voice of everyone involved stay exactly the same, so it’s hard to even tell who’s being called an asshole, etc. Like this is just everyday conversation.

* After Elio says goodbye to Oliver at the train station, he sits around for a bit trying to process and calm down and then, because what else to do in this lovely family?, he calls his mom. As he asks her to come pick him up, he breaks down (I did, too). The shot is perfect. He’s in the phone booth and we’re outside and a bit away. He starts off the call facing us, but during the emotional bits, he turns his back. He’s hiding his crying from the world (including the viewer), but not from his mother, who can hear him losing it. This is a lovely private family moment, one of many that we’re privy to throughout the film.

* On Elio and Oliver’s trip, there’s a shot of Oliver’s face as Elio sleeps, looking completely at peace. Oliver is sitting on the bed, looking wrecked, and remorseful, and like he wants to stop what’s about to happen. The next scene is their goodbye hug at the train station. I wonder if Oliver sitting there that night knows that very soon he’s going to break Elio’s heart. Not just by leaving, but in telling him that he’s getting married (Over the phone? Really Oliver?) I’ve never been totally sure just how “on and off” Oliver and his future wife actually were. We never really get to know much about Oliver. In both the book and the movie, he’s more a mirror of Elio than a separate character. We only know him through and via Elio. So, in that way, is Oliver’s “on and off” relationship the same as Elio’s “on and off” relationship with Marzia? Where they hang out and fuck, but Elio holds back everything important? I don’t know.

* On the phone call when Oliver tells Elio he’s getting married, Oliver asks, “Do you mind?” A perfect, though strange, bit from the book to carry over- those are the words someone uses when asking permission to do something. What if Elio had said yes? Was Oliver seeking an admission that Elio loved him and wanted to be with him? Was he looking for an ego boost? Was he just asking an awkward question? Oliver is such a mystery to me.

*Anytime Armie/Oliver danced, I laughed. Man, that was some awful, but adorable dancing. The only time I didn’t laugh was when Elio got up on the dance floor and danced with Marzia right next to where Oliver was dancing. That time, I held my breath.

*The morning after they have sex (make love?) for the first time and Elio goes after Oliver into town. They walk a bit to have some privacy and while walking, for a few seconds they “hold hands” with just a finger or two tangled. So insanely lovely.

*After Oliver and Elio talk about how open Oliver is about showing his Judaism by wearing his Star of David, the next image is of Elio coming up for air while swimming in the lake, his Star of David around his neck. It’s a rebirth via water being symbolized, so a baptism of sorts. Oliver, simply by being Oliver, allowed so many hidden parts of Elio, parts Elio felt ashamed of, to be reborn into things that were not shameful, that were beautiful, things to be celebrated and nurtured.

*After Elio receives the note that they’ll meet at midnight and subsequently becomes seriously obsessed with his watch, they’re sitting outside, Oliver, Elio, and Elio’s mother. Elio gets up to leave the table and Oliver, so nonchalantly, asks Elio for the time. It’s such a sexy and funny way of Oliver reminding Elio what’s going to happen that night. And ratcheting up their respective anticipation.

*Sufjan. Sufjan. Sufjan. I can’t even.

*The way Elio says Oliver’s name. So often he says it as if he’s asking for everything he’s ever desired. There’s so much longing and affection.

*The sight and the sound of Oliver eagerly removing his belt the first night that he and Elio sleep together is super sexy. He’s kneeling over Elio, who’s lying between Oliver’s legs and they both look desperate. The sound and look of the leather as it’s being pulled quickly through Oliver’s belt loops is the perfect symbol for that desperation.

*It was completely genius, whoever’s decision it was, to have Elio constantly pressing himself against Oliver, whether it’s Elio’s head against Oliver’s chest or Elio’s whole body as he’s, literally, climbing Oliver, jumping into his arms, pulling Oliver against him as Elio leans back against a wall, etc. It’s like Elio is trying to absorb Oliver into himself. Like he can’t possibly ever get close enough. Like he wants to crawl inside Oliver and make himself a little home in his tummy or in his chest, by his heart- maybe take a nap surrounded by Oliver. Like he simply cannot get enough of this man.

*Elio’s hairstyle at the end of the movie & every single time Elio did his slide dance move. What glory was that?

*That one lovely shot of snow before the last scene. Foreshadowing the cooling off of Elio and Oliver’s relationship, and letting the viewer know that their summer, which was, vicariously, ours, is officially over. Also, snow is just beautiful.

*The night that Elio confesses his feelings to Oliver, Oliver comes back late. Elio, thinking that Oliver has been out with someone else, is restless in bed, and mutters, “Traitor,” as Oliver uses their adjoining bathroom. Then when Oliver closes the bathroom door without acknowledging Elio, Elio rolls over again says, sadly, “Traitor.” The word enlarges Elio’s desire- makes it so much more than just lust. He’s saying that they have something important together, something that can be betrayed. The fact that he doesn’t consider his actions with Marzia to be traitorous makes perfect sense to me. He knows his own feelings, that Oliver is, for whatever reason, infinitely more important to him than Marzia. But what Oliver feels is, at that time a mystery.

*Elio tells Oliver that they have to sit in the backseat of the car because Anchise usually drives as Elio’s father navigates. Then Elio’s father comes along and tells Anchise that he doesn’t need to drive and then invites Oliver into the front seat to be navigator. Elio is adorably upset that he doesn’t get to ride shotgun (understandably!). But also probably a bit unpleased that he doesn’t get to share that small backseat with Oliver. Ha.

*This part right here, when Elio asks for a truce and Oliver offers the hand of the statue. It should have been funny, but it was actually just very sweet and hurt my heart a bit.

*As Oliver and Elio leave on their trip, Chiara rides up on her bicycle. She’s late, though, and they’re already on the bus which is pulling away. The borderline sarcastic wave that Oliver gives her is pretty funny and Elio’s mother inviting Chiara to dinner with a thrown in, “Bring Marzia with you” is just ouch. But the look on Elio’s face as Oliver sits beside him, like this is everything. He’s sitting here with Oliver, going away with Oliver (!!!) and he seems so joyful, but also overwhelmed by that joy, and like he’s seconds away from crying. Lovely lovely acting by Tim.

* Elio’s father is pretty much perfect at fathering fatherly. And Michael Stuhlbarg is magnificent in this film. His final speech to Elio about Oliver, and love, and life is spectacular, both in the book and the film. The line that always makes me cry, whether reading, listening, or watching is:

We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new.

I’ve had one of those lives where this would have really been nice to hear when I was younger. But since I kind of want to rip out every memory I have of this book/movie, to cure myself of too many feelings, it might not have mattered.

* Also in Elio’s father speech is my favorite quote about love. I was ecstatic that it was in the book so having it in the movie made me doubly ecstatic. The quote, by Montaigne about his platonic male friend, is untranslated in the book (& I don’t know if anyone bothers to look that stuff up), while in the movie, there are subtitles (the translation in the movie is different than my preferred which is below, but whatevs). Below is a larger portion of the quote, the part in bold is the bit in the book/movie:

Si on me presse, continue-t-il, de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu'en répondant: parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and because I was I.

From the book:

“You’re too smart not to know how rare, how special, what you two had was.” “Oliver was Oliver,” I said, as if that summed things up. “Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi,” my father added, quoting Montaigne’s all-encompassing explanation for his friendship with Etienne de la Boétie.”

I can’t explain why I’ve loved particular people most in my life- we were just the kind of people who would love each other. We spoke to something in the other. I’ve always appreciated the joyful, but also, almost resigned (potentially tragic) quality of such an acknowledgement. “We were meant to love each other” alongside “I couldn’t have stopped it even if I’d tried.” It’s perfect for Elio and Oliver.

[cinematicquack]

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema - Screening Journal

Week 3 - Men and Masculinity

This is my third time watching Call Me By Your Name, and I still cannot take my eyes off of it. From the attention to detail in each shot to the tasteful sensuality shown by Elio and Oliver, to the intense passion and tender atmosphere. This film keeps me invested throughout. The lack of homophobia and judgement is refreshing, this film is fully focused on showing a queer relationship with no harmful subplots. I did find that the parallels that are drawn between the couple and the statues both artistic, but also slightly problematic. The connection of classical greek men is seemingly used to justify the age gap present, as some sort of gay-right-of-passage, it made me feel slightly uneasy at Elio and Oliver’s interactions. I found myself linking some of the interactions to the homophobic hit-piece Boys Beware, Oliver seeming to parallel the actions of the gay man in said hit-piece. I know that this is not what Guadagnino intended, however, I feel that for non-LGBT+ audiences they may also draw this problematic link, they may even think that all queer relationships have this dynamic. For the uneducated, CMBYN could serve as propaganda of how gay men are predatory. Fortunately, for the most part, I have yet to see this in mainstream media, but I have seen this response in some of my classmates from high school, and I do worry that it could become more mainstream. 

I was surprised to see Miz Cracker among the readings this week, as I am a big fan of her and have actually seen her perform! I had a good discussion with one of my classmates about her article. She said that CMBYN was a “gay masterpiece that is absolutely not gay”, however, I feel that despite the straightness of the actors and creators of the film, it is still an important story to be told. We definitely need more queer representation in the media, CMBYN’s success allows more LGBT+ stories to be told. I hope that by more recognition of queer stories will therefore allow more up-incoming queer actors to play these roles. I did find it strange that the film has a blatant disregard to the AIDS crisis, it does not even address it. I appreciated the lack of judgement the film has, however, I do feel that it should have at least addressed such an important thing in queer history. CMBYN does fall into the bias of New Queer Cinema, the main characters both being white queer men. I would love to see more women and people of colour in queer cinema, and hopefully, the success of CMBYN can allow filmmakers to pursue this. I would like to note that I have not seen any of Guadagnino’s other films, however, the article by Joanna Di Mattia about his ‘Desire Trilogy’ has made me add them all to my watchlist. Molly Haskell’s film review made a great point that Guadagnino has treated homoeroticism in a tasteful, “non-hysterical” way, treating it equally to heterosexual relationships (for the most part). This move to tell queer stories in the same way we would any other story is extremely promising for the future of LGBT+ media as it normalises the idea of homoeroticism, it is no longer seen as ‘taboo’.

Inspired by the post-it-note activity, I decided to question my younger brother about his thoughts on how queer men are portrayed on-screen. As my brother’s main carer, my brother being a white straight male, I have always made an effort to educate him on people less-privileged as him. He brought up a great point about queer male characters being mostly elusive and mysterious, saying that he could not tell me the backstory of a gay character on-screen, compared to how he could name several straight characters’ backstories. We also discussed how the majority of gay characters are side-characters, and they are usually used for comedy or to have a traumatic, depressing experience with homophobia, that the main character, who is usually white and straight, will come in and save them or support them. Susan Sontag’s two different categories of camp were really useful in discussing different queer stories in both film and media. Naive camp is more comedic, whereas Deliberate camp questions society’s construction of gender and sexuality. I liked the discussion of sound design in the intimate scenes between Elio and Oliver. Yes, the film does shy away from showing the couple have sex, however, it does signify it through sound design. There is a lack of dialogue in these scenes, and it is met with loud breathing, clothes rustling, and skin touching all through sound. 

I was so excited to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show on the clips reel. It is most definitely deliberate camp, as the character of Dr. Frank-N-Furter explicitly bends gender and sexuality, to the shock and delight of Brad and Janet. For many LGBT+ people, this film is something which many of us hold dear, I for one am no exception. When my mum showed me this film when I was 12, I found the campness something I aspired to. It also opened the door for me to explore my own gender and sexuality. I had an interesting conversation with my grandparents, who are very conservative, about what they felt was a gay person, and they immediately brought up Dr Frank-N-Furter, which of course is the most exaggerated, camp version of a queer person, but I think that’s what makes the character such an icon in the LGBT+ community, despite how conservative people use that as the blueprint for us. 

In the tutorial, we had a great discussion about each character’s masculinity within CMBYN. Both Elio and Oliver show their respective passion for creativity and intelligence, this passion I would say, used to be seen as feminine. It is refreshing to see two characters have such a tenacious passion for their careers. Elio begins as quite childish and snarky, in a bid to suppress his sexuality, and in turn, his personality. Throughout the film, he becomes more open, emotional but also confident and playful. CMBYN is Elio’s coming-of-age, he goes through his love for Marzia and Oliver, goes through heartbreak, and comes out more confident and assured of himself. Oliver is shown to be very performative in his masculinity. He shows very little emotion besides contentness, and is extremely confident in himself and his actions. He too becomes more playful and shows a wider range of emotions, and yet he still cannot seem to let his guard down with Elio. He is still reserved and suppresses himself, this being a reason for their relationship ending abruptly. Both Elio and Oliver are filmed in a way that is similar to the classical statues which are present in the film. They are showed as idolised gods of beauty but also shows them as vulnerable. Guadagnino is showing a representation of masculinity which we should strive for: vulnerability, fragility, the ability to discuss and feel their own emotions; a representation we should normalise as a society. I really enjoyed discussing the masculinity of Elio’s dad. He is extremely passionate about his work as a historian and archaeologist, however, this does not mean his relationships deteriorate, which is common of the trope of a passionate working man. He makes time for his family, shows them love and tenderness, pushes Elio to pursue his piano. He is emotionally aware of his son, he shows worry for him, but also comfort without judgement. He is a character which supports his son, is as vulnerable as his son, and is a great representation of fatherly masculinity which contrasts to the many terrible father figures present in other queer films.

[sapphirysunsets]

Call me by your name...

I don’t know why I’ve been putting off talking about this film. Maybe its because it made me feel so much? and I’m so overwhelmed and feeling insecure about actually putting these feelings into words and being coherent??

I thought I’d wack on the soundtrack to get my juices flowing and FUCKING HELL even this opening track ‘Hallelujah junction’, which plays during the opening credits, has taken me back to 1983,  “somewhere in Northern Italy”.

What this film, and whole experience I’ve had from reading into it after, has really got me really thinking is that watching a film really and truly is an individual experience. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt such a intimate connection with the characters and plot and just general essence of a film, and often after watching any movie that really leaves such a tremendous impression on me I am always somewhat disappointed to discover that I am not alone in that respect. I suppose because it makes me feel insignificant after I’ve just experienced such deep feelings and felt such intimacy. And really, any filmmaker, director, actor congratulates themselves on being able to evoke such feelings in so many! And so, perhaps, I too should cherish this achievement, particularly in regards to Luca’s beautiful, beautiful film. 

Therefore, instead of any attempt to review the film for a general audience, which is always obviously from a personal perspective, I thought I’d write about what I was reminded of, what particular moments of story and characters resonated with me, as an individual, as a human being. 

First up, my love for European summers, for southern europeans during the summer, for France, for Spain, for Italy. That first breakfast outside, on the terrace, with apricot juice, Oliver accidentally taking Elio’s mother’s seat and her being so accommodating; it all reminded me of meals outside on the terrace at Mondou’s, in Hossegor where such kindness and understanding was shown to me and where I first really appreciated peaches (albeit not in the way they are later appreciated in the film! and they were always flat peaches). 

The light, the uncomplicated way of being, the simplicity that is so central to this film, is what I appreciate so much in my own life. The silent padding of bare feet across the soft grass, then across the gravel of the dusty path. The gentle trickle of the fountain. The plucking of apricots from the trees. The chirping of crickets, the rustling of birds and other insects. The breeze playing with the leaves; all an unceremonious soundtrack as they lie reclining, feeling that hot summer heat on their skin. This setting is then the backdrop for all these complicated emotions, desires, anxieties, insecurities. 

I really appreciated the centrality of music, particularly classical, to the story too. Watching Elio transcribing the music was familiar. And the way he plays Bach in the way Liszt would have played it had he altered Bach’s version, and then plays it in the way Bruzzoni would have played it had he altered Liszt’s version. It was like an aural exam, one that I agonised over, as a child, not really understanding the point of differing between baroque, classical and romantic. And then Elio returns to Bach to keep up the little flirtation but also giving Oliver what he wanted. It is that return to the baroque, that he’d been strumming on the guitar, that reminds me how I always have loved it so much, its steadiness, its trueness to form. And in this little so-called piano scene, at the end, the way Timothée intonates that last little line, about how the young Bach dedicated the piece to whoever, was the first time I felt like he was acting and not being, and I didn’t react negatively to it, as I normally would when an actor breaks that spell for me, but I found it reassuring and endearing. I almost saw some of myself in his expression, I felt like I’d used that intonation before, trying to portray that fondness and admiration. 

I thought Luca excelled in preserving such a sense of authenticity in the scenes of Elio, on his own in his room, fiddling about. And Tim has such an openness in his face, I could see his thoughts, I could recognise those feelings, ones I’ve felt myself. That frustration with himself, his inability to act, that intrigue, that boredom. My experience of this film is as a coming-of-age film, that first love, one I am yet to experience. 

I completely geeked out at the etymology scene. Honestly, it overwhelmed me so much. I’m not sure why? Maybe it was that realisation that other people share similar passions, that I am not alone in that respect. However, Oliver’s eagerness felt a little feigned. I saw through Armie’s performance a little and it did annoy me. Watching the film for a second time, I now noticed the knowing looks shared between Elio and his mother, as Armie corrects the Professor’s explanation of the etymology of the word Italian word for apricot. 

More on the aesthetic... The hot harsh sun on the quiet Italian plaza.The bikes, leaning against the cold stone of the house, gliding along the dry tarmac roads. Luca even makes cycling sexy. Maybe there’s something in the movement of bikes, a certain coyness? Oh god, what am I chatting.  

Also there’s something in the character of Elio that feels familiar to me. And I think it’s because in some ways he’s like Arthur, Sarah’s cousin, with his seamless American accent, him having an answer for everything, yes what he knows his physics, or maths or economics, but its that cockiness and that french-ness I suppose, that I recognise in him. 

Is it better to speak or to die? The question the short story Elio’s mother reads aloud probes. 

Call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine.The essence of the story. Losing yourself so much in the other,  that you love them so much you want to be them, that you become one. 

Elio’s father’s monologue. That fear of letting yourself feel, letting those emotions take over and overwhelm you, letting yourself feel pain. That it is better to let yourself feel these painful emotions, than to not feel at all, than to feel nothing at all. A lesson I must learn. I must let myself feel whatever pain, accept it, ride it and not try and kill it. 

There are so many other moments I should comment on. Like the peach scene for example. That curiosity? I got it. And do you know why? Because Tim’s performance was so real. He really is so very talented, so committed, so involved. Like the moment by the statue when Elio repeats twice , quietly to himself, what he’s just confessed to Oliver: “Because I wanted you to know”. He’s cringing at himself, he can’t believe he said it, that he said it like that. Like the nosebleed scene and the physical intimacy between them, the way that they’re no longer afraid to touch each other, to say what they feel. Like the scene by the waterfall, running up the mountain, freedom. Moments between Marzia and Elio, between Elio and his mother, moments of sadness, of coyness, of joy, of grief, of tears, of smiles, of awe. 

And knowing what I do about the production of the movie makes this all all the more powerful. The fact that Luca filmed it almost in sequence, chronologically, allows Tim and Armie’s comfort in their characters to grow as they become more comfortable with each other, on and off screen. Keeping takes to a minimum. Using single shots. Keeping it as free and as authentic as possible. Luca makes a movie how I would want to make a movie. As stylishly, as smoothly, as beautifully, as caringly, as commited and as freely as possible. 

I have written this Monday 5th March. The morning after the Oscar’s, the 90th Academy Awards. Maybe that is what got me to FINALLY write this...

[sunsandships]

the age gap issue, and how i’ve made my peace with it

or: a meandering word dump as i try to sort out my feelings on CMBYN

disclaimer: these are unedited thoughts. i welcome discussion & people engaging with my thoughts. age gap specific thoughts are towards the end; the beginning is just,, literal word vomit. pls handle gently.

to begin with, both the novel and the movie hit me like a freight train; sort of like that part in Inception where they’re on the first level of the dream in that ugly taxicab and the train just literally slams into them from outta nowhere. descriptors like lush or intimate are probably way overused with respect to CMBYN but they are truly what spring to mind. what struck me, and stuck with me, as i read the novel then watched the movie (in that order) was how difficult it was for me to do in one sitting.

for context: i’m the type of person who usually blazes through a novel, no matter how long, in one sitting. and movies, of course, i usually watch in one sitting as well. but i also have a recorded history of sucking at handling second-hand embarrassment. my freshman year college roommates will testify to my ridiculous behavior when trying to watch She’s The Man. i had to cross the room. at one point, i think i rolled on the floor a little in mortification. when it comes to novels, i usually skim past the section that’s causing me second-hand embarrassment, or just flip forward the page entirely.

call me by your name is not a long book. it took me nearly a week to finish reading. i just couldn’t handle too much of it in one sitting -- i would read somewhere between 5 to 30 pages, and something would be too much, and i would have to go do something else for a few hours. it took me three evenings to finish the movie. and i couldn’t even watch the movie in the daytime; the ambience just felt too wrong. but even in the darkness of my bedroom, with no one else in the world to judge me for what i was watching or feeling while watching it, i couldn’t finish the movie in one go either. i paused in strategic places, and had to return to it the next day.

it’s wrong to call what caused these pauses second hand embarrassment. nothing particularly embarrassing happens, except perhaps elio’s straightforwardly fervent attraction and sexual awakening. yet the fact that i needed to take these pauses remind me of the times i’ve had to pause in a movie or skip forward in a book due to mortifyingly visceral second hand embarrassment. and i think that’s the connecting factor, the reason it took me so long to finish both book and novel, despite loving both. something about the narrative is just so gut-wrenchingly real. the novel reminded me of reading Richard Siken’s Crush for the first time as an angst-ridden middle schooler. when, for no reason i could pinpoint, the prose just kind of socked me in the stomach and makes me feel things like a physical ache in my sternum. CMBYN was something similar; less of a punch in the gut, more of a long, slow burn. like the twinge of muscles after you’ve overexerted yourself exercising the day before. and the movie -- god, the movie -- is shot so beautifully; the elegant piano in the sunlit itallian villa, the sounds of summer in the background, the cerulean sea, the ripe peaches like the world’s best and worst metaphor at the same time. and again, the words that spring to the lips when talking about CMBYN -- lush, sensual, intimate. 

and there, that’s another key word -- intimate. the novel and movie both feel a little like voyeurism, like the whole thing was a real, private experience between two real people and you’re spying in on them through an omnipotent camera operator, seeing something not meant to be seen, much less by you.

and maybe that’s why i fell head first into yet another hyperfixation; it’s been a long long time since i read something that made me unflinchingly feel that much. maybe because primarily i’ve been reading trope-laden fanfictions, self-indulgent fics that i can know what to expect of. the equivalent of eating literary fast food for years and then suddenly tasting fresh fruit -- am i cheeky enough to say a peach?

but now, and wow it’s taken me a long time to get to the main point, having stewed in my love of the prose and the movie’s cinematography and the frankly gorgeous acting (and persons) of A.H. and T. C., a little niggling doubt in my hindbrain -- what about the age gap? after all, that was the main reason i’d put off reading the book for so long, when i’d first started seeing buzz around CMBYN months and months ago. especially with all the recent sexual abuse allegations floating around, i was hesitant, weary.

to quote oliver, i know myself. i know my kinks, which yes, sometimes include age gaps; i know intimately that what makes it a kink for me is the inherent power dynamic of an age gap. and i think 99% of my kinks trace back to there being that power dynamic. the other 1% is fear. so, y’know -- it’s not that the age gap, by itself, weirded me out. ya girl ain’t about to kink shame herself. but the difference for me was, in the weird cesspool of fandom, it goes without saying that kinks that push the edge of social norms (heck, kinks that go way beyond the edge) are definitely fictional. fantasy. in the realm of things you can explore with fictional characters. unhealthy power dynamics are just that -- unhealthy. played with in the context of kinky fic, yeah. but definitively not glorified, not romantic, not real.

and by god, CMBYN is all of those - glorified, romantic, achingly real. so why, why when i read the novel and watch the movie, did my concern fade into the background? had fic desensitized me? was my moral compass loose? and of course, much ado has been made about the age of consent being so much lower in italy (14, holy smokes), and the absolute ego of applying U.S.-centric morality to everything, so is it really a non-issue?

maybe the first thing is to place the novel in its own context -- the author is not a teenage boy. the author is a college professor of comparative literature. the author is a married man. the author is even a straight married man, in fact. and yeah, despite setting the novel in the head of a seventeen year old, it’s also framed as older!elio looking back nostalgically. so wow, does the narration not sound like a seventeen year old boy. and oliver, poor oliver, does not get his perspective in. everything is framed by older-elio-recalling-younger-elio’s thoughts. and when you’re reading it, you’re caught up in the narration, the feel of the words, the story, and you’re not thinking about the age gap at all, not really, unless the narrative itself calls your attention to it, and by then you’re in it for the long haul, and suspension of disbelief has kicked in, and it just kind of,,, stops bothering you.

and the movie, wow. the casting. T.C. can definitely pass as younger-than-twenty. maybe not seventeen, precisely, but young-ish. still a teen. meanwhile, A.H. is definitely older than twenty-four. he’s thirty-one and at best passes for late-twenties. so hoo boy, did the movie accentuate that age gap. by the time i watched the movie though, i was already a goner for the book. so i didn’t focus on it too much, or at all. it doesn’t hurt that T.C. and A.H. are both gorgeous by themselves, and that together their chemistry is amazing, and that their acting is just,,, subtle and superbly mind-blowing at the same time.

and so wham bam, i finish the movie. i plunge into hyperfixation pretty quickly. and then suddenly, deep in the CMBYN tag, i read a well-written, non-aggressive review of the novel which does a pretty neat take on why it’s an issue the novel is written by a much older man fantasizing about the sex life of a seventeen year old with a older man. when you put it like that, it’s pretty,,, squicky. 

so, the age gap problem. time to face it head on, me.

the age gap presented breaks no laws. canonically, elio’s parents are even aware of what’s developing and approve (and perhaps even encourage? setting them up in a bougie hotel for the overnight Rome trip, hello??). but after i separated a little from the initial euphoria of just existing at the same time as the gorgeousness of CMBYN and thought about it a little more, it just,,, felt weird, in a intrinsic level, the same intrinsic level that felt all the positive feels possible for CMBYN when i was immersed in it and had full suspension of disbelief happening. 

why does it feel weird? well me, right now, i’m twenty. and i feel so, so much older than i was when i was seventeen. i would not date someone that is seventeen. i would pretty much find it impossible, i think, to find a emotional or intellectual connection with someone that is seventeen. so much happens in those in-between years, and that’s with just the difference of high school vs. college. elio and oliver are looking at the extra gap of high school - college - grad school. it’s not a trivial age gap. and just because it doesn’t break any laws doesn’t make it a non-issue, i think.

back to that power dynamic; the way the age skew totally definitely allows the older person to take advantage, to abuse. is that what’s happening here? certainly, i had issues with the sex scene (hello, lube? hello, condoms? hello, prep?? i do not believe you can engage in anal, penetrative intercourse without needing to talk through it, yet one of the major things after the sex is elio retreats into himself, into shame over the act itself. i’m not in the camp that the sex was non-consensual; elio was clearly there for it. but i don’t think it was written or handled well, much less realistically -- the author is, unfortunate, a Straight) but i don’t think, on the whole of it, any advantage-taking is happening. oliver doesn’t hold any authority over elio, and elio’s infatuation/desire for oliver is full-blown with no encouragement (or, a less-nice word: manipulation) from oliver.

they don’t pursue a long-term relationship. there’s no mention that they might even try to extend the relationship beyond the summer. when oliver leaves, elio lets him go. canonically, elio takes that whole experience, wraps it in bubble wrap, and puts it on a pedestal. and yeah, years later, when they are both much much older, they reconnect and still feel things but also both have clearly done fine in their individual lives and elio is a drama queen ok. he’s nostalgic. he’s still feeling things. but would he have totally buried all feelings if, at the time of their fling, he’d been twenty instead of seventeen?

though on the flip side, why does elio need to be seventeen at all? would it change the story at all if he was twenty? twenty-two, even? just freshly graduated college, summering with his parents one last summer? maybe there’s something to be said about elio being on the cusp of manhood, or whatever. that it needs to be his first love, not just a love. but hey, i’m twenty, and i haven’t been in any type of relationship, much less love. so clearly, within the realm of possibility. here, i think, is a much deeper critique than the age gap in and of itself. something along the lines of Andre Aciman, and his authorial choices as a Older Straight White Male. i’m not really qualified to touch that, though; i’m really here to just digest my own feelings about the age gap, and why ultimately i’m at peace with it, and why i think i’ve made my peace with being at peace with it.

because, no, i don’t really buy that a seventeen year old and a twenty-four year old can fall in true true love without knowing much about each other beyond bonding on a shallow intellectual level over classical literature and music and idyllic bike rides and swimming. certainly, i would be much happier buying the love part of the equation if elio was twenty, or twenty-one, or twenty-two. but nothing about the relationship is manipulative, or nonconsensual, or coerced. and due to the narrative style, in my head, elio isn’t even quite seventeen - more of a amorphous precocious early twenties, maybe. 

maybe also because, at the heart of it, i don’t think CMBYN is a love story. i think it’s a story about desire, and the inevitability of time eroding pretty much everything, and enjoying and holding onto things when they’re in your grasp. and so while i think the age gap makes love a little out of my realm of understanding, it certainly puts no barrier on desire.

[gillianfoster]

@basinhounds on the one hand don’t like read this right after you wake up and cry but also i definitely included the reconcilation bit so maybe it’ll be fine?? also there’s a bit i’ve left off the end bc it’s a surprise :> (and there’ll be more at the beginning as well in the finished fic)

One night, mid-March, when Winter still wouldn’t leave the city, I came home with my shoulders tense and a headache forming at the base of my skull. Elio was sitting at the desk with his headphones on, glowering down at his music. I decided that both of us would probably benefit from a little distance. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove, but after only a moment, I heard him follow me in.

I turned to face him.

“So I don’t even get a hello?” There was something not quite playful about his tone - I’d read his mood correctly at least.

“You had your headphones on. I thought maybe you didn’t want to be bothered.”

“I guess you thought wrong.”

I could tell that he was trying to pick a fight, for whatever reason, but I was too keyed up to stop him. “I guess so. Fine, then. Hi. How are you?”

He scoffed, and didn’t answer.

“So I was right that I didn’t need to ask.”

“So Oliver can read minds. How impressive.”

The comment was meant to sting, and it did. We’d always been jokingly fond of our abilities to read each other - now instead, he wielded it like a weapon. Like it was something that had grown annoying with time. Panic started to rise up in my throat, replacing the stress and anger the long day with my students and the faculty meeting had caused. “If there’s something you want to say to me, Elio, maybe you should just say it.”

“Like what? Are you sure there’s not anything you want to say to me?”

“What? What would that even mean? I haven’t done anything, Elio.”

“No, I guess that’s true - you haven’t done anything, you haven’t said anything.”

This was it, then. The moment where my luck ran out. Where he was finally finished with dealing with boring, repressed Professor Oliver. I turned the stove back off, and it gave me an excuse to look away from him. “I get the picture, Elio, you don’t have to give some kind of big speech.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“So what’s all this? Why not just let me give you space? Or is it that the apartment’s so small you can’t stand it anymore, and you have to get out now?”

“Maybe so. Maybe I’ll go.”

“If that’s what you want, maybe you should.”

“Fine.”

He put on his coat and went out through the door, leaving only the sound of fabric and the slamming door. As soon as he stepped out, I could feel my knees begin to give, and I went over and sat down heavily on the couch. All the anger and stress went out of me in moments, leaving only a horrible emptiness. Was this how it ended? After everything we’d been through? When Elio and I had first met again, in that cabin in Bergamo, I hadn’t been planning on forever - just more time. Now, somehow, I realized that in our time in New York, that had become my plan. I could no longer envision a future without him, and it had happened without me consciously realizing, even as I’d still been afraid he would leave me. Now, suddenly, I did have to picture myself without him again. Alone, again. I had to deal with the actual consequences of the leaving. Things were clearly different for Elio. They always had been. After I’d gone, he’d seen other people, done other things. I’d always been glad - glad that in that one way, I’d succeeded, and I’d allowed him to move on. Still glad that he’d come back to me regardless. Now, though, I realized again what I had realized after I’d broken off my engagement with Caroline through my own stupidity - there would never be another person for me like Elio. I felt tears begin to drip onto my hands - I’d started to cry. I sighed at myself and stood from the couch, walking into the bathroom. I carefully avoided the sight of his toiletries in the shower, and of his toothbrush by the sink, and I washed my face gently.

I paused, just for a moment, to look at myself in the mirror. Elio aside, I was getting older, too. I was over 30 now.  I’d heard the jokes in gay bars about turning 30. It had been difficult enough to meet other men in my 20s - now, with things the way they were, and with the signs of age actually starting to set in, just a little, I doubted I’d be able to really meet anyone unless I got spectacularly lucky. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I would have worried for Elio, but I knew he had other people he could go to. I knew he could take care of himself walking alone in the city after having lived here for nearly a year now, and I knew, too, that he had friends in the orchestra, parents and families of his students - people he could go to. He wouldn’t be lacking in places to stay.

I padded into the bedroom and looked over the rumpled sheets. It was hard to believe we’d woken up together just this morning. I felt the sting of tears return and sighed and went back out to the couch. Better to sleep out here, where it smelled less like him, and where I had fewer memories of the two of us sleeping together. There were times we’d taken naps or fucked on the couch, of course, but it was nothing like the bedroom.

I laid down, and attempted to make myself comfortable. It was impossible, of course - our couch had always been too short for me to stretch out on comfortably. Our couch. My couch, now.

I shuddered, and this time I let myself cry. Why not? He wasn’t here to see - he’d always felt so safe being vulnerable in front of me, but sometimes it was still hard for me. Sometimes I still felt like I should be trying to impress him somehow, trying to live up to whatever image he had of me from that summer.

I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I knew I was blinking awake, and there was light streaming in from the window. I felt disgusting - my eyes were dry, and I knew I wasn’t well-rested. I walked back into the bathroom again and found that I looked as bad as I felt. I braced myself and walked into the bedroom, but there was still no sign of Elio. Of course there wasn’t.

I was meant to go into the office today - I wouldn’t actually have to lecture, but I did have office hours. Normally no one stopped by, not at this point in the semester, so I cleaned myself up as much as I could and left the apartment, heading in.

I left in part for Elio, too. He knew when I would be gone - if he wanted to come and get his things without having to see me, he could do it while I was at the University. I tried not to think about it, but continued to fail desperately throughout the day.

Even once my office hours were over, I lingered. The thought of the apartment, cold and empty, particularly if he’d gotten his things, made me shiver.

I left the university and took a cab to a bar - just a normal bar. One nearby, that my colleagues went to, but that Elio and I had never really frequented. It was a safe, neutral space. I drank more than I should have - enough that the bartender cut me off. I didn’t even have the energy to grumble at him, and I took another cab home.

I was drunk enough that it was easy to fall onto the couch and pass out again.

When I woke up, I could hear footsteps. I kept my face pressed into the couch cushions, thinking that perhaps he was hoping I would stay sleeping. Then, after some time, I could hear him making coffee in the kitchen. He’d actually come back with the intention to stay for a moment, then. I stood up, and without thinking, walked in to see him.

He turned to look at me. “I didn’t take anything when I left. I needed to come back for some things.”

“Of course.” I nodded. I rubbed at my face, and then my neck - I realized, then, that I hadn’t shaved yesterday or yet this morning, and that I probably looked even worse than I had the day before. Suddenly I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I went over to the fridge and busied myself with finding a breakfast that wouldn’t make me sick.

“…You just let me leave. You didn’t come after me.”

I pulled some eggs out of the fridge, and some bread off the top of it, where we kept it. I looked directly at my food, and at the pan as I started to make everything. “It isn’t my place to keep you here if you don’t want to stay.”

“I guess that’s true. I just thought that you would.”

For the first time since he’d moved in with me, I said what I’d never been able to stop thinking. “I know that living with me, here, isn’t like summer in Crema. Or even summer in Bergamo. I have to work, and not just on a manuscript, and I’m busy and I get caught up in things and I can get closed off when I’m distracted. You never really had to see me like that. Busy that way. Annoyed like that. I know the way that we understand each other seems like it should matter more, but I don’t have a very good track record with actually trying to live with people. I tend to hurt them. Even if I don’t want to. So even though I hadn’t really been… planning on you leaving… I can’t really say that I’m surprised. This is different than summer. We’ve only ever had summers.”

“Oliver…”

His voice was soft, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. I shifted away from him, afraid that if I really let him touch me, that I would crumble. Instead, I flipped over the toast and eggs, trying not to let them burn. “That’s really what our fight was about, wasn’t it? We were talking around it, but that’s what’s going on. It’s not as if I’m not the person you fell in love with - it’s just that I’m this person, too. One of them is easier to put up with.”

“I can’t talk to you if you’re going to shut me out like this.”

“Is there anything to talk about?” I blustered.

“…Maybe not.”

That hurt, more than I had expected it to, and I doubled over, just slightly, as though he’d punched me in the stomach. I think at that point I would have preferred if he’d hit me. I’d let him beat me until I was bloody if it would satisfy him for all the neglecting I’d done, for all the ways I’d hurt him without meaning to, and especially if it could make him stay. I knew he wouldn’t, but it felt like it would have been easier at that point.

I finished making breakfast, and I put it on a plate, but I found that I couldn’t imagine eating anymore.

“Here. Have some breakfast. I have to go into the University, I’m running late.”

I shoved the plate towards him without looking, but he took it and put it on the counter. Then he stepped in front of me and blocked my path until I was forced to look at him.

He was beautiful. Just as beautiful as ever. He was flushed with anger, and his eyes were bright with it. He looked like some vengeful god or muse from Greek mythology. Like Hades, perhaps, somehow come to claim my soul.

“You can’t go into work looking like that. There’s another two hours before you teach, I’m not an idiot, and you’ve got to clean yourself up. Or you can cancel your classes today. Either way, you’re being ridiculous.”

I knew he was right. He usually was. “I’ll… call in and cancel. I think it would be irresponsible for me to try and teach today. But I can still get out of your hair if you want me gone. I can go for a walk in Central Park until you’ve gotten your things.” I looked down again, staring at his feet. He still had his shoes on. He could walk out again anytime.

“I can’t save this if you won’t even try to help me, Oliver.”

That made me look back up. He looked sad - sad and confused, like for once he couldn’t understand what I meant or what I was trying to do, and that that upset him more than anything else.

“I’m not sure I deserve that.”

“What?” He asked.

I hadn’t been clear enough. “I’m not sure I deserve… any of this. Or, in the opposite way, if you… deserve me. After the night you left, and after yesterday, maybe it’s best if you go.”

This time he understood. He put his hands on my face, and I didn’t bother to fight him. “Oliver.” He used my name as a reprimand. He didn’t say anything else.

I closed my eyes, and in only a moment I was crying again - crying in front of him, for the first time in nearly a year.

“Oliver,” he said my name more softly this time.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

I went to pull back, but he grabbed onto the back of my shirt, and wouldn’t let me. Instead, he wrapped his arms around me and held me as I cried. My face pressed against his shoulder, and I stayed in my awkwardly hunched position until the tears had stopped.

By then, he had started to stroke my hair soothingly. When my breathing had evened out somewhat, he pulled my face up and kissed at my eyes, and my tears, the same way I once had for him. I kept my eyes closed.

“I’m sorry, Elio.”

“Oliver. You should have told me. Any of this.”

“...It isn’t that simple, Elio. What was I going to say? Someday maybe you’ll get sick of me? Sorry it turns out I don’t how to live with someone either because I only ever lived with my ex-fiancée and my entire relationship with her was a sham? Sorry I can’t be whoever you thought I was when I was in Italy? Sorry that when I’m here I’m boring and I can try and take you to restaurants and wine and dine you and walk with you through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but before long we’ll run out of new things to do in New York, and the novelty will wear off, and then we’ll just be two people living together, and you’ll still be a brilliant and beautiful young musician with your entire life ahead of you, and I’ll be a boring old professor that you’re not sure how you’ve ended up attached to but you can’t seem to get rid of?”

“You are so unbelievably stupid,” he said, and then he kissed me, forcefully. I leaned into it, and kissed him back, grateful even if it was a kiss goodbye.

He pulled away before I would ever begin to be satisfied. I tried to follow, but he held me back, keeping my face in his hands. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

I did what he asked. He was still angry, and still beautiful, but I could tell now that he had been crying at some point, probably when I had. I was surprised, and sad.

“I don’t know why I need to tell you this - I thought that you knew. I always thought that you knew, I thought from the first summer that you could read it on me, in my expression.” I opened my mouth, but he shook his head. “No. Let me finish. I worship you. And not some fictional version of you I made up in my head, like you seem to think, but parts of you that you can’t change or hide no matter how much you seem to try. The fact that you use your stupid casual persona to try and mask how much you feel. The way you get when you’re tired and grumpy and all you do is complain or bluster, which you did even that first summer. I saw it happen. The way that on certain days, when you aren’t so busy you get lost, that you come in the door and you come straight for me, like all you’ve been thinking about is coming home to me - because that’s part of you, too. You talk about it like you forget that you live with me, but you don’t. We sleep in the same bed every night. You ask how my day is even if it’s in a tired mumble when you crawl in to sleep beside me. You always make enough coffee for both of us if you wake up before me, and you leave it in the pot. Yes, it’s different that we don’t spend every day together, laying in silence but still in perfect harmony somehow, and yes, that part of our relationship is perfect, and so perfect that it should be the envy of everyone in the world - but I’m not disillusioned somehow by living with you. I’m not disillusioned with you. That’s not what I was fighting about. You’re right, the fight wasn’t about what I brought up, but it wasn’t about this.”

I was utterly overwhelmed. I blinked at him. “What was it, then?”

He looked a little bashful, then - almost ashamed. “...I wanted to tell someone about you. About us. Someone in orchestra. But I think I was still afraid somehow that you’d say I couldn’t. Instead of asking, I turned it into an argument, and I took it out on you. It wasn’t even fair for me to assume what I did in the first place.”

“I... That’s. A conversation we’d have to have. I don’t know that I can have it right now.”

“I don’t think that we should have it right now.”

“I need to call in to work.”

He nodded, and dropped his hands from my face. I immediately wanted to reach out and touch him, but I held myself back instead. “Come back and eat your breakfast afterwards. I’ll heat it back up.”

I went to our phone, and called the main office, and told them I wouldn’t be in. I went into the bathroom after that, and winced at the sight of myself in the mirror. I looked even older than I actually was. I shaved, carefully, then washed off my face and brushed my teeth. It couldn’t do anything for the bags under my eyes, but it was better than nothing.

I walked back into the kitchen and found my plate waiting. Elio was sitting at the table, eating a breakfast he’d clearly made for himself. I sat down across from him, and didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t sure what to say. In spite of his reassurances, I felt like one wrong word could shatter us both. I couldn’t bear to check and see if he still had his shoes on.

I ate, slowly, and found I couldn’t eat as much as I normally would. My nerves and my hangover combined left me feeling sick. I threw out what I didn’t eat and got myself a glass of water. I stood in the kitchen to drink it, then poured myself another, and drank that too.

When I was done, I kept standing there. It felt like our entire relationship had been thrown off-kilter - and really, maybe it had. I didn’t know how to act around him now. Our protocol seemed broken.

He came into the kitchen and stood beside me to wash off his plate. I shifted to the side so our elbows wouldn’t brush.

Once his plate was clean, he still kept his head down for a moment, staring into the sink. “You’re allowed to touch me, you know.”

“Am I?” I asked. I tried to seem playful,  but everything was still too raw. It came out all wrong.

He sighed, and stepped away.

My chest tightened - I was terrified that he was going to leave again. I reached out and grabbed at his elbow, but I moved too quickly, and my grip was too hard. He winced, and realizing that I’d hurt him, I let go as if he’d burned me.

“What can I do to convince you I’m not going to leave?”

His question was desperate, but genuine. I looked down at his feet. “Take off your shoes,” I said quickly.

My own request was strangely desperate, but he didn’t react to it strangely at all. He walked into the living room and stepped out of his shoes, leaving them tucked under the couch, just like always.

I could feel my shoulders relax. “Thank you,” I said.

He reached out his hand. “Come here. Come back to bed.”

I walked over and took his hand, and he pulled me into our bedroom. He took off my shirt, then my pants, and he undressed himself as well. Once we were both naked, he pushed me towards the bed and I laid down. He joined me, and pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me, running his fingers through my hair.

Feeling his skin against mine and the gentle tugging at my hair was like something settling back into place. I finally moved, wrapping my arm around his waist, running my hand along his side, my palm rubbing over the bumps of his ribs. I shifted around until we were completely intertwined, until I could press my face against his neck and smell him - until it was hard to tell where I ended and he began.

“Oliver,” I said quietly.

“Elio?” he said back.

“Thank you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. It’s fine for you to need things. You’re not some perpetual host for me here, and you’re not... I know that it’s just the way that you are. That you’ve always been. That you feel some need to protect me. But I don’t want to be protected from you. I want to know you. I want every part of you. I know there’s no part of you that wants to hurt me, so I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t hold back with you.”

“...You’ve always been so open. So brave. I admired that about you from that first summer. That you broke the silence. That you pushed me. I never would have been able to do it. You’re better at that than I am.”

“You’ll just have to make an effort to get better at it, too, then.”

I huffed out something close to a laugh, and he tugged at my hair until I pulled back to look at him. He smiled at me, and I smiled back at him. He kissed me, and I could feel that I was forgiven - we both were. I sighed, and settled back into place against him.

“Get some more sleep. I think you need it.”

“Probably.” I let myself go quiet, then, and let my eyes close, and eventually fell into a calm and peaceful sleep.

When I woke, it was still light outside, and Elio was still there. I shifted until I could lay and watch him sleep.

I thought about what he’d said that morning. Not just all the wonderful things he’d said trying to combat my ridiculous maudlin headspace that had probably come out of too much drinking and too much time alone, but what he’d said about the fight, and what he’d actually been thinking.

I couldn’t exactly tell the University that I was living with another man the way I was living with Elio - not with the way things were right now. Elio, though, could probably tell people in his orchestra without it getting around. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want anyone knowing - I just knew that we had to be careful, and knew it more firsthand than Elio, who had been blessed with parents who truly loved him, instead of parents who only loved some image of their son they’d created in their own minds. I reached over and ran my fingers gently through his curls. Before long, he started to stir, and when he woke up, he blinked blearily at me and hummed, leaning into my touch.

Every time we woke up together and he didn’t push me away still gave me a momentary thrill. It had been long enough now that I should have gotten used to it, but I wasn’t sure I ever would.

He reached over and pulled me closer, nuzzling against my shoulder.

“Sleeping without you is awful. Let’s not do that again.”

I ran my hand up his spine, pressed my face into his curls and breathed deeply. “You think you had it bad? I had to sleep on the couch for two nights because the bed still smelled too much like you, and I didn’t think I could stand it.”

He held me more tightly for a moment, then pushed up onto his hands and leaned in to kiss me, just gently. “Come on. We should get up.”

“Wait,” I said quietly.

He did. He stayed there, leaning over me, watching me.

“You can tell people. In your orchestra. If you still want to. I still don’t think I should risk telling anyone at the University - I just want you to know it’s not that I’m ashamed.”

“No. No, I never thought you were ashamed. I just thought... It doesn’t matter. You’re sure?”

I nodded. “I know what you were thinking. I just thought I should say. But yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright.” He leaned down and kissed me again, and lingered this time.

I could feel myself starting to stir, and I ran my hands up his back, slowly and deliberately. He shuddered against me, and I felt his cock twitch against my thigh.

I broke the kiss, breathing out slowly. “Wait. Do you want me to get a shower first, or...”

Elio kissed along my jaw and my neck, and I could feel him shake his head. “No... I love the way you smell.” I could feel his breath against me, and I shuddered.

“God... Elio.”

“Let me.”

He moved down my body, lingering on each part of me. He traced his tongue around my nipples, licked at my shoulders and my collarbones, rubbed his face into my ribs, sucked each one of my fingers into his mouth, one by one. By the time he made it to my hips, I was fully hard and making noises I couldn’t hold back. I was running my hands restlessly over his hair and his back, caught between looking at him, watching him take me apart, or looking up at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the combination of the sight and the feel of him. When he finally took me into his mouth, I realized just how much I’d exaggerated the distance between us in my head - we’d rarely gone this long without having some kind of sex, even if it was just sleepy and fumbling. Two nights without him meant that it didn’t take long at all before I was murmuring my own name and his and tugging at his curls.

When I looked down, I could tell by the way he was moving that he was rubbing himself against the bed, getting off on the taste and the feeling of me in his mouth. I shuddered, and found that I was there.

I could feel him stiffen and I knew he was coming, too, before I’d even gotten my senses back enough to reach down and help him. I shivered, and relaxed into the bed. He climbed back up my body, pressing gentle kisses all the way up.

“Better?” he asked with a smirk.

I sighed, and smiled. “Come here, you.” I tugged him in, hands in his curls again, and kissed him. I could taste myself on his tongue, and so I lingered to kiss him until it seemed that I had kissed the taste from his mouth. Then I pulled back, licking my lips. “Now we should probably shower.”

“Mm. Alright.”

We went together, clearly both still reluctant to part. We washed each other carefully, like we were both checking that everything was still in tact after the time we’d spent apart. There was a red mark on his arm from where I’d grabbed him the day before - it wouldn’t bruise, but I was right that I’d been too rough. I pressed my lips to the mark and tried not to let the guilt swallow me. Reading my action, he pulled my face up and kissed me.

“It’ll fade by tomorrow. It was an accident.”

I hummed, and nodded.

We dried off, and out of unspoken agreement, we put on each other’s clothes. He wore my shirt, which we often traded off wearing now so that we each got the benefit of wearing it when it smelled like the other. I wore a pair of his shorts, which he’d kept even though they were too big on him, just for days like this. I wore one of his oversized sweaters. He wore a pair of my shorts from Italy.

We went into the living room and settled in on the couch. I sat propped up against one arm, and he sat between my legs, leaning back against my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and felt just as comfortable and relaxed as I had letting him hold me as I fell asleep.

“Do you want to watch something?” I asked.

“We can just see what’s on.”

I fumbled for the remote, and we flipped through the channels together.

We spent the whole day like that, quiet and comfortable, always some part of us touching, well within each other’s orbit. Tomorrow we’d have to go back to our outside lives - today we could take the time to fall back into each other, in a way we hadn’t in a while since I had started to pull away. I realized now that’s what I’d done - tried to somehow make our relationship distant enough to make him leave before he could get sick of me on his own -  or to try and make it easier if he did leave.

There was a lot to sort through - but at least now that we understood each other again, it would be easier.

The light had started to change outside by the time either of us spoke again.

“I love this. It’s no Italian summer, but I still love it,” he said.

I smiled, and pulled him closer. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“...I might even love it a little bit more.”

I laughed. “Alright. Don’t push it.”

[endfatphobiayesterday-blog]

Your Favorite Movie Can Be Problematic

Maybe your favorite movie is from the 80s, which uses homophobic language, or employs tired racist characters. Or maybe your favorite movie has a known abuser, or someone who is notoriously MAGA. It is difficult to find a movie that has aged gracefully, or doesn’t contain a problematic aspect, small or large. And I think that’s okay. 

I recognize the problems that lie nestled within Call Me By Your Name, but it is still my favorite movie. In a time when cancel culture, cutting out toxic people, and a huge political divide is the common thematics of our everyday life, I’m allowing space for problems, a space for difference, a space for imperfections. So as I observe and notate the various problems within the movie, I simultaneously hold close my love for it. 

The movie Call Me By Your Name is a queer love story, based on the novel of the same name written by André Aciman, who is Egyptian, Jewish, and unfortunately, heterosexual. Up until I researched the film, I never could have thought that the writer of such a beautiful queer love story could be straight. So while I wished my favorite queer romance was written by someone who identifies as LGBTQ, that is not the case. To continue on the complexities of representation, portrayal and queerness in popular culture, both of our queer characters are acted by cis/het white men. Would the film be better if more queer people were involved in the creation of a piece of media that is so enveloped in queerness? Yes, absolutely. But does it negate the beauty of queer love that is depicted? No, it doesn’t.

Another problem that is easy to observe in the film is the glaring depiction of class. The film takes place in Elio and his family’s summer home, located in the beautiful and lush Italian countryside. The family has a pool, domestic workers...they are served lavish foods and shown in piles of books. Elio’s quick wit, piano skills and literature knowledge reflect privilege in higher education. There is no question that Elio is privileged. But while the film reflects this privilege, it is not overly thrust in the viewer’s face. The house is nice, yes, but it appears old and creaky. Elio seems uninterested in wealth, or clothes, or anything material. Elio finds pleasure in picking peaches off the tree, swimming in the small outdoor pool, writing music on the lawn, and reading old paperbacks. 

The film is blindingly white, too. Elio and Oliver are both Jewish, yes. It is evident throughout the film that their Jewish identity is something that does render them marginalized. But they are both European in a way that comes prepackaged with privilege. So, no, the movie doesn’t offer much diversity. It doesn’t even offer much intersectionality within queer identity. There is no concern with race, class, or ability. The movie is nearly apolitical, if the queerness is disregarded. And while I consider myself deeply passionate about activism and politics, this does not affect my ability to enjoy and become enveloped in the film.

So if the film isn’t about, or even pay mention to, white or class privilege, what is it about? It’s about love. And not just love, it’s about first love. And not just first love, but a first queer love. Oliver is older, a grad student visiting to study with Elio’s dad. Elio is 17, with little to no experience in romance, love or sex. And while the movie does a good job of offering perspective into what Oliver is feeling, the film is ultimately shot through the gaze of Elio. 

When, inevitably, Elio’s father finds out about his love for Oliver, it is met with sincere support, understanding and gentleness. There is no moment, not even for a second, that the audience thinks that Elio will face consequences for his queerness. So if the film does an inadequate job of representing race or class, it does feel like a relief that we get to observe parents support their son in an unwavering love, regardless of sexuality. 

Call Me By Your Name is about falling in love for the first time, and yes, it is about queer love, but it offers none of the fear that is commonly associated with queer love. Elio’s first love with Oliver is simultaneously effervescent, fun, scary, and ultimately, heartbreaking. And these feelings aren’t innately queer, they are universal. So while I identify as queer myself, and yes, while I see plainly the problems another person might assign to the film, I can’t deny the absolute perfect portrayal the film offers of a first romance. 

This film shows exactly how it feels to fall in love for the first time. And as a romantic...and as the tears silently leak from my eyes, even after the 14th viewing...my body can’t deny that this is my favorite movie. 

[lohveandfilm]

Somewhere in Northern Italy: The Fantastical World of Call Me By Your Name

I’m going to start this blog with a disclaimer: I am generally incapable of being objective about Call Me By Your Name. I’ve been infatuated with this film since a month before I even saw it. For the past two years, I have harbored a fairly intense celebrity crush on Timothée Chalamet (as I alluded to several blogs ago) that has somehow brought me new friends and some pretty crazy experiences. I won’t go into detail about these experiences for your own sake but suffice it to say that CMBYN has become quite tied to important personal experiences of mine that inherently color my viewing of the film (I hope I have managed to hide this well enough in class).

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming!

My understanding of Call Me By Your Name has always been through the lens of fantasy. The reason for this viewpoint is partly practical; though the age difference is not as emotionally triggering for me as it is for other people, I find that this seems to be partly because I have been viewing Elio and Oliver’s relationship as existing outside the real world, where I would immediately suspect Oliver of ill intentions. The sort of parallel universe created by the film helps me to let my guard down and see Oliver through Elio’s eyes, as Miles Rufelds notes is the goal of the film’s cinematography. Perhaps it is precisely because of my extensive experience with celebrity crushes that allows me to relate to Elio’s view of Oliver, as the object of desire in the film of his life. Elio’s family even refers to Oliver as a “movie star,” a description both of his Americanness and of his status as an unreal figure.  It would not be unreasonable to say that Elio, constantly engrossed in books and other works of fiction, transferred a worldview distorted by those works of fiction onto his relationship with Oliver, as Rufelds also notes.  Elio seems to willingly (but maybe unconsciously) ignore signs of strain in their relationship, such as Oliver’s repeated absences at dinner.  The scene where Elio tries to ascertain Oliver’s feelings for Chiara springs to mind; Oliver’s overly harsh reaction appears in retrospect a desperate attempt to keep Elio from getting too attached, both to protect himself from engaging in anything improper and to protect Elio from the inevitable heartbreak at the end of the summer. Yet as soon as they arrive at the archaeological site, Elio trails wistfully behind Oliver and his father, soaking up the sun and the joy of being with Oliver.

My perception of CMBYN as a fantasy is also a reflection on my experience as a queer individual, where everyday interactions must be judged in advance to determine how much of myself can be revealed. Although I have been very privileged in this respect compared to others, the pressure of living in a world that is still largely homophobic has surely affected my worldview. To see a story where a queer couple enjoys (for the most part) the freedom afforded to heterosexual couples is a view into an alternate history, a parallel universe where this pressure is lifted. It sometimes feels as if the film is suspended above the real world, its limits present but hazy, only peeking through in certain moments like when Oliver tells a nerve-wracked Elio, “I’d kiss you if I could.” The passage of time is unclear throughout; what seems like only a week or two is actually several, and Oliver is suddenly close to leaving right after he and Elio finally sleep together. Pamela Demory describes these kinds of non-normative time structures as “queer time,” creating a space for queerness outside of the confines of society. I think it is important to note here that the novel was originally written as a heterosexual love story, where the importance of this alternative timeline would not be so apparent. The relationship’s deadline acts so devastatingly precisely because it marks the end of this queer time, when the realities of being gay in the 1980s come back into focus and break down the walls of Elio’s fantasy.

I’d also like to comment on the story of Marzia, who I feel is often undervalued in discussions of the film (and by Elio). Marzia isn’t just a contrast to Oliver meant to demonstrate Elio’s desire for someone of the opposite sex, she’s an important part of Elio’s self-exploration sexually and emotionally. I’ve often said that I disagree with those who label Elio as gay. His relationship with Marzia never feels forced, and you also never get the sense that he’s completely disinterested in her romantically. It’s clear that if Oliver hadn’t arrived, Elio and Marzia would have had a relationship that summer, and perhaps they would have established a more intimate partnership. The arrival of Oliver, though, allows Elio to experience the difference between a deep love and a more superficial, convenient interest. His ultimate rejection of Marzia isn’t a rejection of women altogether, it is simply a recognition that he isn’t capable of harboring such profound feelings for this particular woman. I also find Marzia to be a sort of role model, handling herself with immense empathy and compassion in the face of heartbreak. I think we’ve all been in the position of finding out that someone we’ve admired isn’t interested, and there is a strong compulsion to counteract that pain with vindictiveness. Yet Marzia understands that Elio’s behavior is not a result of malice, and she accepts his unspoken apology for hurting her. She recognizes her own pain in him and uses that empathy to rebuild their friendship, to move on. Joanna DiMattia describes the themes of compassion running throughout the film, but I admire Marzia’s compassion the most because it comes at a personal cost that she chooses to put aside for the sake of her friend. While we learn about romantic love from Elio and Oliver, Marzia teaches us about the love of friendship and its fundamental importance to the stability of our lifelong emotional journeys.

[lodelss]

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | November 2018 | 10 minutes (2,422 words)

Should I be married to a woman? If today were yesterday, if all this sexual fluidity were in the discourse when I was coming of age in the ‘90s, would I have been with a woman instead of a man? It is a question that “The Bisexual” creator Desiree Akhavan also poses in the second episode of her Hulu series, co-produced with Channel 4 because no U.S. network wanted it. Akhavan directed, co-wrote, and stars in the show in which her character, Leila, splits with her girlfriend of 10 years, Sadie (Maxine Peake), and starts having sex with men for the first time. So, Leila asks, if the opposite had happened to her — as it did to me — and a guy had swept her off her feet instead of a woman, would things have turned out differently? “Maybe I would’ve gone the path of least resistance,” Leila says. Maybe I did.

This is a conundrum that marks a previous generation — one that had to “fight for it,” as Akhavan’s heroine puts it, and is all the more self-conscious for being juxtaposed with the next one, the one populated by the fluid youth of social media idolizing the likes of pansexual Janelle Monáe, polyamorous Ezra Miller, undecided Lucas Hedges. Call it a queer generation gap (what’s one more label?). “I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with the Internet,” 32-year-old Akhavan explains to a younger self-described “queer woman” in her show. “I just get the sense that it’s changing your relationship to gender and to sexuality in a really good way, but in a way I can’t relate to.”

***

This Playboy bunny is chest out, lips open, legs wide. This Playboy bunny is every other Playboy bunny except for the flat hairy chest because this Playboy bunny is Ezra Miller. The star of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald calls himself “queer” but it’s hard to take him seriously. What was it Susan Sontag said: it’s not camp if it’s trying to be camp? And for the past few months, while promoting the Potterverse prequel no one asked for, this 26-year-old fashionisto has been trying his damndest, styling himself as a sort of latter day Ziggy Stardust — the monastic Moncler puffer cape, the glittering Givenchy feathers — minus the depth. Six months ago, Miller looked like every other guy on the red carpet and now, per his own request, models bunny ears, fishnets, and heels as a gender-fluid rabbit for a randy Playboy interview. Okay, I guess, but it reads disingenuous to someone who grew up surrounded by closets to see them plundered so flagrantly for publicity. Described as “attracted to men and women,” Miller is nevertheless quoted mostly on the subject of guys, the ones he jerked off and fell in love with. He claims his lack of romantic success has lead him to be a polycule: a “polyamorous molecule” involving multiple “queer beings who understand me as a queer being.”

The article hit two weeks after i-D published a feature in which heartthrob Harry Styles interviewed heartthrob Timothée Chalamet with — despite their supposed reframing of masculinity — the upshot, as always, being female genuflection. “I want to say you can be whatever you want to be,” Chalamet explains, styled as a sensitive greaser for the cover. “There isn’t a specific notion, or jean size, or muscle shirt, or affectation, or eyebrow raise, or dissolution, or drug use that you have to take part in to be masculine.” Styles, on brand, pushes it further. “I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine,” the 24-year-old musician says, “and I’m very comfortable with that.” (Of course you are comfortable, white guy…did I say that out loud?) As part of the boy band One Direction, Styles was marketed as a female fantasy and became a kind of latter-day Mick Jagger, the playboy who gets all the girls. His subsequent refusal to label himself, the rumors about his close relationship with band mate Louis Tomlinson, and the elevation of his song “Medicine” to “bisexual anthem”– “The boys and the girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it” — all build on a solid foundation of cis white male heterosexuality.

Timothée Chalamet’s sexuality, meanwhile, flows freely between fiction and fact. While the 22-year-old actor is “straight-identifying,” he acquires a queer veneer by virtue of his signature role as Call Me by Your Name’s Elio, a bisexual teen (or, at least, a boy who has had sex with both women and men). Yet off screen, as Timothée, he embodies a robust heterosexuality. On social media, the thirst for him skews overwhelmingly female, while reports about his romantic partners — Madonna’s daughter, Johnny Depp’s daughter — not only paint him straight but enviably so. Lucas Hedges, another straight-identified actor who plays gay in the conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, somewhat disrupts this narrative, returning fluidity to the ambiguous space it came from. The 21-year-old admitted in an interview with Vulture that he found it difficult to pin himself down, having been “infatuated with” close male friends but more often women. “I recognize myself as existing on that spectrum,” he says. “Not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual.” That he felt “ashamed” for not being binary despite having a sixth-grade health teacher who introduced him to the range of sexuality suggests how married our culture is to it.

As a woman familiar with the shame associated with female sexuality, it’s difficult to ignore the difference in tenor of the response to famous young white males like Miller, Styles, and Chalamet and famous black women like Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson not only discussing it, but making even more radical statements. Appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone in May, Monáe said straight up (so to speak): “Being a queer black woman in America — someone who has been in relationships with both men and women — I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” The same age as Desiree Akhavan, 32, Monáe identified as bisexual until she read about pansexuality. She initially came out through her music; her album, Dirty Computer, contains a song called “Q.U.E.E.N.” which was originally titled “Q.U.E.E.R.,” while the music video accompanying “Pynk” has actress Tessa Thompson emerging from Monáe’s Georgia O’Keeffe-esque pants. While neither one of them has discussed their relationship in detail, Thompson, who in Porter magazine’s July issue revealed she is attracted to men and women, said, “If people want to speculate about what we are, that’s okay.”

The mainstream press and what appeared to be a number of non-queer social media acolytes credited Chalamet and Styles with redefining their gender and trouncing toxic masculinity. “[H]arry styles, ezra miller, and timothee chalamet are going to save the world,” tweeted one woman, while The Guardian dubbed Miller the “hero we need right now.” Monáe, meanwhile, was predominantly championed by queer fans (“can we please talk about how our absolute monarch Janelle Monáe has been telegraphing her truth to the queers thru her art and fashion for YEARS and now this Rolling Stone interview is a delicious cherry on top + a ‘told u so�� to all the h*teros”) and eclipsed by questions about what pansexual actually means. While white male fluidity was held up as heroic, female fluidity, particularly black female fluidity, was somehow unremarkable. Why? Part of the answer was recently, eloquently, provided by “Younger” star Nico Tortorella, who identifies as gender-fluid, bisexual, and polyamorous. “I get to share my story,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s a privilege that I have because of what I look like, the color of my skin, what I have between my legs, my straight passing-ness, everything.”

***

When I was growing up sex was not fun, it was fraught. Sex was AIDS, disease, death. The Supreme Court of Canada protected sexual orientation under the Charter when I was 15 but I went to school in Alberta, Canada’s version of Texas — my gym teacher was the face of Alberta beef. In my high school, no one was gay even if they were. All gender was binary. Sex was a penis in a vagina. Popular culture was as straight, and even Prince and David Bowie seemed to use their glam sparkle to sleep with more women rather than fewer. Bisexual women on film were murderers (Basic Instinct) or sluts (Chasing Amy) and in the end were united by their desire for “some serious deep dicking.” I saw no bisexual women on television (I didn’t watch “Buffy”) and LGBTQ characters were limited (“My So-Called Life”). Alanis Morissette was considered pop music’s feminist icon, but even she was singing about Dave Coulier. And the female celebrities who seemed to swing both ways — Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Bijou Phillips — were the kind who were already acting out, their sexuality a hallmark of their lack of control.

“I think unrealistic depictions of sex and relationships are harmful,” Akhavan told The New York Times. “I was raised on them and the first time I had sex, I had learned everything from film and television and I was like ‘Oh, this isn’t at all like I saw on the screen.’” Bisexuality has historically been passed over on screen for a more accessible binary depiction of relationships. In her 2013 book The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Maria San Filippo describes what has become known as “bisexual erasure” in pop culture: “Outside of the erotically transgressive realms of art cinema and pornography, screen as well as ‘real life’ bisexuality is effaced not only by what I’ve named compulsory monosexuality but also by compulsory monogamy,” she writes, adding, “the assumption remains that the gender of one’s current object choice indicates one’s sexuality.” So even high-profile films that include leads having sex with both genders — Brokeback Mountain, The Kids Are All Right, Blue Is the Warmest Color, Carol, Call Me By Your Name — are coded “gay” rather than “bi.”

Despite the rise in bisexual women on the small screen like Annalise in “How to Get Away with Murder,” Syd in “Transparent,” and Ilana in “Broad City,” GLAAD’s latest report on inclusion cited continued underrepresentation. While 28 percent of LGBTQ characters on television are bisexual, the majority are women (75 versus 18) and they are often associated with harmful tropes — sex is used to move the plot forward and the characters scan amoral and manipulative. This despite an increase in the U.S.’s queer population to 4.5 percent in 2017 from 3.5 percent in 2012 (when Gallup started tracking it). A notable detail is the extreme generational divide in identification: “The percentage of millennials who identify as LGBT expanded from 7.3% to 8.1% from 2016 to 2017, and is up from 5.8% in 2012,” reported Gallup. “By contrast, the LGBT percentage in Generation X (those born from 1965 to 1979) was up only .2% from 2016 to 2017.”

Here’s the embarrassing part. While I am technically a millennial, I align more with Generation X (that’s not the embarrassing bit). I am attracted more to men, but I am attracted to women as well yet don’t identify as LGBTQ. How best to describe this? I remember a relative being relieved when I acquired my first boyfriend (it was late). “Oh good, I thought you were gay,” they said. I was angry at them for suggesting that being gay was a bad thing, but also relieved that I had dodged a bullet. This isn’t exactly the internalized homophobia that Hannah Gadsby talked about, but it isn’t exactly not. My parents and my brother would have been fine with me being gay. So what’s the problem? The problem is that the standard I grew up with — in the culture, in the world around me — was not homosexuality, it was heterosexuality. I don’t judge non-heterosexual relationships, but having one myself somehow falls short of ideal. For the same reason, I can’t shake the false belief that lesbian sex is less legitimate than gay sex between men. The ideal is penetration. “That’s some Chasing Amy shit,” my boyfriend, eight years younger, said. And, yeah, unfortunately, it is. I have company though.

In a survey released in June, billed as “the most comprehensive of its kind,” Whitman Insight Strategies and BuzzFeed News polled 880 LGBTQ Americans, almost half of whom were between the ages of 18 and 29, and found that the majority, 46 percent, identified as bisexual. While women self-described as bi four times as often as men (79 to 19 percent), the report did not offer a single clear reason for the discrepancy. It did, however, suggest “phallocentrism,” the notion that the penis is the organizing principle for the world, the standard. In other words, sex is a penis in a vagina. “While bisexual women are often stereotyped as sleeping with women for male attention, or just going through a phase en route to permanent heterosexuality,” the report reads, “the opposite is presumed of bisexual men: that they are simply confused or semi-closeted gay men.” This explains why women who come out, like Monáe and Thompson, are considered less iconoclastic in the popular culture than men who even just make vague gestures towards fluidity — the stakes are considered higher for the guys. In truth, few feel comfortable being bi. Though the Pew Research Center’s survey of queer Americans in 2013 revealed that 40 percent of respondents identified as bisexual, this population was less likely to come out and more likely to be with a partner of the opposite sex. Famous women like Maria Bello, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristen Stewart have all come out, yet none of them really use the label.

“Not feeling gay enough, that’s something I felt a lot of guilt over,” Akhavan told the Times. It is guilt like this and the aforementioned shame which makes it all the more frustrating to watch the ease with which the younger generation publicly owns their fluidity. It is doubly hard to watch young white men being praised for wearing bunny ears in a magazine that has so long objectified women, simply because the expectations are so much lower for them. “I’m not looking down on the younger experience of being queer,” Akhavan said, “but I do think that there’s a resentment there that we gloss over.” In response, many of us react conservatively, with the feeling that they haven’t worked for it, that it is somehow less earned because of that. This is an acknowledgment of that resentment, of the eye rolling and the snickering with which we respond to the youth (ah, youth!). In the end we are not judging you for being empowered. We are judging ourselves for not being empowered enough.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

[reviewsbyracine]

I SAW A MOVIE: “Call Me By Your Name”

The Academy Awards nominations were announced this past week! Hooray! Anyone who knows me knows that I take Oscar-viewing very seriously, attempting to see as many nominated movies as I can before the ceremony airs. Nominated for four awards this year and considered a frontrunner for Best Picture is Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name, an LGBT romance set in the early 1980s.

As discussed in my review of André Aciman's novel, on which the film is based, Call Me by Your Name tells the story of Elio, a seventeen-year-old living in the Italian countryside with his parents. Played with startling youthfulness by Timothée Chalamet, Elio spends much of his aimless summer reading books by the river and clubbing with local friends. When Oliver (Armie Hammer), a grad student working for Elio's professor father, joins the family for the summer, Elio's world is upended, finding himself attracted to the carefree and statuesque student.

What makes the movie so extraordinary is the sense of nostalgia which permeates each frame. The costumes, music, and overall essence of the movie feels like you've been dropped into 1983, watching Elio and Oliver's romance blossom like a fly on the wall. While the novel has an adult Elio looking back on his affair, Guadagnino chooses to keep the film entrenched in its time period. The only link to the present are three beautiful songs by Sufjan Stevens, two of them originals written for the movie.

The performances are excellent, with Chalamet and Hammer defining each scene they are in. While Hammer (arguably the bigger star of the two) gets higher billing, Chalamet is undeniably the emotional heart of the film. The story is about Elio's coming of age, finding a passionate connection with another man at the age of seventeen, and Chalamet does not hold back, allowing every battling emotion to show itself on his face. The film's final shot, a close-up of Elio's face, is a shot which will stick with the audience until the credits come to a close.

Hammer is also excellent as the exuberant Oliver, outgoing and popular yet reserved in his sexuality. His connection with Elio feels realistic, moving in baby steps until the two are comfortable with each other to express their feelings. Hammer was robbed of a Best Supporting Actor nomination, commanding each scene he is in yet giving Chalamet the space he needs to let his character grow. Likewise robbed is Michael Stuhlbarg as Elio's father, whose calm presence provides a welcoming atmosphere for both Oliver and Elio to feel at ease with each other.

Come Oscar night, Call Me by Your Name is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor for Chalamet (making him the youngest nominee for the award since 1939), Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory's script, and Best Original Song for Steven's track "Mystery of Love." Best Picture and Best Actor are difficult to predict, with so many worthy contenders this year. Ivory is a near-lock for his screenplay, which masterfully adapts the story from a stream-of-consciousness novel, and I am rooting for Stevens to pick up an Oscar for his beautiful songwriting.

As a film as a whole, Call Me by Your Name is a beautiful, sensually performed work of art. The direction is stunning, shooting the two actors with tender, lengthy shots. A scene taking place at a World War One memorial, shot in one long take as the two young men realize their affection for each other, is especially exquisite. I left the movie thinking that it was quite good, but not excellent, but was startled to find myself thinking about it nonstop after leaving the theater. My hope is that audiences find themselves just as entranced by the film as I was.

[lodelss]

The Queer Generation Gap

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | November 2018 | 10 minutes (2,422 words)

Should I be married to a woman? If today were yesterday, if all this sexual fluidity were in the discourse when I was coming of age in the ‘90s, would I have been with a woman instead of a man? It is a question that “The Bisexual” creator Desiree Akhavan also poses in the second episode of her Hulu series, co-produced with Channel 4 because no U.S. network wanted it. Akhavan directed, co-wrote, and stars in the show in which her character, Leila, splits with her girlfriend of 10 years, Sadie (Maxine Peake), and starts having sex with men for the first time. So, Leila asks, if the opposite had happened to her — as it did to me — and a guy had swept her off her feet instead of a woman, would things have turned out differently? “Maybe I would’ve gone the path of least resistance,” Leila says. Maybe I did.

This is a conundrum that marks a previous generation — one that had to “fight for it,” as Akhavan’s heroine puts it, and is all the more self-conscious for being juxtaposed with the next one, the one populated by the fluid youth of social media idolizing the likes of pansexual Janelle Monáe, polyamorous Ezra Miller, undecided Lucas Hedges. Call it a queer generation gap (what’s one more label?). “I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with the Internet,” 32-year-old Akhavan explains to a younger self-described “queer woman” in her show. “I just get the sense that it’s changing your relationship to gender and to sexuality in a really good way, but in a way I can’t relate to.”

***

This Playboy bunny is chest out, lips open, legs wide. This Playboy bunny is every other Playboy bunny except for the flat hairy chest because this Playboy bunny is Ezra Miller. The star of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald calls himself “queer” but it’s hard to take him seriously. What was it Susan Sontag said: it’s not camp if it’s trying to be camp? And for the past few months, while promoting the Potterverse prequel no one asked for, this 26-year-old fashionisto has been trying his damndest, styling himself as a sort of latter day Ziggy Stardust — the monastic Moncler puffer cape, the glittering Givenchy feathers — minus the depth. Six months ago, Miller looked like every other guy on the red carpet and now, per his own request, models bunny ears, fishnets, and heels as a gender-fluid rabbit for a randy Playboy interview. Okay, I guess, but it reads disingenuous to someone who grew up surrounded by closets to see them plundered so flagrantly for publicity. Described as “attracted to men and women,” Miller is nevertheless quoted mostly on the subject of guys, the ones he jerked off and fell in love with. He claims his lack of romantic success has lead him to be a polycule: a “polyamorous molecule” involving multiple “queer beings who understand me as a queer being.”

The article hit two weeks after i-D published a feature in which heartthrob Harry Styles interviewed heartthrob Timothée Chalamet with — despite their supposed reframing of masculinity — the upshot, as always, being female genuflection. “I want to say you can be whatever you want to be,” Chalamet explains, styled as a sensitive greaser for the cover. “There isn’t a specific notion, or jean size, or muscle shirt, or affectation, or eyebrow raise, or dissolution, or drug use that you have to take part in to be masculine.” Styles, on brand, pushes it further. “I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine,” the 24-year-old musician says, “and I’m very comfortable with that.” (Of course you are comfortable, white guy…did I say that out loud?) As part of the boy band One Direction, Styles was marketed as a female fantasy and became a kind of latter-day Mick Jagger, the playboy who gets all the girls. His subsequent refusal to label himself, the rumors about his close relationship with band mate Louis Tomlinson, and the elevation of his song “Medicine” to “bisexual anthem”– “The boys and the girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it” — all build on a solid foundation of cis white male heterosexuality.

Timothée Chalamet’s sexuality, meanwhile, flows freely between fiction and fact. While the 22-year-old actor is “straight-identifying,” he acquires a queer veneer by virtue of his signature role as Call Me by Your Name’s Elio, a bisexual teen (or, at least, a boy who has had sex with both women and men). Yet off screen, as Timothée, he embodies a robust heterosexuality. On social media, the thirst for him skews overwhelmingly female, while reports about his romantic partners — Madonna’s daughter, Johnny Depp’s daughter — not only paint him straight but enviably so. Lucas Hedges, another straight-identified actor who plays gay in the conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, somewhat disrupts this narrative, returning fluidity to the ambiguous space it came from. The 21-year-old admitted in an interview with Vulture that he found it difficult to pin himself down, having been “infatuated with” close male friends but more often women. “I recognize myself as existing on that spectrum,” he says. “Not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual.” That he felt “ashamed” for not being binary despite having a sixth-grade health teacher who introduced him to the range of sexuality suggests how married our culture is to it.

As a woman familiar with the shame associated with female sexuality, it’s difficult to ignore the difference in tenor of the response to famous young white males like Miller, Styles, and Chalamet and famous black women like Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson not only discussing it, but making even more radical statements. Appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone in May, Monáe said straight up (so to speak): “Being a queer black woman in America — someone who has been in relationships with both men and women — I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” The same age as Desiree Akhavan, 32, Monáe identified as bisexual until she read about pansexuality. She initially came out through her music; her album, Dirty Computer, contains a song called “Q.U.E.E.N.” which was originally titled “Q.U.E.E.R.,” while the music video accompanying “Pynk” has actress Tessa Thompson emerging from Monáe’s Georgia O’Keeffe-esque pants. While neither one of them has discussed their relationship in detail, Thompson, who in Porter magazine’s July issue revealed she is attracted to men and women, said, “If people want to speculate about what we are, that’s okay.”

The mainstream press and what appeared to be a number of non-queer social media acolytes credited Chalamet and Styles with redefining their gender and trouncing toxic masculinity. “[H]arry styles, ezra miller, and timothee chalamet are going to save the world,” tweeted one woman, while The Guardian dubbed Miller the “hero we need right now.” Monáe, meanwhile, was predominantly championed by queer fans (“can we please talk about how our absolute monarch Janelle Monáe has been telegraphing her truth to the queers thru her art and fashion for YEARS and now this Rolling Stone interview is a delicious cherry on top + a ‘told u so’ to all the h*teros”) and eclipsed by questions about what pansexual actually means. While white male fluidity was held up as heroic, female fluidity, particularly black female fluidity, was somehow unremarkable. Why? Part of the answer was recently, eloquently, provided by “Younger” star Nico Tortorella, who identifies as gender-fluid, bisexual, and polyamorous. “I get to share my story,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s a privilege that I have because of what I look like, the color of my skin, what I have between my legs, my straight passing-ness, everything.”

***

When I was growing up sex was not fun, it was fraught. Sex was AIDS, disease, death. The Supreme Court of Canada protected sexual orientation under the Charter when I was 15 but I went to school in Alberta, Canada’s version of Texas — my gym teacher was the face of Alberta beef. In my high school, no one was gay even if they were. All gender was binary. Sex was a penis in a vagina. Popular culture was as straight, and even Prince and David Bowie seemed to use their glam sparkle to sleep with more women rather than fewer. Bisexual women on film were murderers (Basic Instinct) or sluts (Chasing Amy) and in the end were united by their desire for “some serious deep dicking.” I saw no bisexual women on television (I didn’t watch “Buffy”) and LGBTQ characters were limited (“My So-Called Life”). Alanis Morissette was considered pop music’s feminist icon, but even she was singing about Dave Coulier. And the female celebrities who seemed to swing both ways — Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Bijou Phillips — were the kind who were already acting out, their sexuality a hallmark of their lack of control.

“I think unrealistic depictions of sex and relationships are harmful,” Akhavan told The New York Times. “I was raised on them and the first time I had sex, I had learned everything from film and television and I was like ‘Oh, this isn’t at all like I saw on the screen.’” Bisexuality has historically been passed over on screen for a more accessible binary depiction of relationships. In her 2013 book The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television, Maria San Filippo describes what has become known as “bisexual erasure” in pop culture: “Outside of the erotically transgressive realms of art cinema and pornography, screen as well as ‘real life’ bisexuality is effaced not only by what I’ve named compulsory monosexuality but also by compulsory monogamy,” she writes, adding, “the assumption remains that the gender of one’s current object choice indicates one’s sexuality.” So even high-profile films that include leads having sex with both genders — Brokeback Mountain, The Kids Are All Right, Blue Is the Warmest Color, Carol, Call Me By Your Name — are coded “gay” rather than “bi.”

Despite the rise in bisexual women on the small screen like Annalise in “How to Get Away with Murder,” Syd in “Transparent,” and Ilana in “Broad City,” GLAAD’s latest report on inclusion cited continued underrepresentation. While 28 percent of LGBTQ characters on television are bisexual, the majority are women (75 versus 18) and they are often associated with harmful tropes — sex is used to move the plot forward and the characters scan amoral and manipulative. This despite an increase in the U.S.’s queer population to 4.5 percent in 2017 from 3.5 percent in 2012 (when Gallup started tracking it). A notable detail is the extreme generational divide in identification: “The percentage of millennials who identify as LGBT expanded from 7.3% to 8.1% from 2016 to 2017, and is up from 5.8% in 2012,” reported Gallup. “By contrast, the LGBT percentage in Generation X (those born from 1965 to 1979) was up only .2% from 2016 to 2017.”

Here’s the embarrassing part. While I am technically a millennial, I align more with Generation X (that’s not the embarrassing bit). I am attracted more to men, but I am attracted to women as well yet don’t identify as LGBTQ. How best to describe this? I remember a relative being relieved when I acquired my first boyfriend (it was late). “Oh good, I thought you were gay,” they said. I was angry at them for suggesting that being gay was a bad thing, but also relieved that I had dodged a bullet. This isn’t exactly the internalized homophobia that Hannah Gadsby talked about, but it isn’t exactly not. My parents and my brother would have been fine with me being gay. So what’s the problem? The problem is that the standard I grew up with — in the culture, in the world around me — was not homosexuality, it was heterosexuality. I don’t judge non-heterosexual relationships, but having one myself somehow falls short of ideal. For the same reason, I can’t shake the false belief that lesbian sex is less legitimate than gay sex between men. The ideal is penetration. “That’s some Chasing Amy shit,” my boyfriend, eight years younger, said. And, yeah, unfortunately, it is. I have company though.

In a survey released in June, billed as “the most comprehensive of its kind,” Whitman Insight Strategies and BuzzFeed News polled 880 LGBTQ Americans, almost half of whom were between the ages of 18 and 29, and found that the majority, 46 percent, identified as bisexual. While women self-described as bi four times as often as men (79 to 19 percent), the report did not offer a single clear reason for the discrepancy. It did, however, suggest “phallocentrism,” the notion that the penis is the organizing principle for the world, the standard. In other words, sex is a penis in a vagina. “While bisexual women are often stereotyped as sleeping with women for male attention, or just going through a phase en route to permanent heterosexuality,” the report reads, “the opposite is presumed of bisexual men: that they are simply confused or semi-closeted gay men.” This explains why women who come out, like Monáe and Thompson, are considered less iconoclastic in the popular culture than men who even just make vague gestures towards fluidity — the stakes are considered higher for the guys. In truth, few feel comfortable being bi. Though the Pew Research Center’s survey of queer Americans in 2013 revealed that 40 percent of respondents identified as bisexual, this population was less likely to come out and more likely to be with a partner of the opposite sex. Famous women like Maria Bello, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristen Stewart have all come out, yet none of them really use the label.

“Not feeling gay enough, that’s something I felt a lot of guilt over,” Akhavan told the Times. It is guilt like this and the aforementioned shame which makes it all the more frustrating to watch the ease with which the younger generation publicly owns their fluidity. It is doubly hard to watch young white men being praised for wearing bunny ears in a magazine that has so long objectified women, simply because the expectations are so much lower for them. “I’m not looking down on the younger experience of being queer,” Akhavan said, “but I do think that there’s a resentment there that we gloss over.” In response, many of us react conservatively, with the feeling that they haven’t worked for it, that it is somehow less earned because of that. This is an acknowledgment of that resentment, of the eye rolling and the snickering with which we respond to the youth (ah, youth!). In the end we are not judging you for being empowered. We are judging ourselves for not being empowered enough.

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Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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