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gay-mafia-stickball · 1 year ago

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I have mixed feelings about the red white and royal blue movie (red white and royal bluevie, if you will).

let me preface this by saying two things: one, you are entitled to your opinion and so am I so civil discourse is welcome, but hate speech is not, and two, I am a firm believer that book vs movie argument is pointless as long as you enjoy the media, so take the following with a grain of salt. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and if you don’t want to see anything negative, you can scroll past this, but these were things that caught my eye. that all being said, here are my thoughts.

first things first: the change from Raphael Luna to Miguel Ramos felt like it detracted from the story. in the rwrb book, the Alex looks up to Luna and considers him an ally and a role model in the political field, seeing him as a goal to shoot for. this makes his betrayal (working on richards campaign) hurt a lot worse, and it makes his subsequent redemption (him bringing up dirt on richards that not only effected him as a queer man but as a politician) feel a like a big triumph and a loose end that has been tied up. Alex’s relationship with Ramos is already a different kind of relationship, since Alex wants to be a politician, not a journalist, and their connection feels a lot less secure since their only tie is that they’re friends who have hooked up, so when he starts to publish aggressive and harmful stories toward Alex, it feels less like a betrayal and more like pettiness over being rejected. this is only reinforced by the fact that he isn’t given any redemption, and his loose end remains untied and without closure. Lunas story is, in my opinion, just as much a part of the main plot as Alex and Henry’s, because he reflects the struggles of older queer generations fighting the good fight behind enemy lines and the thankless battle that a lot of younger people take for granted. without Luna, President Claremont’s win feels more arbitrary, and a lot of the stress that motivates Alex and his character development as a person and as a politician is flattened.

another thing id love to address is the so called “side characters”- pez, bea, nora, and june. starting with pez, who is meant to be Henry’s best friend and lifeline: he got barely five minutes of screen time, and it felt like he was sidelined as unimportant and a supporting cast member instead of an actually important member of the group. Bea as well was sidelined, and kind of pushed into the role pez had in the books. by ignoring Beas history with substance abuse and her moniker of “powder Princess”, it takes away from her depth as a character and the struggles her and her family have gone through, not even mentioning the fact that their mother isn’t even in the movie. the same thing is true with the lack of Alex’s parents divorce; the trauma from that event led to a lot of important character development and growth, as well as some pretty important plot points (such as the first phone call). Nora and June I can do in one fell swoop: they should not have been combined into one character. they both played different and significant roles in Alex’s life, June as a steadying factor and a shoulder to lean on, and Nora as an experienced confidant that unwinds Alex and allows him to live a little. not only did the combination of their characters take away a healthy polyamorous relationship with pez, but it took away a big piece of Alex’s support system and the factors to a lot of his character growth.

a final thing that I’ll mention in this post is specifically about Alex- sorry, I can’t help it, I love him so much 😭 I just feel like the decision not to focus more on his work life and his personal life was poorly made. the movie did a phenomenal job of outlining Henry’s stressors and backstory and of course I’m so glad that he was given the closure and attention he needed (though I’m a little pissy that his mother wasn’t involved), but without mentioning Alex’s admittedly shitty work-life-balance and his stress as a newly discovered queer biracial politician and the stress from his parents (apparently nonexistent) divorce, the relationship feels toxic and a little one-sided. im not here to throw any pity parties for any characters, but all of the previously mentioned factors, among others, play into Alex’s decision to go to law school and start taking his time with his life, and the fact that that wasn’t even mentioned put Henry and Alex into a position where Alex seems unreasonable and insensitive while Henry is the only one with a good, albeit traumatized head on his shoulders.

like I said, these are just my opinions, and obviously I like the show a lot, though maybe more as a romantic comedy than a true adaptation of rwrb, so if you have thoughts to share, I’d love to see them! be kind and gracious and don’t start stupid fights over book accuracy, I don’t care that there were no monogrammed kimonos or that a different song played in the museum ❤️

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