#sometimes the subtext is supertext

[fazedlight]

"You can't force love, Mxyzptlk, you have to let it find you."

"It's true what you said, Kara. That magic... can't be forced. It has to be found."

[shmreduplication]

the crazy thing about watching the same handful of rwrb clips too many times is that eventually you realize that the movie part of the movie is actually also very good

basically: the location of the two men gives insight into what Henry is thinking about at any given moment. When Alex is on his right, Henry is thinking about his public (heterosexual) persona. Alex on the left, Henry is thinking about his private (homosexual) persona. With some caveats, like sometimes they are facing each other and Alex is still on the left from the camera's perspective.

OK let's get to some pics:

This is right after the first comment about Alex needing to be on the right because of protocol (camera's left, which is the direction i'm going to use for the rest of this post for the sake of consistency and ease)

This is the first time they are on screen together in the movie

In the lead-up to the incident, they are being rude to each other to hide (to themselves and each other) how attracted they are to each other. So in this moment Henry's thoughts are more about him being gay than about his public image, and lo, Alex is on the right

there's a little bit of a tussle that results in them on the floor and this slow-mo shot of their reaction to a giant cake falling on top of them. Alex is on the left again as Henry takes this split second to think about what his life is going to be like after the cake falls on them

literally shoved into a closet together, god I love when stuff that has gay text and gay supertext also has gay subtext. Henry is thinking about "why does this beautiful man I have a crush on hate me so bad :'(" and Alex is on the right

ok they're on the phone in this scene and not actually in bed next to each other but the topic of conversation is how much Alex has learned of Henry's private persona so Henry is thinking about how much of it to reveal because they're almost real friends at this point (Henry's real friends know he's gay). There is also continuity that every time one of them is on a bed, they're on the same side shown here, which could cause inconsistency with my whole premise of this post BUT i'm going to say it actually further justifies everything I'm saying because Henry really is nearly always thinking about his public persona

Henry is trying to come out to Alex. It is not going as planned. This is one of two shots that inspired this whole post

Henry went into this room thinking Alex was going to yell at him for being gay so he's just having every possible thought at once now, and also they're facing each other so even tho they just kissed and Alex is on the left, my point still stands

Henry takes a second to figure out that rn is the time to think gay thoughts, not sad thoughts about acting hetero in public and they IMMEDIATELY SWITCH SIDES OF THE SCREEN

A secret service agent walks in and Henry fucking dives back to the right side of the screen

The euphoria of finding out his crush likes him back is all he can think about in the next scene, even tho they are extremely in public and have just talked to the US prez/Alex's mom and the UK PM

ok it's 1am and it would be insane to do every scene and I fee like i've made my point but I do want to post two more pics:

NOO ALEX DON'T LAY DOWN THERE!!!! that's his right side even tho from the camera's perspective you are kinda on the right! that's so risky!!!!!!!!!! Also the straight lines are pointing downward to the right which is often a visual metaphor for things about to go downhill (in cultures that read left-to-right)

Alex starts talking about collapsing their private and public lives together and wow look at that, the camera also did its best to collapse Alex being on the right and being on the left together in the second shot that inspired this post