#simon vs movie

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Y'know, there's this gripe I've had for years that really frustrates me, and it has to do with Love, Simon and people joking about it and calling it too-pg and designed-for-straight-people and all the like. (A similar thing has happened to Heartstopper, but that's another conversation.)

I saw Love, Simon in theaters when it came out my senior year in high school. I saw it three times, once with my friends/parents on opening night, once with my brother over spring break, and once with my grandparents.

On opening night, the air in the room was electric. It was palpable. Half the heads in there were dyed various colors. Queer kids were holding hands. We were all crying and laughing and cheering as a group. My friends grabbed my hands at the part where Simon was outed and didn't let go until his parents were saying that they accepted him. My friend came out to me as non-binary. Another person in our group admitted that she had feelings for girls. It was incredible. I left shaking. This was the first mainstream queer romance movie that had ever been produced by one of the main five studios, and I know that sounds like another "first queer character from Disney" bit but you have to understand that even in 2018 this was groundbreaking. Getting to have a sweet queer rom-com where the main character was told that he got "to breathe now" after coming out meant so much to me and my friends.

But also, from a designed-for-straight-people POV (which, to be frank, it was written by a bisexual author and directed by a gay man, this was not designed for straight audiences), why is it a bad thing that it appealed to the widest possible audience? That it could make my parents and grandparents see things in a new light? My stepdad wasn't at all interested in rom-coms but he saw it with me because it was something I cared about and he hugged me when we came out of the theater. My very Catholic grandparents watched it with me and though my grandpa said he still didn't quite understand the whole 'gay thing,' all he wanted was for me to be happy and to have a happy ending like Simon did. My Nana actually cried when Simon came out and squeeze my hand when his mother told him he could breathe.

And when Martin blackmailed Simon, my mom, badass ally that she is, literally hissed "Dropkick him. Dropkick him in the balls" leading to multiple queer kids in the audience to laugh or smile. Having my parents there- the only parents, by the way, out of my group of queer and questioning friends- made multiple people realize that supportive adults were out there. That parents like those in Love, Simon do exist in real life.

When people complain about Heartstopper not being realistic or Love, Simon being too cutesy, I remember seeing Love, Simon on opening night. I remember my friend coming out and my stepdad hugging me and my mom defending us through this character. I remember the cheers that went through the audience when Bram and Simon kissed and the chatter in the foyer after the movie was over and the way that this movie made me understand that happy endings do exist.

Queer kids need happy endings. Straight people need entry points to becoming allies. Both of these things can come together in beautiful ways. They can find out about more queer culture later, but for now, let them have this. Let them all have a glimpse at a better, happier world. Let them have queer joy.

#love simon #simon vs thsa #simon spier #spierfeld #bram greenfeld #my experiences #meta #the importance of queer joy #heartstopper #becky albertalli #my mom also watched rwrb with me last year when it premiered #and let me tell you that was interesting sitting in the room with her for an r-rated romance movie like that

[fanofspooky]

🩸Evil Dead protagonists covered in blood🩸

#horror #horror movies #horror movie #movie #movies #gifs #gif #horror gif #horror gifs #my gif post #my gif #my gifs #horror movie gifs #horror movie gif #the evil dead #evil dead #ash vs evil dead #evil dead 2 #evil dead 2013 #evil dead ii #evil dead rise #the ​evil dead 1981 #ash williams #bruce campbell #kelly maxwell #pablo bolivar #pablo simon bolivar #horror edit #80s horror #2010s horror

[sasbri]

A page of my sketchbook filled with Ash and a photo with his friends, there's still space to fill more

.

#cute #drawing #fanart #ash williams #evil dead #ash vs evil dead #horror #horror movies #80s movies #movies #series #anime art #art #sketchbook #sketch #kelly maxwell #pablo simon bolivar

[yourfavehaskenergy]

Pablo Simon Bolivar from Ash vs. Evil Dead🦾

Pablo Simon Bolivar from Ash vs. Evil Dead has Kenergy!

#pablo simon bolivar #ash vs evil dead #evil dead #barbie #barbie movie #kenergy #barbie 2023 #barbie and ken #and ken #yourfavehaskenergy #ken #ryan gosling

[marlenacantswim]

i love edgar wright movies because everything's either a chekhov's gun or a running gag or a running gag AND a chekhov's gun

#running my mouth #petition to let him make more movies #i know we've had three edgar wright movies with simon pegg and nick frost but i think we deserve more #what's the matter you've never taken a shortcut before? #edgar wright #shaun of the dead #hot fuzz #scott pilgram vs the world #baby driver #the world's end

[sgsketchbook]

drawing art for my silly little favorite book. i know it’s been years but these guys changed my life!! love ‘em forever

#also it’s fun to redraw them all the time to see my improvement #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #svthsa fanart #svthsa #simon spier #bram greenfeld #nick eisner #abby suso #leah burke #to be clear these are my interpretations of the BOOK characters #not!! the movie #so before you ask yes i know that’s not what they look like in the movie

[redflannel]

The audacity of movie adaptations to cut siblings out of the story for “reasons” is ridiculous

Like I’m sorry but your relationship to your sibling(s) fundamentally changes who you are and your relationship to other characters

#yes rwrb I am taking about you #but this applies to soooo many book adaptations #Simon vs the homosapiens agenda is the first that comes to mind #but I KNOW there are many others #anyways it will be fine #I’m fine #very fine #red white & royal blue #rwrb #rwrb june #rwrb movie

[mo0nc4lf]

nothing hurts more than hyperfixating on a piece of media whose fandom has been dead for years

#this is about love simon #not just the movie but the book #plus the spinoffs #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #creekwoodverse #is that a thing? it's a thing now #love leah #love victor #still haven't watched that but i need to

[heyitsbramgreenfeld]

So, I rewatched Love, Simon after not seeing it for a while last night. And I have some thoughts. They changed a ton of stuff from the book, which, okay, some changes are fine. You can’t fit hundreds of pages into 2 hours. But a lot of the stuff they changed didn’t make much sense, and didn’t impact the running time. Here are just a few:

1. Blue’s personality. In Simon vs., Blue is shy, and takes a while to open up. He’s quiet and nervous, and isn’t super outgoing. But in the movie, Blue is super popular, super outgoing, and not nervous at all. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, but I did miss the quiet, nerdy Bram that we were blessed with in the books. Although movie Bram was cool, and absolutely slayed with his halloween costume.

2. Martin’s Tumblr post. In the book, Martin did have screenshots of Simon’s emails, just like in the movie. However, he didn’t post them. He just posted the blurb that was like “Simon’s gay, contact him for gay sex” or whatever. He made a slight mention of Blue (he said something about blue balls), but he didn’t post the screenshots, so no one found out about Blue. And Blue didn’t even find out who Simon was until a while later, because he didn’t look at the Tumblr. But in the movie, Martin posted the screenshots, which made everyone aware of Blue. This led to Blue deleting his email. In the book, Blue didn’t, but they just sort of stopped emailing for a while.

3. Simon and Blue’s meet up. In the movie, like I mentioned, Blue deleted his email. So to reach him, Simon made a public Tumblr post, asking Blue to meet him in a public place. Honestly, I hated that. Simon put Blue in a position where, in order to talk to Simon, he had to out himself. I mean, Simon didn’t have much of a choice in reaching out to him publicly, but he didn’t have to ask Blue to meet him in a place where everyone would watch them. In the book, Simon emails Blue privately, and they meet and figure things out on their own.

4. Simon’s friends reactions. Simon’s friends, in the book, are super supportive of Simon. Abby does find out about Simon trying to set Martin and her up, but she’s much more forgiving. She takes a couple days to process, but ultimately decides Simon was in a tough spot and he didn’t really have a choice. In the movie, his friends give him no chance to explain, never try to understand him, and ditch him even after he got outed.

5. Simon guessing who Blue is. In the movie, Simon guesses it’s Bram, then Lyle, then Cal. In the book, for the entire time, Simon thinks it’s Cal. He makes mentions of Bram, so we know who he is, and we know Simon thinks he’s cute, but he doesn’t guess it’s him. I kind of loved this, because Simon is canonically very clueless, and the love of his life was right in front of him. I didn’t love how, in the movie, Bram was caught making out with a girl. It just doesn’t seem like him.

6. Judaism. Bram and Nick are canonically Jewish, and it’s mentioned a lot. It’s not exactly problematic that they didn’t talk about it in the movie (except for the one mention that Blue spends Hanukkah with his dad), because that may take too much time, but I love how Simon becomes sort of interested in Judaism because of Blue. Idk, maybe it’s just because I’m Jewish and crave Jewish characters, but I really missed that aspect.

7. Leah’s crush. All throughout Simon vs, we think Leah likes Nick. It’s never resolved, but she definitely doesn’t like Simon. As we find out in the sequel, Leah on the Offbeat, Leah actually likes Abby, and she doesn’t know what to do with those feelings, so she’s sort of surly towards Abby through the whole book. In Love, Simon, we find out she actually loves Simon, and she and Abby are besties with no drama.

8. Leah and her situation. So, I know that Leah on the Offbeat was written while Love, Simon was being filmed, so they couldn’t really have a super accurate Leah in the movie, but in the book, she’s seen to be a bit moody sometimes, and in the movie, she’s very calm. It’s not too much of a difference, though. The bigger difference is Leah’s financial status. In Leah on the Offbeat, it’s made known that she has a single mom and lives in a smallish house, and feels off with everyone because she’s not as rich as most people in Shady Creek. In the movie, it’s shown that she has a giant house right next to Simon and Nick, who we know have rich parents. Again, I know that this was only mentioned in Leah on the Offbeat, and so they couldn’t have really done that, but I would’ve loved to see the characters not living in almost-mansions (seriously. the house that was used to film simon’s house recently sold for over 2 million dollars).

9. Privilege. Yes, in the book, Simon is still privileged. But he acknowledges it. He knows. I feel like in the movie, Simon has a sort of “I’m not privileged because I’m gay, and anyone who acts more gay than me (like Ethan) is asking for whatever harassment happens to them”. I just didn’t love that non-self-awareness.

Comment if I missed anything!

#love simon #simon spier #bram greenfeld #blue #simon and blue #simon and bram #simon vs thsa #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #simon vs #gay #gay pride #queer movies #gay movies

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

#jewish characters #jumblr #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #I couldn't confirm whether he was still jewish in the movie #but if he was then assume this is for the movie too #other in media confirmation

[generalecapodiurano]

#i spent too much time on this #chaotic good brother vs chaotic evil brother #they're my little meow meow (literally) #wakfu #dofus: the treasures of kerub #dofus movie #joris jurgen #kerubim crepin #atcham crepin #dofus simone #wakfu memes

[rogue-indshadows]

"The way I feel about him is like a heartbeat -- soft and persistent, underlying everything."

Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Simonverse, #1)

#2024 #booklr #bibilophile #reading #bookish #love simon #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #becky albertalli #gay novel #coming out #coming of age #boy love #romance books #gay romance #lgbtq #lgbt books #movie adaptation #bisexual #bl love #kiss #ferris wheel #love #queer #nick robinson #simon spier #bram greenfeld #keiynan lonsdale #katherine langford #Leah burke

[fanofspooky]

#horror #horror movies #horror movie #tv #tv show #tv shows #horror tv shows #horror tv #horror tv show #ash vs evil dead #evil dead #the Evil Dead #ash williams #bruce campbell #kelly maxwell #pablo bolivar #pablo simon bolivar #Ray Santiago  #dana delorenzo

[opheliaweeps]

been losing it over the rwrb trailer (going absolutely insane, I’ve listened to nothing other than ‘that’s what I want’ for the last few days) and figured now’s as good a time as any to reread this masterpiece for the nth time. and I’m going through the book and the notes I’ve made and I remembered that the biggest thing about this beautiful story, for me, was that it helped me figure out I’m, like, super not-straight.

alex’s journey in understanding himself honestly could not be more different than mine, but one thing he thinks shifted my whole worldview:

“Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves they’re straight.”

I read this line, went yeah duh, and went about my day. A few weeks later, I’m staring at the ceiling with this quote running through my head on loop. and I kept thinking about the new influx of information that was being made available to me through the internet and my own growing freedom, and I realized that alex maybe had a point.

rwrb didn’t exactly help me figure out who exactly I am (the credit for that goes to aftg, but that’s a mess we’ll get into another day), but it helped me take the first step in understanding that a) I am queer, and b) there’s nothing wrong with that.

so, long story short, been a reader since rwrb was first published, I probably owe casey my first-born kid for this funny and heart-wrenchingly honest story, and I can’t wait to see alex and henry’s love story on-screen.

((seriously, I’m so excited for the movie im going to be insufferable from august 11 onward))

#jyot writes #red white and royal blue #my writing #my thoughts #my stuff #lgbtqia #queer pride #rwrb book #rwrb movie #this was one of the first openly queer books I’d ever read #after Simon vs #and honestly #I’ve reread it so many times afterward #it’s so beautiful #and the characters and amazing and flawed and true

[spw-art]

i need to buy evil dead the game I need to buy evil dead the game I need to b

#evil dead #ash vs evil dead #ash williams #kelly maxwell #pablo simon bolivar #i feel like Pablo and little ash from the first movie……..yeah #evil dead ash looks up to Pablo looks up to AvED ash kind of thing #and they’re friends #also I felt like drawing Kelly with the meat tenderizer and killer and didn’t realize she looked like Patrick Bateman lmao #cant believe it but I still need to find a way I like to draw Kelly

[hagnanimous]

I don’t think Love, Simon is as bad as it’s made out to be, but I also didn’t love it.

I think the main reason why the movie doesn’t quite work is because the book is primarily a romance, but the movie isn’t. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is about how Simon and Blue/Bram grow and change as the relationship between them develops, which is how I personally define a romance book.

Love, Simon is a coming out movie, but it uses the same story from the book, which makes the ending not quite fit. When Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda ends, the main conflict of the book has been solved - Simon and Blue are together! But the conflicts in Love, Simon aren’t just romantic. Throughout the movie, he worries about bullying, understanding his identity, and being accepted by his friends and family. These themes are definitely also in the book, they just aren’t the main focus.

So, at the end of the movie, when Simon and Blue get together, the main conflicts haven’t been solved. Homophobia doesn’t go away just because Simon has a boyfriend now. And for me, that’s why the movie falls flat - it doesn’t feel like a true resolution to his story.

Another reason why I don’t love the movie is that my favorite part of the book is Simon’s emails, and we just don’t get those as much in the movie, which is fair because that’s how movies work.

#love simon #simon vs the homosapiens agenda #books #movies #thoughts