I don’t want to be a character in Tell Me Lies. Ever. I don’t think I would really want to be Belly in The Summer I Turned Pretty, or Emily in Emily in Paris, and certainly not Kate in what Google describes as a “romantic show,” You. Realising that not many straight TV shows are very appealing to audiences for their purely romantic appeal, it’s hard not to notice that there is a community that does romance slightly better.
The relevance and appeal of queer romances in the past few years have been illustrated by their immediate success. Heartstopper, Young Royals, and, more recently, Heated Rivalry have been global hits since their releases, and I don’t think their success necessarily has to do with their sexuality. Rather, it feels like these stories, as complicated as they are, offer much more hope, beauty, and longing for love. They represent complicated, but often less toxic, relationships than more mainstream straight romances, while still retaining the difficulty and emotional stakes that make love compelling in the first place.
I watched Tell Me Lies and Heated Rivalry simultaneously, and I have never been so struck by the different portrayals of love… If you can even call what’s in Tell Me Lies love. Intimacy, trust, and even the simple act of wanting are portrayed so differently: far more aggressively in stereotypical straight romances, and much more softly in Heated Rivalry.
I started wondering whether there isn’t a special element in recent queer shows, a kind of modern Romeo and Juliet dynamic. Most of them centre on people who desperately want to be together but believe they truly cannot.
In Young Royals, Wilhelm, the heir to the Swedish throne, falls in love with Simon. He believes he cannot come out, and it takes them a long time to navigate what he initially sees as an impossible love. In Heated Rivalry, Ilya and Shane are two hockey players who orbit each other for years without seriously considering a relationship, largely because it feels unthinkable within such a stereotypically masculine sport.
Unlike Romeo and Juliet, their love is not actually forbidden. But their navigation of social stigmas, particularly in institutions like royal courts or professional sports, makes it feel that way. The courage required to be together and the emotional weight of coming out likely hold a strong appeal for audiences. Queer or not, the characters’ vulnerability and dedication are rarely matched in most mainstream TV romances.
Still, I couldn’t help noticing that within queer romances, the ones under the spotlight are usually gay love stories, not so much lesbian. Only 50 per cent of movies pass the Bechdel test, which measures whether a movie has at least one scene with two women talking, where they are not discussing men. Women in cinema and television are madly underrepresented and particularly women from minority groups, but I can’t help being actually surprised by the lack of famous or discussed lesbian shows in mainstream TV. A league of their own, for example, is about two women playing in a baseball team in the ’40s and ’50s, navigating many complex issues and situations that mirror other famous queer romances. These stories exist, but simply lack the budget and audience.
Queer romances are nothing new; from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, queer love stories have been around since Greek Antiquity, at least. Still, the recent demand for queer romances, which now reaches far beyond their original target audiences and becomes massive international hits, perhaps signals a broader desire for a different portrayal of love: one that feels more honest, more tender, and more inclusive.
Photo by 550Park Luxury Wedding Films on Unsplash.