A Lesbian Little Christmas

Look, I spent the entire weekend (and then some) after about 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time Saturday morning drinking champagne, blasting “Fuck Donald Trump,” and intermittently crying about the fact that now, finally, we have a chance to maybe do a little good – or at bare minimum stop doing so many incredibly horrible things. Hearing them make the call was both a moment of total elation and exhausted relief. But, at least this past weekend, it was all about the joy. We’ve had to make our own these past four years. So if it feels a little bit like Christmas came early, well, there’s a reason.

And, it also helped that the trailer for “The Happiest Season” dropped yesterday. It’s the first mainstream lesbian holiday rom-com to be released here in the states. (Yes, I know there have been indie holiday lesbian movies, but let’s be real they didn’t have Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis.) But I think what I like most about it, aside of course from seeing K-Stew and Yorkie as a couple, is how extraordinarily conventional it seems – from a rom-com standpoint.

A cute couple is going home for the holidays for the first time together, one gets advice from her sassy gay friend (Dan Levy, David Rose-ing himself through life with aplomb), they try to avoid spilling the beans about something to the clueless parents and an emotional and/or physical obstacle is presented for them to overcome. Granted, the obstacle here is coming out and not being honest about one’s sexuality. But they are even sight-gag jokes about her hiding in the closet. And hiding from the folks behind the door to your childhood bedroom? That’s practically wholesome.

So while the storyline perhaps feels a bit basic for those familiar with queer cinema over the years, I have to think that’s the point. Again, this is the first mainstream lesbian rom-com. And it stars perhaps the most famous out actress working right now, and also has a queer filmmaker/actress in Clea DuVall behind the camera. The idea is both mass appeal, and to give I think lesbian and bisexual women who’ve been yearning for their own cheesy (and I mean that in the best possible way) holiday rom-com to call their very own.

p.s. Don’t worry, I put “Happiest Season” in an entirely other Christmas-time category than The Queen of Lesbian Holiday Movies, “Carol.” There’s room in this world for both, and in fact, so many more. Bring on the holly and the jolly, but make it super gay.