YOUR FAVORITE LOGO TV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

Holiday Films Are So Queer—Why Aren't We in More of Them?

We deserve better than reading between the lines or trying to imagine ourselves in straight narratives.

For queer folks, holiday entertainment can be endlessly frustrating. Partly due to misguided notions of what’s considered “family-friendly” for holiday audiences, LGBTQ characters have been few and far between.

Looking at the more traditional fare, there have been queer readings of Rudolph, that red-nosed reindeer ostracized from his community who goes looking for compassion. Taking things a little further, you could imagine that Ebenezer Scrooge’s “business” relationship with Jacob Marley ran a little deeper than what we see on the surface. But suffice it to say, our holiday classics are decidedly hetero and require an imaginative mind to think otherwise.

In terms of actual queer representation, you can handpick examples. Think Robert Downey Jr.’s character Tommy in Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays (from 1995 and technically a Thanksgiving movie), or the gay interracial couple in The Family Stone (2005), who are tertiary to the plot (but have a baby!). If you’re looking for something more definitively queer, there are low-budget efforts like Make the Yuletide Gay (2009), about a guy in college who, though openly gay at school, commits to keeping up a straight facade for his parents over the holidays.

Then there are the outliers, the indie tales tangential to Christmas, like Sean Baker’s Tangerine (2015), a remarkable film that happens to take place during the holidays, or John Waters’ Female Trouble (1974), wherein Divine plays a high school student who goes on a Christmas rampage after her parents refuse to buy her the shoes she wants (destroying decorations, presents, and toppling the Christmas tree onto her mother).

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special, which aired in 1988 with an unbearably gay roster of guest stars, including Cher, k.d. lang, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Charo, and Joan Rivers, remains a particularly potent queer holiday touchstone. As groups of hunky men build a structure out of fruitcake, Grace Jones stops by in her metal bra-dress to sing “Little Drummer Boy,” and Pee-Wee goes ice skating with Little Richard. It’s a spectacle to be treasured.

What becomes clear in running through this list, however, is that the holiday film traverses themes of alienation and community, whether biological or chosen, and there is something distinctly queer about that. Countless of them are about family outcasts struggling to fit in, get along with their relatives, or find compassion in a lonely world—from Home Alone to Arthur Christmas—which are all traits and tropes found in queer lived experiences.

It’s a shame, then, that the majority of these movies neglect to acknowledge the innate queerness of the holiday film and its power to bridge gaps of understanding and empathy between LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ viewers. What better time than the holidays for a conservative family—who may not know queer people in their daily lives—to witness an LGBTQ storyline told through a relatable Christmas story? There’s affective potential here.

The queer connection to the holidays runs deep: Many LGBTQ folks can’t be with their biological families over the holidays because they weren’t accepted and were forced to leave home. They then turn to their friends and chosen families. FX’s Pose is a recent pop culture example of this experience. The House of Evangelista, made up of trans and queer people who frequent the ball scene of 1980s New York City, find solidarity and love in each other. Their connections fully solidify when they celebrate Christmas together in episode three, “Giving and Receiving.” With nowhere else to go, the friends gather at a Chinese restaurant to exchange thoughtful gifts, words of comfort, and demonstrate the power of chosen family.

The holidays can be a complicated period of navigating the varied roles that family plays in our lives. Queer folks routinely spend their lives building relationships with fellow outcasts and repairing damage inflicted by loved ones. It seems troubling, then, that there are so few queer holiday films that engage with such themes thoughtfully (or at all, for that matter). We deserve better than scanning for subtext or retrofitting straight narratives.

Think back to Todd Haynes’ Carol (2015), the period film about two women, Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara), falling in love in 1950s New York City. It’s no seasonal coincidence that the film is set during the holidays or that Carol first lays eyes on Therese when she’s wearing a Santa hat. By shading their meeting in a yuletide glow, we attribute the roots of their relationship with falling snow, Christmas lights, fur coats, and cashmere scarves. Amid this atmosphere, Carol and Therese combat the loneliness of their respective lives in hopes of being together, in peace.

The film suggests a simple but revelatory notion: Regardless of who is loving who, there’s nothing more festive than two hearts beating together in the cold. In next year’s roster of holiday films, I hope more of those hearts belong to queer people.

Latest News