There’s No Shortage of LGBT Movies, Actually

A re LGBT movies niche? Elliot (formerly Ellen) Page thinks they shouldn’t be. Speaking at a recent LGBT film festival in London, the Juno star said that queer movies deserve to be mainstream because “30 percent of young people identify as LGBTQ.”

There are two points to make in response to this. The first is that “30 percent of young people” is still a pretty small audience against the rest of the population. Granted, this is a huge generational uptick. As Bill Maher has noted, these days, there’s an obvious trendiness of identifying as something other than “cisgender” and “heteronormative,” which are not only nonsensical descriptors but practically slurs. Still, according to the Williams Institute, only 5.5 percent of U.S. adults identify as LGBT.

The second point is that, despite only a small minority of audiences identifying as LGBT, this hasn’t stopped Hollywood filmmakers from prioritizing movies with gay and trans themes for mainstream productions.

Think of Milk (2008), I Love You Phillip Morris (2009), The Danish Girl (2015), Moonlight (2016), Call Me By Your Name (2017), Boy Erased (2018), Joe Bell (2020), Maestro (2023), and All of Us Strangers (2023), to name a few. LGBT-themed movies have been a mainstream category within Hollywood for 20 years: Brokeback Mountain (2005) grossed over $178 million against its $14 million budget.

So, what, exactly, is Page complaining about? “If you told really specific stories about cis-het people, I’m not calling that plot niche,” Page said. These are invented terms to suggest that the default human setting of not being confused by “gender” and being attracted to the opposite sex is not the norm. In fact, it is, as the continuation of our species demonstrates.

The assumption that a movie deserves to be widely popular because it has gay themes is foolish. Recall the gay rom-com, Bros, about the sex lives of two romantically involved gay men. Billy Eichner, who wrote and starred in the film, then complained that “even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for ‘Bros.’”

The movie was pointlessly vulgar and unfunny, faults that even its marketing and trailer betrayed. It’s no wonder it flopped at the box office. Especially since the winning formula for a rom-com has already been determined by womenwho want to watch men falling in love with women and living happily ever after, and will happily drag their boyfriends, husbands, dads, and brothers along with them to see such movies.

It’s not only conservatives who are underwhelmed by films that try to get by on the singular selling point of having LGBT themes. Page’s latest movie, Close to You (2023), about a trans-identifying woman going home for the first time since “coming out as a trans,” fits this description. It scored 43 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. One reviewer for the Guardian described it as a “well intentioned yet patchy drama,” giving it only two stars.

Most Americans support gay marriage as well as laws preventing discrimination against gay people in employment, housing, etc. But that doesn’t mean that they are endlessly fascinated by the subject of “queer identity.” Why should they be? One rule of writing is this: Never assume that your reader is interested — she owes you nothing. The same is true for screenwriters and filmmakers.

Movies with broad appeal are those that tap into some universal aspect of human nature, or which feature a famous cast or big budget for special effects. There are plenty of wonderful movies that are not mainstream. There’s no shame in a small audience for a well-made, artsy film.

The trouble is that movies written in the self-absorbed, insular style of LGBT ideology risk being closer to politics than art. You can call a lack of interest in them homophobia or the oppressive nature of “heteronormativity,” or you can accept that most people aren’t interested in watching tired political narratives — especially when they advance an ideology that’s divisive and harmful. For example, it’s no wonder parents boycott series and movies that are nakedly propagandistic, such as the Butterfly TV series in the U.K., promoting child “transition.”

LGBT activists simultaneously want to be treated as special and exceptional — in other words, niche — while redefining normal and ordinary to include themselves. Equality means being judged by the same standards as everyone else. Hollywood has already devoted huge money and energy on movies promoting LGBT ideology. Audiences are under no special obligation to enjoy them.