15 major LGBTQIA+ moments in pop culture in 2018

Love, Simon

Why not start off with one of the year’s earlier LGBTQIA+ wins, the teen film Love, Simon? Based on the novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, the movie is about a teenager named Simon, who seems like your average teenager, but he’s keeping a major secret from everyone: he’s gay. After he reads about another closeted gay student on the school’s blog, he reaches out anonymously, and the two strike up a friendship over email.

Simon spends the next couple months trying to figure out who Blue, his friend’s pen name, could be, and immediately assumes every boy who’s nice to him at school must be his internet love interest. Obviously, it couldn’t be that easy for poor Simon, and one of his classmates, Martin, discovers his secret and threatens to leak his emails if he doesn’t help him get with Simon’s friend Abby.

Love, Simon wasn’t groundbreaking as far as unique stories go, we’ve seen the whole coming out trope done a million times, but what made this one different is that it was a major studio teen movie, released by 20th Century Fox. It was the first major Hollywood studio film to focus on a gay teen romance, and that’s what made it so unique. We’ve seen a million teen movies over the years with straight people, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That, Save The Last Dance, and every John Hughes film of the ’80s. But this time, gay teens got to see themselves represented on screen, and nobody had to die (which happens in the majority of LGBTQIA+ films).

Fans and critics alike loved the movie — which grossed over $66 million worldwide — for exactly what it was, a lighthearted teen rom-com that was also kind of groundbreaking for having a gay protagonist who doesn’t die or end up with a broken heart. Simon got a happy ending, just like every straight teen who came before him.