One of my favorite movies, Call Me by Your Name, is constantly on my watch rotation. The cinematography and representation of queer love are beautiful; I still cannot seem to get enough of it after (approximately) 27 viewings. Call Me by Your Name features 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer). Elio is an American-Italian Jew vacationing with his family in their summer home in Italy. Oliver is an American doctoral student interning with Elio’s father for the summer. Initially, the two have little in common and do not care much for each other’s company. But over the course of the summer, they grow attracted to each other’s intellect, and an unlikely friendship turns into a passionate romance. After watching this movie an ungodly number of times, I have picked up on how this movie both positively and negatively contributes to queer representation in the media.
I’ll start with the negative. While this movie portrays a beautiful relationship between two young men who are coming to terms with their sexualities, it is hardly representative of the experience of most queer people. For starters, it is a “white gay fantasy” that fails to address the harsh realities of queer individuals in a heteronormative society. Portrayed as nearly perfect (not accounting for the age difference, which is definitely sketchy), they are two souls that are essentially interchangeable. Many viewers may find it difficult to relate to the characters: Elio is a young trilingual, intellectual, white aristocrat that any modeling agency would pray to employ. His parents are unequivocally accepting of his identity and support his relationship with Oliver before Elio even realizes it is more than platonic. He appears to experience little turmoil about being attracted to men and acts quickly on these urges. I can speak from personal experience that coming to terms with your sexual identity is NOT an overnight process, and it is almost inconceivable that he accepts his identity as quickly as he did. It is equally unrealistic that they find such wide acceptance in one of the most homophobic countries in Europe, especially in the 1980s.
Now onto the positive! As a queer person, I love being able to watch a film centered around queer people. More often than not, LGBTQIA+ characters I have seen in TV shows and movies are secondary characters, with their plotlines revolving solely around romantic interests. We hardly get to know them as people, and it feels like they are included out of obligation. Though this movie does not represent the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, it is refreshing to watch a film that does not cater to the heterosexual gaze. It does, however, do a good job catering to the tragic yearning so many young queer people endure by offering a sort of “gay utopia” where two men can be together without fears of hate and rejection. While this utopia does ideologically pose a gay relationship between two white, affluent men, it is nonetheless a step in the right direction to increasing queer representation in the film industry and mainstream media. I will admit this movie is not perfect, but given the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation in film, it’s one I’ll continue watching on repeat.
Cover photo. Call Me by Your Name, directed by Luca Guadagnino (2017; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), www.netflix.com.
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