The Lifetime Gay Christmas Movie Totally Broke Me—So, Yup, It Worked
The Christmas Setup—Lifetime's first gay Christmas movie—is here, and, well, it's gay. At one point, Fran Drescher (who plays Kate) has her son, Hugo (Ben Lewis), and his love interest, Patrick (Blake Lee), wear old-timey hats and go Christmas caroling. Hugo makes a “bottom” joke talking about Christmas trees (that's how I read it, at least). Another Christmas tree is compared to a drag queen. And when Hugo sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” at a drag bar, the audience cheers at “Make the yuletide gay.” See, I told you: Gay! Very gay!
And yet the Lifetime gay Christmas movie is just like every other Lifetime Christmas movie—that's what's so refreshing about it. You have a tale as old as time: Hugo is a stressed-AF lawyer who comes home to Milwaukee for the holidays. While there, he reunites with Patrick, his hometown crush who sold his multimillion-dollar company and now works with his dad. A romance blossoms with lots of sweet shenanigans: They get trapped on the roof hanging Christmas decorations! Patrick plans a romantic date for Hugo with all his favorite foods! They kiss while looking at the northern lights!
Of course, trouble comes when Hugo receives an incredible job offer in London. What will he choose: career or the hot Christmas-tree man he's been seeing for a week who makes cherry-and-chocolate cookies (yuck). If you've seen any Lifetime movie, you know the answer.
Which, honestly, is comforting as hell. While coming-out stories are necessary, arguably just as important is seeing gay characters integrated into mainstream storytelling. The Christmas Setup could've easily been a heterosexual movie—minus, ya know, the maybe joke about bottoming—and that's why it's groundbreaking. There's no gay trauma porn, no identity struggles, no raging homophobic neighbors. Just a heartwarming Christmas romance between two men.
“The fact that it's so unremarkable, in the context of the movie, that it is two men, is actually more progressive in its own way,” Lewis said in a recent interview about the film. “We hope this is just opening a door for even more diverse representation, for queer people of color, trans people, nonbinary people.”
It has shades of what Hulu just did with Happiest Season, its queer holiday rom-com centered on two women (played by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis). What's special about these movies is how normal they are. “I grew up watching and loving conventional movies like this,” Kristen Stewart told Entertainment Weekly about Happiest Season. “Seeing [marginalized] people loving each other in the middle of something that’s so standardized was really exhilarating and freeing.”
Those same words describe The Christmas Setup: exhilarating, freeing, and—if you're a gay man—totally soul-crushing. Isn't that what rom-coms are supposed to do? Show us a love so perfect it makes us hate our sad, little single lives? Sure, I feel that way marginally when I watch straight rom-coms, but The Christmas Setup took it to a whole new level. Why isn't there a tech magnet turned tree farmer in my hometown who wants to bake me gross cookies? Why doesn't Fran Drescher fix me up with a hot, chiseled gay in town and entrap us on her roof? Where the hell is my straight brother who returns from war (read: the Army Reserves) eager to learn about my hot gay tryst?
I've been in my stupid hometown for weeks now, and there's been no flanneled hunks at Walgreens begging to buy me hot cocoa. No rooftop kisses. No bizarre family game night where my mom asks impossible-to-answer Christmas questions, but it's okay because my new boyfriend is here and his beard is incredible. What gives?
Having such visceral, deranged thoughts while watching this movie was a fantastic feeling—because it's what straight people have experienced for years. After How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, they pictured their own highway make-out. After Sweet Home Alabama, they too wanted a sexy hometown husband instead of Patrick Dempsey. And after 13 Going on 30, they pined for a “Thriller”-dancing Mark Ruffalo. Examining your singledom after cry-watching a rom-com is an American rite of passage.
Now, thanks to The Christmas Setup and Happiest Season, queer people can join this world too—a world where our idealized romances are depicted onscreen, leaving us charmed and shattered. I feel alive!
The Christmas Setup premieres Saturday, December 12, at 8 p.m. E.T. on Lifetime.
Christopher Rosa is the staff entertainment writer at Glamour. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrosa92.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
