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While Love, Simon was groundbreaking for its LGBTQ representation in the movies, Love, Victor has little add to TV

  • The LGBTQ representation of Love, Simon was special for the big screen, but its spinoff Love, Victor is "not as meaningful in the context of LGBTQ+ visibility on television," says Myles McNutt. "Apple’s recent docuseries Visible offers a detailed history of such representations, acknowledging that it was on television where such crucial boundaries were broken. Even if we limit ourselves to depictions of queer young men, the docuseries charts a path from Wilson Cruz’s Rickie Vasquez on My So-Called Life to a wide range of modern representations of queerness—from significant supporting storylines on cable (Ian and Mickey on Shameless, Jude on The Fosters) and broadcast (Kurt et al. on Glee, Kenny on The Real O’Neals) series. Collectively, these more recent examples represent just a small part of what The Advocate identified as a 'Gay Teen TV Revolution' in 2016. If we expand beyond an American context, Norway’s Skam—and many of its local-language adaptations—explores modern coming-out narratives in detail, while Netflix’s Élite, out of Spain, delves into the fluidity of contemporary sexuality with its male characters across its three seasons. While an average moviegoer could go years without seeing meaningful representation of queerness in theaters, an average television viewer is far more likely to see it, and across a wide spectrum of genres, channels, and series. When the decision was made in February to move Love, Victor—which had already been filmed—to Hulu, it entered into a wider conversation, creating a higher burden of representation." ALSO: Love, Victor is caught up in the mythology of white gayness.

    TOPICS: Love, Victor, Hulu, LGBTQ