Love, Simon is perhaps one of the most popular LGBT-themed youth films. Or by its original title, “Love, Simon,” adapted from Becky Albertalli’’s book “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda” It is an entertaining and emotional film. The 2018 film focuses on gay teenager Simon’s big secret and his confrontation with this secret (his sexual orientation).
It has a very understandable subject matter such as identity, belonging, and the universality of love. For this reason, the film was deeply loved. Through Simon, the film explains that being “yourself” is sometimes a lot, but just as liberating. If you look at it, all the fights in the world, the marginalizations carried out over sexual orientation are unnecessary. We must set aside the discussions that have not ended for centuries. Now, human life understanding, dreams, in short, the entire comprehension is changing. The fact that we are still creating an agenda over homosexuality shows that we exaggerate simple matters just to establish dominance over someone else.
Also, you should watch the series Love, Victor, which is connected to the film. The film can be watched on Netflix.
🏳️🌈 Curator’s Suggestion: LGBT movies catalog
Love, Simon Film Plot and Summary
Simon Spier is a high school senior whose life moves along quite ordinarily. He gets along well with his friends and experiences typical teenage conflicts with his family. But with one difference… Simon has a big secret that he hides: He is gay, and he hasn’t told anyone yet. One day, on the school’s anonymous blog, he reads a confession written under the pseudonym “Blue”: The writer is also homosexual like Simon and is hiding their identity.
Simon wants to communicate with this anonymous person with whom he feels a deep connection, and he starts writing to them by opening his own fake email account. As the days pass, the correspondence deepens, and an invisible bond forms between them. However, every beautiful thing has a risk. a mistake Simon makes on the school computer leads to all these private correspondences being seen by his classmate Martin.
Martin threatens Simon with blackmail, saying he knows his secret: If Simon does not bring his crush, Abby, together with him, he will expose the emails. While Simon tries to cope with this complicated situation, both his relationships with his friends are damaged and he comes to a point where he can no longer hide himself.
So, who is Blue? Will Simon be able to find his true love? Most importantly, is “being yourself” really that difficult?
What the Film Tells: With Philosophical and Societal Inferences
Review and Commentary
Love, Simon is not an ordinary youth film; it is the emotional journey of a youth who listens to the voice of his heart but is afraid to make it heard to the world. I have seen the main theme of the film perhaps dozens of times. I have also seen LGBT individuals being excluded and marginalized thousands of times. Especially those who have conservative and orthodox thoughts, who cannot accept even a tiny criticism and will crush the opponent with political power, can say whatever they want to LGBT individuals.
While all kinds of slander and insults against LGBT individuals do not constitute a crime, right across from this, even a tiny defense by LGBT individuals becomes a problem. We do not even need to be homosexual; to have a “healthy thinking brain” is actually enough for us to live in a human-worthy social order and without polarization.
In the film, Simon’s complex emotions actually stem from his fear of his family’s and friends’ bullying rather than his reluctance to accept his homosexual or gay identity. Think about how big an irony it contains that someone who commits all kinds of evil and injustice with political power or financial power sees homosexuality as cursed.
Actually, in the context of Simon, when going outside the established rules, the fact that LGBT individuals are in shame instead of those who do things to be ashamed of in real life, who tense and marginalize society, and who rain hatred on LGBT individuals, shows what kind of a mental collapse we are in.
For example, out of nowhere, just to marginalize society, LGBT individuals can be targeted because they appear as easy prey, for no reason at all. This even turns into institutional violence in countries closed to mental development.
The film tells of a youth’s struggle against the hatred around him, rather than his effort for hope and liberation. As I have written before, the countries that leave LGBT individuals alone institutionally and politically are currently among the most peaceful societies and wealthy countries in the world. Because polarizing society and making them hate each other does not develop a state and society and does not carry them to the future. In this case, only those who hold political power temporarily benefit from this chaos. In the end, we create a mass of people who do not love each other.
The blackmail in the film seems very cliché, but in real life, a homosexual has to hide their identity due to the situations I mentioned above. Perhaps institutionally, the state learns to accept LGBT individuals. This acceptance is similar to parents accepting their children and approaching them with mercy and tolerance. Of course, there will be those who hate homosexuals, as in the film, but there must also be a political power that says “stop” to this.
Conclusion
Love, Simon is not just a “coming-out” film; it is also a universal story about growing up, knowing oneself, and being brave. Providing visibility for LGBTQ+ individuals, this film actually opens a window through which heterosexual viewers, and perhaps even anti-LGBT groups, can empathize.
Never mind, do not get interested in someone else’s sexual identity and destroy yourself in absurd fights. Exist together. It gives the message. In the end, we all live inside a virtual reality that we construct with the electro-chemical patterns of our brain. No one’s world constructed in their mind is superior or more real than another’s.
