Pride 2024: A Q+ Celebration!
June 10
Red, White & Royal Blue
This enemies-to-lovers sensation is a Pride 2024 must-watch! Adapted for the screen by Amazon Studios from the New York Times Bestselling novel by Casey McQuiston of the same name, Red, White & Royal Blue is the queer love story of this generation.
Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakar Perez) is the bisexual, biracial son of the President of the United States. When the film opens, he’s on his way to England to represent the First Family at the wedding of the King’s grandson. Upon his arrival, it becomes very clear that Alex has beef with the groom’s brother, Henry (Nicholas Galatzine). And by beef, we actually mean feelings, and so starts this incredible, hilarious, epic love story.
The tension that exists between the pair at the onset of the film doesn’t last for long. Without realizing what they’re doing, both young men soon lean into their feelings and Alex and Henry develop a transcontinental, long-distance friendship that is nothing short of swoon-worthy. Then, Alex invites Henry to his big New Year’s Eve bash in Washington, and Henry, unable to contain himself any longer, kisses Alex.
It marks the beginning of a secret relationship that is built on more than just physical attraction. Alex and Henry develop a shared intellectualism, and their bond becomes rooted in their values, history, and the collective cages their public lives hold them in.
Henry, deeply melancholic and too much of a realist, can’t see a way for the Prince of England ever to have a public relationship with the first son of the President of the United States. Alex, ever the idealist, thinks he can have it all and doesn’t seem to understand this aspect of Henry’s life.
Red, White & Royal Blue uses humor and love to dance through the political mess that has become queer life, and queer love in recent times. Nicholas Galatzine and Taylor Zakar Perez are luminescent as Henry and Alex, making it impossible to to fall in love with this story and this world.
Where to watch? Red, White & Royal Blue is available to stream on Prime Video globally.
Glamorous
Glamorous is a ten-episode queer comedy that follows Marco Mejia (Miss Benny), a young, gender-nonconforming man that gets the opportunity of a lifetime. Marco, a shopping mall make-up artist and YouTuber, encounters the likes of the esteemed Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall) one day at work. He makes quite an impression on the business mogul and she gives him a job at her company.
Marco is one of those dynamic characters that you just can’t look away from. He’s extremely extroverted and unapologetic about who he is, but he’s also young and vulnerable and very much still figuring things out. Like most young people, he makes questionable choices when it comes to his dating life, but he has the introspection and the confidence to eventually stand up for himself and learn from his mistakes.
As he stumbles through his new job and his new adult life (in very high heels, we might add) Marco pushes the message that it’s okay to make mistakes; life is a journey that is meant to be lived.
Glamorous takes the same format as its predecessors. Productions about the cut-throat fashion industry typically center on a fierce and unlikeable female lead who runs the show. She’s often cruel, confident, and competitive. It’s this three-C factor that’s afforded her success. Glamorous embodies this in every way. Melody is a ferocious force that definitely takes some getting used to.
When HBO announced they were launching a Sex and the City spinoff, Kim Cattrall declined to join the cast. Glamorous was the project she chose instead, solidifying her conflict with the Sex and the City franchise and its cast members. In a bid to position it for what it really is – the competition – Glamorous was released on Netflix on the very same day that And Just Like That premiered on Max.
Where to watch? Glamorous is available to stream on Netflix globally.
Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang
When the story opens, Old Second is a closeted queer man living in Post-Communist China. In a life-altering moment caused by his own carelessness and an over-sharing younger sibling, Old Second’s queer secrets are revealed to his family. It doesn’t go over very well and he’s ostracized from their lives.
Consecutively, the youthful Bao Mei watches on as her own brother struggles with similar issues. He dies in a freak accident years before his time. Prior to his death, the man would often frequent the Mawei Theater – a safe place where queer Chinese men could meet and be themselves. Mao Mei believes her brother’s ghost lives on at the theater, so she takes a job at the box office and befriends some of the men that go there.
This is where she meets Old Second, who at the time, is involved with another man who frequents the cinema, Shun-Er. Like so many queer men in China at that time, Shun-Er is married. One day, his wife Yan Hua goes to the cinema to look for her husband, but Bao Mei won’t let her go inside. Despite the setback, Yan Hua continues to dig for evidence of her husband’s infidelity and eventually goes to the police. A confrontation occurs at the theater between police and the men inside, resulting in violence and a lasting trauma that follows both Old Second and Bao Mei for the rest of their lives.
Beo Mei and Old Second get married, and both couples end up immigrating to America, living in Chinatown in New York City. The novel moves between their contemporary lives in the United States, and their rural Chinese town of Mawei in the 1980s. While definitely a queer story about the harrowing lives of queer men in China at that time, Cinema Love is also about the women who chose to love them.
Where to buy? Cinema Love is available to purchase at all reputable booksellers.
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