Heteronormativity on Netflix
This summer, Netflix released 11 original romantic comedy movies (some popular ones: To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Set It Up, The Kissing Booth, and Sierra Burgess is a Loser). However, out of these 11 movies, only one goes beyond the classic "rom com" plot line. Alex Strangelove stars a high school boy who begins to question his sexuality and struggles with going on this journey.A lot of people see Netflix as a more progressive streaming service that releases media content with diverse characters and identities. However, they still conform to heteronormative roles when it comes to romantic comedies. The majority of the films released this summer have centered around a straight couple and the classic story line of a man and a woman falling in love. It is important that there is representation of people falling in love from different perspectives.
The statistic at the beginning of your post is upsetting, but unfortunately, not surprising. Even in "Alex Strangelove," we see two cis white men playing the characters that fall in love. I hope we can see more minority representation in terms of race, gender, sexuality and more, but beyond that, I hope we see more representation of intersectional identities. "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" did have a character that was black and gay, but he had very little screen-time, if I recall correctly.
ReplyDelete