These last few years have gifted us with an ever-growing number of lesbian Christmas movies. The success of Carol proved that there is a market, and we will watch them. (If Die Hard counts as a Christmas film, so does Carol. Don’t argue.) There are mainstream lesbian Christmas movies, like The Happiest Season – which has a sequel in the works. There are indie gems, such as A New York Christmas Wedding. Lifetime has their first lesbian Christmas movie, Under The Christmas Tree, showing on cable. Even Hallmark – television’s most aggressive purveyors of heterosexuality – have a festive lesbian romance.
Lesbian Christmas movies are here to stay. But while this is a step in the right direction, straight stories still dominate. It’s straight Christmas movies embraced as cult classics. Given top billing on streaming services. Played in a never-ending loop on TV every single December. And there is no straighter Christmas movie than Love, Actually – which is impossible to escape.
Of the ten stories in Love, Actually, nine involve straight romance. It’s 90% het. There is one story about two men – ageing rockstar Billy Mac (Bill Nighy) and Joe, the manager who has stuck with him through thick and thin. But it is a narrative defined by #NoHomo. When Billy realises Joe is the most important person in his life, he goes after Joe and declares his feelings. They cry. They hug. And then they watch porn together. Because toxic masculinity is the only proper response to any show of emotion. Obviously.
There was supposed to be a same-sex couple in Love, Actually. Anne Reid plays the Headmistress of the school where the nativity (complete with lobsters) was set. Her partner Geraldine is terminally ill. The movie came out in 2003, when male filmmakers were still balls deep in Bury Your Gays territory. But this tired trope could possibly have been forgiven – Reid and de la Tour have a small mountain of awards between them, and their scenes together sparkle.
The Headmistress calls Geraldine “my love”; the two of them are affectionate, even playful. And there is infinite tenderness in the way Reid caresses and embraces de la Tour. They share not only a home, but a bedroom. It has one bed. Where they both sleep. Together. This romance has no get-out-of-gay-free card; no loophole through which it might be interpreted as straight.
While they are in the bed, Geraldine coughs – which gives heavy Tiny Tim vibes. Sure enough, in the next scene we find out that she has died. And while you could fill a graveyard with dead fictional lesbians, this story did have one redeeming feature.
At the school’s Christmas show, it is publicly acknowledged that the Headmistress lost her life partner. Emma Thompson’s character gives a moving speech in front of the school’s staff, students, and parents. This was more than a decade before same-sex marriage was legalized in Britain. At a time when the most regular lesbian representation came in the form of queer-baiting, it was a big deal for a relationship between two to be recognised.
Yes, the bar was very low. But Love, Actually could have achieved something good with their lesbian story. And it’s nothing short of a hate crime that the editors let it languish on the cutting room floor. Especially when there were two separate stories about men falling in love with women they’d never actually spoken to.
That scene when Mark tells Juliet he loves her with home-made signs is held up as a gold standard of romance. But he spent years ignoring Juliet rather than expressing or dealing with his feelings in a healthy way. Mark is toxic. And Colin Firth’s character is straight up creepy. His ideal woman cleans his house every day and speaks no English. As Lindy West pointed out: the less a woman talks in Love, Actually, the more lovable she is to the surrounding men.
The film is a shitshow of sexism. And that definitely contributed to the lesbian storyline being cut. A friend once pointed out that lesbians experience sexism twice over. We’re women who love women. We’re not men, and we don’t build lives around them – so lesbians are seen as lesser. And that thinking is clearly reflected in the editorial choices of Love, Actually.
