By Derrick Shaw

“I’m just like you. For the most part, my life is totally normal.” The opening line of Love, Simon, the 2018 coming of age tale about a young man who found himself and love with a school peer through anonymous emailing set the tone for who Simon was, and provided one way in which the movie was so important. 

 Teen fiction, a genre of storytelling that details the lives of teens in various ways, from humor to euphoria, is a genre that has been around for decades. With television channels devoted to the world of teen drama, like The CW and The-N-now known as TeenNick, and movies capitalizing on the remarkable way teens lives can be so encompassing of drama from all angles, there is no wonder why this genre is still so popular. Teens, and those who are older, are treated to a plethora of scenes that put teen characters in various scenarios from humor, much like with Superbad, to angst and melancholy, much like One Tree Hill, there is never a shortage of different media to take in. Teen media is a great way to send people on a grand adventure with grandiose lessons to learn by the end of said adventure.

 A prime example of this is Victorious. Victorious was a teen comedy featured on Nickelodeon that detailed the life of a sixteen-year-old girl named Tori who, after filling in for her sister in a performance aptly titled The Big Showcase, has been given the chance to enter into a prestigious performing arts high school. Victorious chronicled Tori’s various days in and out at Hollywood Arts High School with her six best friends, one of which was a ventriloquist puppet named Rex. While it was a comedy that featured often weird and zany plots, like the squad building giant cupcake as a parade float for a parade called The Parade Parade, and crafted many amazing bops like Best Friend’s Brother and All I Want is Everything, it did a good job of reminding the audience that at the end of the day, they were teens and they were learning about life along the way.

 Teen Fiction always allows it’s cast to learn more about life and themselves as time progresses, forming and changing how the character is. Teen Fiction, however, is often riddled with characters that have rather large goals and often involves them in grandiose plots that often seem farfetched. Not many teens are in situations in which they must pretend to be in a relationship that eventually blossoms into something real. That, however, is where Love, Simon, and the sub genre of Coming-of-Age comes in.

 A subgenre of Teen Fiction, Coming Of Age stories often allows it’s teen characters to grow and mature in less grand situations, rather than wanting to get laid as much as possible by the end of summer. However even still, this subgenre can involve less than normal situations for those involved. These stories, however, are often about straight white youth exploring life and all of its avenues.  Here’s where Love, Simon comes in. 

 Love, Simon gave the world a story about a young man who is as average as you and me. He doesn’t have grandiose ambitions to move to New York and get discovered; he doesn’t want to change his world in any giant way. All that Simon wants to do is be himself, and to connect with the one other person that he has found that he can relate to. Eventually, a plot rolls out in which he is blackmailed with his orientation possibly outed, but even then, the plot remains normal and relatable.

This normalcy and relatability, however, has been critiqued in many different ways. Many have stated that Love, Simon is boring because of the way it portrays it titular character. “But Love, Simon is more interested in setting up its Ferris wheel highs than sifting through the messier aspects of coming out, and by the time its fairy-tale ending arrives, it’s impossible to judge it by any yardstick of realism” (Yoshida, Emily, Vulture.com) In Yoshida’s review of the film, she refers to the way in which Simon’s parents, and in turn just about everyone around Simon, offer him a coming out scenario that is devoid of mess, aside from being out to his entire school.

 This critique, along with others, have gone along with the narrative that coming out stories must be full of a sense of pain and messiness for the person. It should be a heart pounding, tear filled, anxiety ridden experience that may or may not end well. But what Love, Simon gets right, is that this isn’t always the case. Many times, coming out is riddled with mess, but there are times when it isn’t. Part of the charm of Love, Simon is that he is average as average as the next person. Being LGBT doesn’t mean that his story must be different in that regard. 

Queerness is a part of who a person is and it shouldn’t cause massive changes to storytelling. Have a queer character experiencing mess doesn’t automatically craft a great story or mode of storytelling. We need more queer characters simply experiencing life and being allowed to be as normal as possible. In this way, we can open the door for many to realize that their queerness doesn’t change them; it is a part of who they are, and they get to be as normal as the next person.