Video Essay Script Draft 2

Hi, I’m Rachel and let’s talk about Production context. It’s obvious that films change over
time, because the things happening during those years are going to influence the creator
and their work. That’s why the joker’s behaviour changes in each film he’s in. But this video
isn’t about the Joker and how this character has been represented over the years. No, this
video is about the representation shown in Beautiful Thing and Love Simon and how
production context makes these films different from each other.
In both films being gay is normal, now that doesn’t mean the characters don’t experiences
negative things because of their sexualities, because that’s not true in love Simon, Simon is
publicly humiliated, blackmailed and outed while in beautiful thing Ste’s already abusive
brother becomes more violent after he sleeps over at Jamie’s, and there both terrified of
what others will say and do if they find out their dating, until the final scene.
Now Ste and Jamie’s reactions are completely normal for two gay teen in 1996, because
though England was becoming more progressive with gay bars and safe places opening, the
first pride being held in northern Ireland and with homosexuality being legalised in that
decade, 1994 to be exact, it didn’t mean they were completely safe because there was still a
high chances for them to be killed. In the 1990’s alone 11 gay people died, 5 of they died at
the hands of Colin Ireland a serial killer who only killed gay men and became known as the
gay slayer, 3 died in the Admiral Duncan booming where David Copeland a British National
party member tried to kill many LGBTQ+ people by attack this gay bar (however this
situation in 1999 so after the film was released but I believe that this fact is important to
include) .
For Simon’s situation its slightly more dramatized because being blackmailed isn’t that
common but his fear of being outed is very real. Because though gay marriage was legalised
in 2015 some American states are still trying to fight against the LGBTQ+ community,
especially religious areas like Texas. In areas like Texas and Ohio they still have laws against
the gay community for example in Ohio’s hate crime law doesn’t cover sexuality and gender
identity only their federal law does. This mean the state has slight protection for LGBTQ+
people, plus conversion therapy is still legal in many counties like America and the UK.
However, Love Simon is set in Georgia were discrimination based on sexual orientation and
gender identity has been outlawed since 2014 however it still has some homophobic laws.
But there are more states supporting the LGBTQ+ community instead of discriminating
against it and every state has a supportive centre, church’s or just general resource’s that
you can find on websites like, gaychurch.org and lgbtcenters.org. So, when I say these film’s
present being gay as normal, I mean they just show that gay people are like everyone else
except they have to deal with things like this. This fact is even highlighted in Simon’s
opening monolog where he talks about how normal he is except he must hide a massive
part of himself.
 Video Essay Script Draft 2
Another theme both these film’s share is single parenting. Now this theme is a lot more
prominent in Beautiful thing because all the parents we see are single parents while in Love
Simon we see a wide range of families, from traditional 4 people families to single parents.
Both of these films have divorced single parent family’s because the divorce rate peek in the
1980’s and has stayed quite high since then, so because the films are showing diversity in
sexuality they are also going to show diverse families to show that not every family or
relationship is the same. However Beautiful thing runs into a problem by having both Ste
and Jamie come from broken homes, it suggests that their family problems turned them
gay. Now anyone with common sense would know this isn’t how it works however most
conversion therapist and religious groups believe that gay people are only queer because
they have negative relationships with their parents, so because both of the boys come from
broken and abusive families, it suggests that this homophobic point is correct even though
the film is trying to portray the opposite.
Now a topic that is only brought up in beautiful thing is aids. Now though it was only briefly
mentioned the reason it was mentioned is very important. So though the cure for aid’s was
discovered in the same year as the film’s release it was still a very terrifying topic, the
disease had coursed mass panic in the gay community and no one knew how it came about,
this hysteria led to a lot of propaganda and many religious groups said it was the work of
god and nature getting back at the gays for being unnatural, and people would refuse to
touch people with aids because they were confused on how aid’s spread. Surprisingly
though there was some content that didn’t spread hate like the captain planet episode.
Though a cure was found the fear was still there and that’s why when Jamie comes out he
mentions it because he’s scared, he’s scared of what his mum will say and he’s scared of the
disease and he sees it as a negative of being gay. Now the reason Love Simon doesn’t
mention it is because it’s no longer a scary subject well at least it’s not as scary as it was
before, since 1996 less people have died from the illness and are now able to live with it.
Plus, there is more understanding about the condition as well as support/help groups for
people with it and charities like CAF, National aids trust and many more. Now that doesn’t
mean people don’t die from aids at all, sadly that’s not true, but we are getting more control
over the disease. So, because Aid’s is less of a threat to people it wasn’t mentioned in the
film.