Like most people, I spent a lot of my time during the quarantine break watching movies and rewatching the same four TV shows over and over again. I had the displeasure of losing 110 minutes of my life after stumbling upon Love, Simon with my mother and sister one evening, and I can easily say it is the most hateable piece of media I have ever consumed in my entire life. I recently had this bright idea to rewatch it with my boyfriend so he could understand my deep hatred for this film, and it was less enjoyable the second time around.
The movie follows a high schooler named Simon who is deeply in the closet. Then one day someone posts anonymously on the SCHOOL GOSSIP CHANNEL that they were gay. Before I continue giving a quick rundown of the plot, can we take a moment to talk about how this school has its own gossip channel and website up and running? That website REEKS of cyberbullying, so why does it exist? Simon emails the guy and they start chatting it up online under pseudonyms. As the movie continues, his little email fling gets turned upside down after Martin found his email sitting open in the library. He goes out of his way to take photos of Simon’s private messages with Blue and threatens to spread them everywhere if Simon does not get him a date with Abby.
First of all, why on earth is this mediocre looking man trying to blackmail Simon to get a date with someone who is not interested in him? Simon goes out of his way to lie about Abby’s love life in an attempt to get Martin his date. Martin does not end up getting the date with Abby, so he posts all of Simon’s emails on the gossip website. Simon gets outed on a website because he simply forgot to log out of his email in the library. He did not get a say in his coming out story, AND he was blackmailed in the process.
The day after he is outed, his friends start acting like major assholes. Every single one of them dropped him right after he got exposed online, and none of them had a good reason to except maybe Abby. Abby was upset because Simon had lied about her having a college boyfriend so Nick wouldn’t hit on her. Nick was mad because he had to wait to date Abby and the reason he had to wait was because of Simon’s lies. Simon lied about Abby having a college boyfriend so he wouldn’t get publicly outed online guys! Have an ounce of sympathy! The most embarrassing reaction out of the three friends is Leah’s. She is mad at Simon because he “led her on” which is completely untrue. He does not like women. He is not into you, Leah, so stop making it all about you. He was completely humiliated online. He had his secret leaked, and got outed without properly coming out. Lastly all his so-called friends can think to do is drop him.
Another thing that really infuriates me is how all the stupid movies featuring heterosexual couples almost ALWAYS have a Hallmark happy ending. In 2018 they were probably hyping up this movie because it featured a homosexual love story, but the majority of the film Simon is afraid of being gay. Why couldn’t it have been a happy movie about a gay couple? Why did Simon literally have to suffer for more than ¾ of the movie? The only happy moment during the entire movie was at the end on the ferris wheel. I can’t even enjoy that moment because people are standing there and cheering like it’s some public event. These people are watching him ride the ferris wheel and cheering him on as he waits patiently for his date, but absolutely NONE of them stood up for him when he was being harassed in the cafeteria. The only person who had the nerve to stand up for him was the DRAMA TEACHER. She’s a real one by the way.
All in all, I hate this stupid movie. It sucks. Simon deserved a movie where he had a cute gay romance that lasted longer than seven and a half minutes while people lurked and recorded. I hope Martin blows up, and Simon deserves better friends. Overall, I would not recommend sitting through this movie. You should go watch Dead Poets Society instead. It’s not even gay, but that story hints at it so much it might as well be.
Love, Simon? More like Hate, Simon
Featured image credit to 20th Century Studios.
