Queer Classics: “Make the Yuletide Gay” (2009)
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Movies, Queer, LGBTQ, Film, Culture

For a long time, it was rather difficult to find a Christmas movie that had anything other than latent queer content (we’re looking at you, Rudolph). While Hallmark has, for quite some time now, managed to corner the market on holiday films, until recently you would have had to squint really hard to see much of anything there that might be of interest to most queer viewers (for an excellent overview of the relentless heteronormativity of Hallmark Christmas movies, check out this article).

Fortunately, there are a few older gems out there, including Make the Yuletide Gay, a charming little film about a young man named Gun who, upon returning home to his small Wisconsin town, pretends that he is straight to avoid the possibility that he’ll lose his special relationship with his parents (particularly his mother). However, when his boyfriend Nathan shows up unexpectedly after his own rich parents abandon him for a cruise, the stage is set for all sorts of conflict as Gun has to decide whether to live openly or continue denying who he is.

Now, it has to be said at the outset that this isn’t what one would call a top-tier film. There are clear signs that it was made on a low budget. The opening scene, in which Gun’s professor openly hits on him is cringey, not only because of its pretty explicit sexual harassment, but also because the acting is just so off. It’s equally obvious that, whatever the script might say, this wasn’t filmed in Wisconsin, since there’s very little snow to be seen.

That being said, it has its charms, and chief among those are the cast. The two leads, Keith Jordan and Adamo Ruggiero, who play Gun and Nathan, respectively, bring a warmth and a charisma to their roles, and they allow us to see how much these two young people genuinely love one another. In some ways, however, Gun’s mother, portrayed by Kelly Keaton, that threatens to steal the show, with her every appearance full of a Midwest nice that makes the characters of Fargo look like Boston brahmins. Lest you think that her performance is over-the-top, it’s important to note that Keaton is actually from Wisconsin.

Indeed, it’s precisely the film’s setting in the Midwest that gives it a certain significance that it might otherwise lack. It’s fairly common, in both queer cinema and in mainstream films generally, to see the Midwest as a place hostile to queerness. However, time and again throughout the film Gun is surprised to find that the people he thought might reject him, including his neighbor Abby, welcome him with open arms. It might be perhaps a bit unrealistic but, as we’ve noted before, sometimes it’s okay for queer movies to indulge in a bit of wish-fulfillment and fantasy, especially considering how difficult queer peoples’ lives can be, even in the supposedly more enlightened and accepting 21st Century.

One of the most interesting aspects of this film, at least from a queer perspective, is how Gun seems to believe that it is his sartorial choices that will allow people to see him as “straight.” If only he dresses in ill-fitting clothes, he thinks, then no one will ever suspect that he’s a big ol’ bottom. His belief, premised as it is on the conjunction of style and sexuality — and of the assumption that one can be mapped onto the other — is one of the things that most concretely dates this film. Since this film was released in 2009, quite a lot has changed since then in terms of how people, particularly young people, conceive of and conceptualize the connections between gender presentation and sexuality. Now, just because a young man decides to dress in tight-fitting shirts doesn’t mean that he is gay or queer; there’s a certain fluidity in gender and sexuality that would have been largely unthinkable in all but the most adventurous of queer films at the end of the 2000s.

The hilarity of all of Gun’s attempts to pass is their ultimate futility, since it’s revealed in the end that his mother knew along that he was gay and had, in fact, placed a bet with his father on the subject. It seems to be the film’s sly suggestion that attempting to pass as straight is a waste of time, since there is something, some intangible part of oneself, that can never be entirely obscured. And besides, it’s pretty common knowledge that a mother always knows.

Though the film ends happily and joyfully, there are a few genuinely powerful moments, including the one in which Gun admits to Nathan that the reason he hesitates to tell his parents about his sexuality is that he fears what it will do to their relationship. As he astutely points out, he’s seen even seemingly accepting and generous parents turn their backs on their children once they learn that they’re queer. It’s a painful reminder of the pain that many queer youths endure as they try to hide an essential part of themselves from the people that matter the most to them.

Overall, Make the Yuletide Gay is a lovely film. I’m a sucker for a happy ending (given how rarely that seems to happen in queer movies), and so I loved it that Gun and Nathan ended up being welcomed with open arms by the former’s family. What’s more a (rather strange and unexpected) post-credit sequence shows Nathan’s parents hearing the voicemail he’s left them, in which he demands some key changes to their incredibly dysfunctional relationship. While his father seems largely unmoved, the expression on his mother’s face suggests that there might be hope yet for a rapprochement among the three of them.

Aside from all of that, it’s also a very funny movie, with much wordplay and banter about tops and bottoms that earn a few good laughs. Make the Yuletide Gay is the perfect film to watch during this queerest of all holiday seasons.