I also, back in May, watched Netflix's Hollywood, because I'm an absolute slut for anything Ryan Murphy does, and I'm not even the least bit ashamed about that. I was a hardcore, watch every week Gleek back in the day, have seen the whole run of American Horror Story, watched Feud and even Scream Queens. Nip/Tuck back when that aired. Currently watching Ratched. Like, I'm always down for Ryan Murphy, to the point I've considered doing a big auteur study on his whole oeuvre.
But that's another tale to be told another time.
I bring these two pieces of media up together, because the other day, I did something I almost never do: I looked for reviews of Red, White, & Royal Blue on YouTube. See, I don't tend to seek out reviews for books that I like. The positive reviews usually just reflect back the things I already think, so they're kind of pointless, in my opinion. And negative reviews tend to just piss me off, because this person didn't understand what made this work so brilliant, or they characterize something I loved in a negative way, and I would just rather not, as a rule.
But I did it. I went on YouTube and I looked up the book to see what people were saying. And as usual, most of the glowing reviews were gushing about everything I already knew in a ten minute, one second video so that they could increase their monetization potential with midroll ads.
But when I heard the less glowing reviews and the negative reviews, I was thrust back into Hollywood, because oh boy did that messaging sound familiar, and oh boy, I didn't realize how much I hated that messaging until it was applied to this book.
(Going forward, there may very well be spoilers for both Hollywood and Red, White, and Royal Blue. Consider this your warning.)
So, for those unaware, the whole crux of Hollywood is "What if old Hollywood wasn't super racist and homophobic and didn't keep women out of power?" And as it goes forward, it tells a fictional story of this production company taken over by a woman, producing an Oscar-winning movie starring a Black actress, and then going on to produce a male/male romance movie. It's essentially saying "Look how cool it would be if minorities actually maybe were treated decently back in the day."
Red, White, & Royal Blue (RW&RB) is a romance novel about the First Son of the US falling in love with the Prince of Wales. It posits that a woman, Ellen Claremont, won the 2016 election, and is running for reelection in 2020, and that's when we pick up with our hero, First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz.
Now, I think there's room to legitimately critique both of these properties. I won't lie, I wanted to tear my skin off my bones for the first three chapters of RW&RB, because holy crap it took me forever to get comfortable reading in third person present tense. It's well worth it (This is the best book I've read in 2020.), but yeah, it was rough for a little bit. And Hollywood skirts way too close to the white savior trope on several occasions. Both could be critiqued for some structural decisions, in my opinion. Hollywood makes some jumps in the story that could have used more explanation, and while I disagree, the argument could be made that RW&RB had pacing inconsistencies.
And like a lot of things, there are patently stupid reasons for reviewing something badly. The most common complaint I've seen about RW&RB is that it was "too political." And honestly, before I read it, I thought that was just something they should have expected going in. It's about, like, the First Son and a foreign prince. It's going to get political, right? But after reading it, I realize it's because there were too many "liberal moments" for people. I'm sorry that this staunchly Democratic main character said the words "Bitch McConnell" and you felt upset, or that he's not a fan of Reagan.
Actually I'm not, but you get the point.
I also saw a review of RW&RB that complained that people swore too much in the White House. Which is just...wow. People cuss in the White House. People cuss all over Washington, D.C. in fact. I even saw a RW&RB review just yesterday that...well, it was essentially an excuse to spread conservative conspiracy theories on Amazon. Didn't actually address the content of the book.
And in Hollywood...well, there weren't a whole lot of bad critiques, except for the one that really made me think of this whole connection between the two otherwise very disparate works (Okay, yes, both had their fair share of "There were too many marginalized people in this!" But I'm not counting those.). And I mean it, they're super disparate. RW&RB is a modern-day rom-com novel, and Hollywood is a dramatic alt-history TV show. But they both hit something that, to far too many people, was beyond the pale.
Marginalized people were happy.
Now it might be easy, at that point, to roll your eyes at the homophobes and the racists and the misogynists and walk away, but I would urge you not to, because it's not just The Bigots™ raising a fuss. The most common critique I saw about both of these works is that they were too unrealistic. They could buy into the First Son and the Prince of Wales falling in love, but not that the public could ever accept it. They could accept the very real Rock Hudson spending time with all these fictional characters, but not Rock Hudson getting to hold his boyfriend's hand.
What binds these two pieces of media together, and what seems to have set people off about them, is that marginalized folks get a chance to breathe for half a second. That's it. And it's not as if either of these even sets aside the hardships that face marginalized people in order to tell an idyllic story (Although frankly, I'd be fine with that too.). Theaters protest showing the movie starring the Black actress. The film reels are destroyed. A burning cross is lit on her front lawn. Rock Hudson's agent molests him. Repeatedly. Openly gay couple in Hollywood? Harassed. Hiding. It's not easy.
Same in RW&RB. We not only see the First Son have to come to terms with his sexuality, but we see the threats to their relationship. Princes can't be gay. His mother is in an election year. They're outed by the president's opponent. All of their private emails are laid out for everyone to see, and those emails are private as hell. "Here's how much I love your cock" private.
As a gay man, someone who's part of a marginalized community, both of these projects were like taking a breath of fresh air after an indeterminable amount of time under the water. Oxygen when you're literally drowning. Hollywood to a lesser degree for me, but when I wrapped up Red, White, & Royal Blue, I was super weepy, because...look at that country. Look at that world McQuiston made. Texas as the deciding swing state, going Democratic. An openly gay prince. The monarchy being questioned from within.
Boyfriends getting to kiss, and being loved for it.
A while back, I had a realization while proofreading for a client that M/F romances never really have to worry about public displays of affection. There can be reasons in specific stories that they are potentially an issue, but on the whole, it's not a pervasive thing. And I realized that, in far too many of my own M/M romances, my characters never did anything in public related to their relationships. It was a mindset shift. Wouldn't it be nice to go out to dinner and kiss and not worry that you're going to be cornered outside and beaten with a tire iron while people scream slurs at you?
Yet I was the one writing those books. I could decide exactly what happened to those characters, what they thought about, and what was no big deal.
For me, Hollywood and RW&RB are both further extensions of that realization. "Not only can you be safe and be public, but it's actually awesome to do it, and everyone will love you for it. So come on out into the bright, baby bird."
Oxygen for someone drowning.
And I think it's significant that so many people, people who would even otherwise be on board with social liberalism, found such issue in these ultimately harmless fantasies that commit only the crime of not focusing entirely on the majority. Instead, marginalized audiences are centered. I don't even think it's that marginalized characters were centered. We've seen that time and again, and it's usually the out-and-out bigots who take issue with representation, or at least who screech about it the most.
But these two works offer respite for their marginalized audience members. They offer up a world where it's not just "okay" to be gay, where it's not just "fine" to be Black. It's good. It's maybe even better than not being gay, not being Black. You're Black? Not only are you good, you're talented and you're rich and you can win an Oscar. You're gay? Well so is the handsome, swoonworthy heartthrob Prince of Wales, and he's been in love with you for years and gives amazing blow jobs. Also America? Doesn't care. They're cool with it. You have the most successful movie ever. You flipped Texas blue.
You're the darling of the American people, marginalized person.
There's a not uncommon meme format (I know, I'm going to talk clinically about memes. Feel free to light me up in the comments.) that boils down to an individual, usually liberal, in some way taking the suggestion of the fictional conservative they're talking to, and running with it in some way, or otherwise twisting what's meant to be a negative and making it a positive. Disney queer-coded all the villains so kids wouldn't be queer? Well, now we're queer and we like dramatic colors and heavy makeup and bad boys/girls. There's too many genders? Every time you complain about it, we add five more. Think the left is going to fundamentally alter society? Damn right we are, taco trucks on every corner, pussy hats for everyone, every confederate monument replaced with a drag queen or an abolitionist, keep talking and we recast every superhero as a queer PoC.
They're all in good fun, of course, but these two pieces of media are both examples of that sort of fun, joking mentality presented in the most beautiful of ways. And frankly, I'm excited to see what comes of the next escalation.
And maybe, just maybe, I'm excited to write the next escalation.
Oxygen when you're drowning.
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