A young black woman obsessed with Mama Cass, Leah is easily the most spirited character in the film. Beautiful Thing telegraphed to its mid-1990s audiences something they hadn’t heard before: Gay people are just people.įurther shining a light on this malaise of the British underclass is their neighbor, Leah.
![best happy gay movies best happy gay movies](https://earthlymission.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/chernobyl-pictures-before-after-3.jpg)
Sandra hopes to manage her own pub one day so that she and Jamie can get off their “bloody estate,” which is steeped in social turmoil and unemployment. Aside from Jamie and Ste, one of the estate’s core residents is Sandra, Jamie’s serial-dating mother who ricochets between working long hours at a pub and dealing with a truant son who’s made a habit of cutting school to escape bullies. Through the film’s two other central characters, viewers also get an illuminating glimpse of gay love crosshatched with other forms of oppression rooted in identity-primarily class-as well as a broader, arguably fuller depiction of longing for, well, belonging. With these relatable and humane moments, the film telegraphed to its mid-1990s audiences something they hadn’t heard much before: Gay people are just people.īut Beautiful Thing dives even deeper. Crucially, the film’s soundtrack is flooded almost exclusively with the music of Mama Cass, conjuring up a sort of escapist synergy with counterculture, and optimism, from other eras. Afterward, they playfully chase each other in the woods while Mama Cass’s 1969 tune “Make Your Own Kind of Music” plays in the background. Later, the two go to a gay joint-the first place they think to go to where they can be public about their relationship sans judgment-in a scene that gently points to the historical significance of gay bars as safe spaces. At another point, a curious Jamie steals a gay magazine and, incorrectly, tells Ste what “frottage” is (“It’s yogurt. Jamie and Ste share their first kiss when Ste, avoiding his abusive family, stays the night at Jamie’s. The film is filled with charming and poignant moments that could be found in any romantic dramedy. Initially, neither boy has fully accepted his sexuality, and Beautiful Thing is a delicate exploration of the often-painful process of coming out that evolves into a gay romance. In the opening scene, for instance, an athletic Ste and his group of dim lads harass Jamie, who’s far more introverted and out of step with traditional notions of British machismo. Although Jamie and Ste are friendly enough neighbors on their estate, their interaction at school is clearly fraught. The story is set on a postwar London council estate, which is essentially low-rent public housing. Yet beyond the film’s historical significance, Harvey’s story feels especially relevant today because of the diversity, even intersectionality, of its characters-a quality often still missing from newer portrayals of LGBT life. The film was genuinely subversive for its time and place: Depicting gay kids who don’t succumb to the “plague” or ultimately bow to pressure from their bigoted peers was no small thing at a moment stricken by an especially virulent, anti-LGBT mood. It was here-in the immediate aftermath of the Thatcher era, and while the world was grappling with the AIDS crisis-that Beautiful Thing was born. The final vestige of this pernicious piece of legislation wasn’t repealed until 15 years later.
![best happy gay movies best happy gay movies](http://media2.popsugar-assets.com/files/2015/02/15/956/n/3019466/57f1e6fc_91U70p2iWGL._SL1500_/i/Another-Happy-Ending.jpg)
In 1987, Britain’s Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, gave a speech complaining that, rather than learning to respect “traditional” values, children were being taught that they “have an inalienable right to be gay.” It was hardly a coincidence that Section 28-an amendment that prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” or teaching in schools the “acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”-was enacted by Thatcher’s government the following year. While the United States was ground zero for the epidemic, Britain wasn’t immune to the fear and moral panic it inspired. AIDS, then a terrifying new disease, had started killing thousands of gay men the previous decade. Despite Beautiful Thing’s title, gay life in the early 1990s was anything but pretty.