Tag Archives: love

If you were expecting Prince Charming, I’m sorry. He’s with his boyfriend. ― Shayla Black

Central to the story is the romance between two high school boys.

I discovered an enchanting Netflix series, a drama called Young Royals. I found it browsing titles with the keywords gay romance. The series is Swedish, the cast are Swedes, and the dialogue is in Swedish. The conversation is dubbed into English with subtitles inserted to translate text messages, emails, and the like. The premise of the series rests on the protagonist, Prince Wilhelm, the younger son of the Swedish Royal family and his desire to live an everyday life. His elder brother, Prince Erik, the Crown Prince, is heir to the throne and groomed for his role as King. Wilhelm is the spare. As much as he wants an everyday life, his mother, Queen Kristina of Sweden, reminds him that his life as a prince is a privilege, not a burden.

On that premise, Prince Wilhelm tries to fit in at the posh boarding school he is sent to; he wants to be like the other students. But, at the same time, he has to keep up appearances and avoid bringing shame on his family and the institution of the monarchy. The plot thickens when Wilhelm is smitten by a classmate, Simon, a student of Swedish and South American ethnicity and a commoner. Simon returns his feelings, and romance blossoms. Unfortunately, the untimely death of Crown Prince Erik in a car crash forces Wilhelm to step into the role of Crown Prince. That only tightens the restrictions on how he conducts his personal life. When a cousin clandestinely shoots a video of Wilhelm and Simon in bed together and uploads it to social media, the proverbial shit hits the fan.

Yes, the subplots deal with issues that are universal for humanity: namely, honour, shame, duty, class distinctions, love, friendship, betrayal, dysfunction, drug and alcohol addiction, and the lengths families will go to avoid scandal. For example, the royal family covers up the scandal of Crown Prince Wilhelm’s romance with Simon with a disingenuous denial that it is Wilhelm in the video. Another student is sacrificed to keep the Crown Prince out of an incident involving illicit drug use at the school. Avoiding shame and maintaining personal honour are powerful motivations, not just for royals.

There is much to like about Young Royals. The casting is superb. What struck me is that they chose actors and actresses who did not have the perfect Nordic features. That is not to say they are unattractive; instead, they look like the people watching the series. One usually expects the cast in teen drama series to have perfect complexions and chiselled figures. Instead, the characters look like people you see in everyday life. The characters are not larger than life, as is the reality of royal families in continental Europe; Crown Prince Wilhelm and the rest of his extended family dress and carry themselves as middle-class Swedes. The actors and actresses play their roles superbly.

Season two of Young Royals started in November. I eagerly anticipated watching new episodes. The idea of a Crown Prince who is gay and wants an everyday life, including his love affair with another boy, a commoner, confronting the realities of royal duties, including taking a wife and producing an heir to the throne, intrigues me. The second season maintained the quality established in the first six episodes of season one. Netflix will conclude the series with a third and final season in the new year. It is wise to end the series this way. There is only so far the writers can take the storyline before it gets stale. Also, the cast are rapidly outgrowing their roles. I hope the final season is as good as the first two and brings a resolution to the story.

Posted by Geoffrey

When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder. ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

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Geoffrey and Mika in their library.

I cancelled my subscription to what was formerly Huff Post Gay Voices when the editorial director Noah Michelson changed the title to Huff Post Queer Voices earlier this year. Michelson justifies substituting “queer” in place of “gay” on the grounds the “word is the most inclusive and empowering one available to us to speak to and about the community.” (Noah Michelson as cited in OUT) The thinking behind it is people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, etc. form a “community,” that is they share a collective group identity. Following this train of thought, Michelson asserts “‘queer’ functions as an umbrella term that includes not only the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people of ‘LGBT,’ but also those whose identities fall in between, outside of or stretch beyond those categories, including genderqueer people, intersex people, asexual people, pansexual people, polyamorous people and those questioning their sexuality or gender, to name just a few.” (Noah Michelson as cited in OUT) I get that “queer” is used by some as a blanket term for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, etc., but I heartily disagree with and refute of this point of view. Continue reading →

Bridegroom A Love Story, Unequaled

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Mika and I enjoy reading and viewing biographies in print and on film. The latest addition to our library collection is a copy on DVD of the documentary film Bridegroom A Love Story, Unequaled, produced by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. The documentary was inspired by the video It could happen to you, published on YouTube by Shane Bitney Crone in 2012. The video is a moving account of the loving relationship between Thomas Lee Bridegroom and Shane Bitney Crone, the untimely death of Tom Bridegroom in a tragic accident and the unfortunate events that followed. The story of the tragedy that struck these two young men has resonated with people across the world following publication of the YouTube video It could happen to you. The documentary film, Bridegroom A Love Story, Unequaled, while dealing with the disturbing events following Bridegroom’s death, presents a biography of both Thomas Lee Bridegroom and Shane Bitney Crone, giving more detailed accounts of their childhoods, formative years, how, as young men, they came to meet and become a couple.

The film is a blend of still photos and video footage of Thomas Lee Bridegroom and Shane Bitney Crone, their families, friends and acquaintances taken throughout their lives. If also features interviews with Bitney Crone, members of his family, friends and acquaintances of both men. Thomas Lee Bridegroom’s family has consistently exercised their right to silence and refused any comment on the matter and appear only in still photos and snippets of video taken before their son’s untimely death. The look into their respective childhoods was particularly interesting. Before viewing the film, I surmised that Bridegroom came from a comfortable, middle-class background. He attended the Culver Military Academy, which commands rather hefty school fees and enrolled at Vassar College following his graduation. I learned in viewing the film his parents mounted an extraordinary effort, his mother took a job at Culver to help raise the money to pay the school fees. They saw to it he had the opportunity for a very good education. Shane Bitney Crone attended state schools and left for Los Angeles following his graduation from high school to seek his fortune in the entertainment industry. He had the support of his family in pursuing his dream.

The tone of the film is quite temperate and gets the point across very gently and eloquently that gay people fall in love, become couples and set up households together. It shows just how precarious it is for a gay couple when their relationship is not given the same legal standing of that of a heterosexual couple; thereby making a strong case for marriage equality. It is well worth viewing and though inspired by the personal tragedy that befell Thomas Lee Bridegroom and Shane Bitney Crone, it documents, as the title indicates, a love story, unequaled.

Posted by Geoffrey and Mika

A person’s sexuality is so much more than one word “gay.” No one refers to anyone as just “hetero” because that doesn’t say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label. — Gus Van Sant

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Recently the question came to mind as to why so many religious folk and social conservatives hold such a prurient fixation on what they imagine goes on in other people’s bedrooms. Sex is a part of every conjugal relationship: gay and straight. Sex is natural, a part of living and to enjoy. Sodomy laws, as they were called, were repealed in Canada in 1969. Then Minister of Justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau famously declaring in 1967, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” (CBC Digital Archives) Sodomy laws were repealed across the United States as of 2003 when U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, ruled that the state could not single out gay people for harassment and discriminatory treatment simply “because of ‘moral disapproval’ of homosexuality. He wrote of ‘respect’ for same-sex couples and warned that ‘the state cannot demean their existence,’ describing same-sex relationships as a ‘personal bond’ involving much more than just sex. Kennedy also wrote that reducing same-sex couples to ‘sex partners,’ as anti-gay organizations often do, is offensive in the same way that describing a husband and wife as nothing more than sex partners would be offensive.” (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) Continue reading →