{"id":4833,"date":"2021-01-14T02:59:43","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T02:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/"},"modified":"2021-01-14T02:59:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T02:59:43","slug":"in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/lifestyle\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Queer Christmas Movie Arena, Predictability Still Outshines Realness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I learned how to sign \u201casshole\u201d in 2005, thanks to The Family Stone. Not particularly because I was actively trying to learn the sign (it is, admittedly, super handy) but because it\u2019s what Sybil (Diane Keaton) says to her son Thad (Ty Giordano) following a chilly dinner conversation about his sexuality.You are more normal than any asshole sitting at this table. I love you. It all started after Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) awkwardly put Thad on the spot. She stumbles into the topic of Thad\u2019s sexuality and hits every branch of the offense tree as she tumbles downward. The Stone family, progressive beyond their years, practically crucify her. The Family Stone\u2014as manic and critically panned as it may be\u2014attempted to create an idyllic world that doesn\u2019t tolerate LGBTQ intolerance, just a year after the first state in the U.S. legalized gay marriage. They quite literally liken being gay to \u201chandedness.\u201d It\u2019s unremarkable and average. But their treatment of it, at least for me, wasn\u2019t. Thad happened to be the first gay character I\u2019d seen prominently featured in a holiday movie. I clung to it, memorizing the scenes. The conversation. The sign language. The insistence that in someone\u2019s world, being gay wasn\u2019t an issue. If you made it one, you were the asshole. When you see an idealized version of your own story, you internalize it. Keaton, Giordano, and Claire Danes in The Family Stone.20th Century Fox\/Kobal\/ShutterstockShutterstock Granted, representation wasn\u2019t exactly a priority in 2005 pop culture, so Thad (a gay&#8230; Click below to read the full story from Esquire<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/entertainment\/movies\/a34991981\/2020-queer-christmas-movies\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I learned how to sign \u201casshole\u201d in 2005, thanks to The Family Stone. Not particularly because I was actively trying to learn the sign (it is, admittedly, super handy) but because it\u2019s what Sybil (Diane Keaton) says to her son Thad (Ty Giordano) following a chilly dinner conversation about his sexuality.You are more normal than&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":4834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In the Queer Christmas Movie Arena, Predictability Still Outshines Realness - The Daily Herald<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In the Queer Christmas Movie Arena, Predictability Still Outshines Realness - The Daily Herald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I learned how to sign \u201casshole\u201d in 2005, thanks to The Family Stone. Not particularly because I was actively trying to learn the sign (it is, admittedly, super handy) but because it\u2019s what Sybil (Diane Keaton) says to her son Thad (Ty Giordano) following a chilly dinner conversation about his sexuality.You are more normal than&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Daily Herald\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-14T02:59:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Augustine Pekar\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Daily Herald\",\"description\":\"Your Super Aggregated News, Blog &amp; Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/4833-in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness.jpg\",\"width\":980,\"height\":490,\"caption\":\"In the Queer Christmas Movie Arena, Predictability Still Outshines Realness\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/\",\"name\":\"In the Queer Christmas Movie Arena, Predictability Still Outshines Realness - The Daily Herald\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-14T02:59:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-14T02:59:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/8920badd1585d793a1e607739dff5cc9\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/uncategorized\/in-the-queer-christmas-movie-arena-predictability-still-outshines-realness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/8920badd1585d793a1e607739dff5cc9\",\"name\":\"Augustine Pekar\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0a436ef7f2b4056c904d32a32ac7645e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Augustine Pekar\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","amp_validity":null,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyherald.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}