Well folks, we’re starting off Pride Month with the first official teaser trailer for Fellow Travelers, and I’m still ehhh about it. I was ehhh about it when the news dropped around this time last year. And I was ehhh when the first photos dropped of Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer. It’s not that I don’t like the actors. I do. It’s just that I don’t like the story. At all.
For those that need a reminder, Fellow Travelers is set in the 1950s McCarthy-era in Washington, D.C. Billed as a “part epic love story, part political thriller” it tells the story of a “volatile romance” between two men over the span of four decades. A story like that, where you could be charged with “lewd behavior” if you were simply gay and have your life ruined, does not equal a happy ending.
This means that Tim Laughlin (Bailey) and Hawk Fuller (Bomer) will absolutely be hiding who they truly are, who they love/like, while leading double lives. And the trailer backs that. When Tim and Hawk are passing by each other there are flashes of multiple scenes. The standouts are cops bashing a place up, intimate moments between the leads, and women who definitely are there to be the wives. And if it sticks to Thomas Mallon’s novel of the same name (which I haven’t read but Goodreads is a thing), it ain’t gonna be pretty.
And I’m tired. Yay for representation, always and forever. I just feel in pain. Downtrodden. Hopeless. And with this aching feeling in my chest because it feels like we’ll never escape stories that show us in the struggle and with zero happy ending in sight. I want light and love in the open. I want to feel like it’s possible to just be me and not be constantly reminded how those in this reality want to crush us within the mediums I go to escape.
Maybe Fellow Travelers will surprise me. I’ve seen and experienced crazier things. And I want to support a project about gay characters that are played by gay actors. But I’m going to take my time with this one and watch it at my own pace, take plenty of breaks, and see what story these two have to tell and where their love will lead them.
Watch the official teaser trailer for Fellow Travelers below:
Fellow Travelers is coming soon to Showtime.
