To build a space for queer people like myself, every Saturday I’ll be posting interviews, opinion pieces (like this Friends & Family Christmas review), listicles, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community from a Latina perspective. Welcome to Queerly Not Straight!
Enjoy and leave a comment below if you have a suggestion for what I should cover next. P.S. I, Lyra Hale, do not give any site permission to copy or repost my work in any form. If you are reading this on any site besides Fangirlish, it has been stolen.
The first thing that you need to know about me is that I don’t love cheesy Christmas movies. Instead, I’ll watch something weird and twisted like The Nightmare Before Christmas or something action-packed like Die Hard. And if I do end up watching a cheesy Christmas movie, I’ll probably never watch it again and file it away as good cheese where everything is predictable, full of Christmas decorations, and a distraction from the real world. They’re usually isn’t much more than that. Then Friends & Family Christmas walked into my life and has made me reassess cheesy Christmas movies and why I’ve never connected to them.
Simply put, most cheesy Christmas movies don’t cater to me, a queer woman. Besides Kristen Stewart‘s Happiest Season, which I still have mixed feelings about because she should have ended up with Aubrey Plaza’s character, I don’t know any cheesy Christmas films where two women fall in love. So I’ve always felt a disconnect when it comes to this genre of Christmas movie making where things are cozy, predictable, and sweet. In fact, I don’t think I even thought this was something that was going to happen for years. Because I’m used to queer love stories ending with a bad ending. (Like this movie that just dropped.) I didn’t think cheesy movies set during Christmas would be something that I could have besides a random one to check a box studios have when it comes to representation or something that I even needed. I didn’t see myself in these cheesy Christmas movies.
Friends & Family Christmas made me feel seen. It made me feel included and absolutely charmed to the point where I wouldn’t mind watching more LGBTQ+ Christmas movies if it means that they hit it like they did in this movie. Because I felt seen, yes, but I didn’t feel pandered to when it came to this movie. Instead, it felt like this movie understood that people like me also want to fall in love, flirt, blush, kiss, and see the will they/ won’t they of it all. And in the same turn, if I felt seen, maybe this movie can help other people see me and people like me for just being normal human beings. Because a lot of times I feel like the hate directed towards the LGBTQ+ community is due to ignorance. And that means that a cheesy Christmas movie with lesbians can and will open doors for people to understand us.
The success of Friends & Family Christmas was also due to Dani. Like me, she is queer and Latina. (I believe the actress Humberly González is as well.) And her being Latina adds an extra layer to this movie that drew me in and made me invested in her love story with Amelia, played by Ali Liebert. Even her parents made me invested in her story. Because the mom was also Latina and I could feel the inherent similarities between that mother and the one that I grew up with or that I have seen in my community. Together they pushed through some real complexities of different generations while also not putting each other down. Dani’s mom (and Dad) didn’t even blink an eye when Dani started “dating” Amelia. If anything, they acted like any other parents would in a cheesy Christmas movie. They meddled, were cute, and helped enrich the story overall.
On the love story front, I couldn’t help chanting in my head over and over again “lesbians deserve cheesy Christmas movies like this every year and not just one.” Because Danni and Amelia instantly clicked. Even the actresses clicked, so much so that it didn’t feel over the top like other Christmas movies do. They felt fleshed out when it came to the baby steps of their blossoming relationship, what they wanted for their futures, and what they were willing to do to see where this went between them. And if anything, when the happily ever after finally rolled around, it felt earned. It didn’t feel like it happened because this is a cheesy Christmas movie and those always end happy. It ended happy and with tons of potential because of the characters, actors, writing, and directing.
So if you’re looking for a Christmas movie to check out this 2023 and every Christmas from here on out, check out Friends & Family Christmas. And hopefully next year there will be more than one lesbian or gay movie. Because now that Hallmark has given us a taste of what they can do when it comes to LGBTQ+ stories in cheesy Christmas movies, we’re going to want more.
Friends & Family Christmas is available on Hallmark and Peacock.
Did you love Friends & Family Christmas? Let us know in the comments below!
Queerly Not Straight posts Saturdays with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latine community since I am Latine.)
