Oscars 2018: Call Me By Your Name

"It's the summer of 1983, and precocious 17-year-old Elio Perlman is spending the days with his family at their 17th-century villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets Oliver, a handsome doctoral student who's working as an intern for Elio's father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of their surroundings, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever."

Call Me By Your Name So I Can Elude Charges For Statutory Rape And Flee The Country is a film based on the novel of the same name by a straight author starring straight people for a straight audience. It's a heartening tale of a teenage boy being seduced by one of his Dad's friends, but don't worry! This particular tale takes place in a saccharine, consequence-free dreamworld and they're both hot and can speak eighteen languages and banter about Vivaldi or summin. Just ignore the predatory aspect, it's chill.

Sorry I know I'm being *that bitch*; I realise it's a mainstream film with a queer narrative and that should be celebrated, EXCEPT it's not really is it. It's straight as all hell, they could easily have gender-swapped one of the characters and told almost exactly the same by-the-numbers coming of age love story. People are fawning over what is essentially an incredibly sanitised and ultimately, incredibly problematic portrayal of gay love. Firstly, it's set in the 1980s yet has no realistic historic anchoring aside from the cute, retro aesthetic; think San Junipero directed by Kylie Jenner. Secondly, the characters are entirely un-relatable, these people banter about composers and bemoan staying in their opulent 17th century Italian villa with their preposterously cultured and charismatic family. I came out on a dirty park bench in the rain and cheered myself up by drinking a 3ltr bottle of white cider. I don't relate to this boy. Finally, IT'S PREDATORY AF. I don't care how intelligent and seemingly mature this lad is, he's a teenager and Armie Hammer is clearly in his 30's (24 my ass). Intellectual maturity does not equal sexual maturity and this lad cries after her wanks into a peach so he clearly needs to feel this whole thing out a little bit first; a luxury that his zaddy doesn't afford him though, who instead of empathising with this TEENAGER's sexual misgivings, aggressively tries to eat the cummy peach whilst our lad is crying and begging him to stop. Idyllic.

Yes this film is gorgeously shot, yes there are some delightful ruminations on love (particularly by the Joaquin Phoenix-esq dad in a woefully tone-deaf closing speech) but that is all the more reason to condemn it. Call Me By Your Name enters the worrying pantheon of seductive, well-made abuse narratives, a library of old shit stuffed with the likes of Twilight and everything Woody Allen has ever done. This is all the more reason why I call bullshit on it being a positive LGBT film as well, the 'predatory gay man' is a stereotype as old as Michelle Visage and absolutely does not need any more fuel, particularly at an Academy-recognised level.

So, bullshit, Call Me By Your Name, I'm not enticed by you, you do not represent me or my community and I am annoyed that you're being given this acclaim. I ask fans of this film to seek out positive, realistic queer narratives, concieved and delivered to you by actual queer artists. Moonlight was a huge step in the right direction but we still have a lot of work to do apparently, especially when films like God's Own Country were completely slept on.

WHO THIS FILM IS FOR:

Those 'woke' straight girls at Pride who think hot gay men are 'adorable' but 'just don't get' trans people / white gay men who listen to Ed Sheeran / no lesbians at all.

WHAT THIS FILM DOES WELL:

I mean the cinematography is objectively gorge.org.

WHAT THIS FILM DOESN'T DO DEAD WELL:

REPRESENTING HEALTHY QUEER RELATIONSHIPS, STEPHANIE!!!!

WHAT THIS FILM IS COMPARABLE TO:

Straight girls writing fan fic about Harry and Snape.

WEIRDEST MOMENT:

Why would he want to eat that fucking peach.

OSCAR POTENCH?:

Ugh. Probably. At least Moonlight won last year.