The Way He Looks – Blindness, First Love, and the Quiet Revolution of Being Ordinary
A Queer Teen Film That Refuses to Be a Tragedy
Brazilian film The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho) opens with an ordinary annoyance: a blind teenager, Leonardo, struggling to assert his independence against overprotective parents and a school environment that alternates between boredom and bullying. The film could have turned this setup into a heavy drama about discrimination. Instead, it chooses something more radical in its simplicity: a gentle, almost quiet queer coming‑of‑age story where the biggest stakes are friendship, freedom, and first love.
Love, Simon – Mainstream Teen Rom-Com, Quietly Radical Queer Center
A Studio Teen Rom-Com with a Gay Boy at the Center
When Love, Simon arrived in cinemas, a lot of queer viewers experienced something close to whiplash. Here was a glossy, PG‑13 teen romantic comedy from a major Hollywood studio, using the visual language of straight high school films—locker‑lined hallways, cafeteria crush drama, ferris wheels and school plays—but the protagonist was a gay boy. Not the sidekick. Not the tragic friend. The actual lead, who gets the big romantic payoff in the rain.