Somewhere in the world, right now, there's someone in a movie theater who may have gotten just a little less confused. The new film, Love Simon, just opened. It is one of the first films with a gay protagonist that is playing in every state in the U.S. that has a PG-13 rating. This film is helping to expand mainstream queer culture, and normalize queer love stories. The director and many of the screenwriters identify as LGBT, which helps to push the movie away from negative stereotypes and “queer aesthetics” that can be repetitive and forced (MediaSmarts). Although media has come so far in the past few years, there is still so much more that has to be done to pave the way for not just tolerance, but acceptance and normalization. While LGBT
