Amidst everything terrible that's happened in 2020, there have been a few bright spots in film and TV. After many, many years of generic straight couples finding unlikely romance in and around the winter holidays in Hallmark and Lifetime movies with Mad Libs-style plots, queer characters are finally getting a chance to star in their own charmingly hokey December-set rom-coms on those networks, along with streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
Of late, most of the spotlight has gone to Hulu's queer romantic dramedy Happiest Season, following its premiere over the Thanksgiving holiday frame. Directed by Clea DuVall, the movie revolves around Abby (Kristen Stewart), a queer woman who joins her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) on a trip to spend Christmas with Harper's family, only to learn on the drive over that Harper hasn't come out to her parents and siblings yet. Happiest Season has led to many important discussions online about Harper's ill-advised and sometimes hurtful actions in the film, as well as the movie's nuanced handling of coming out, forgiveness and self-acceptance.
Happiest Season is far from the only queer romance set around the winter holidays to begin streaming in 2020. Recently, Netflix made writer-director Otoja Abit's A New York Christmas Wedding available to watch following its premiere at this year's American Black and New York Latino Film Festivals. The movie stars Nia Fairweather as Jennifer, a queer woman who's on the verge of marrying her kind fiancé David (Abit) when she gets a Christmas Eve visit from a guardian angel who shows her an alternate reality where she was honest about her feelings for her first love and childhood friend, Gabrielle (Adriana DeMeo).
Elsewhere, November's The Christmas House was this first Hallmark winter holiday dramedy to prominently feature a queer couple, and December will see the release of three more queer holiday movies. The list includes I Hate New Year's, a rom-com about a music star who returns home to Nashville for New Year's to rekindle ties with her ex-girlfriend, only to fall in love with her best friend; The Christmas Setup, a Lifetime rom-com about a big-shot American lawyer who's about to move to London when he gets set up with his high school crush over the winter holidays; and Dashing in December, a Paramount Network Original about a man who returns home for the holidays to convince his mom to sell their family's Colorado ranch, only to find himself falling for the ranch's new helping hand.
Netflix's Dash & Lily, which dropped in November, is neither a movie nor an overtly queer story, but it too deserves a shout-out. The TV adaptation of the Dash & Lily's Book of Dares YA novels revolves around the romance between 17-year old Lily (Midori Francis) and a Christmas-hating teenager named Dash (Austin Abrams) but features multiple queer secondary characters and a satisfying subplot involving Lily's older brother Langston (Troy Iwata) and his fledgling relationship with his boyfriend Benny (Diego Guevara). Netflix is also on the verge of releasing The Prom -- a musical about a queer teenager who wants to take her girlfriend to Prom -- in time for the winter holidays.
What's refreshing about these queer holiday movies is how different they are, with plots ranging from It's a Wonderful Life-style stories about how life could've gone to films about second chances at love, relationships that evolve from platonic to romantic and good old-fashioned love triangles. Many of these movies also revolve around queer protagonists whose sexuality is open knowledge and accepted by their family and friends, which allows them to go beyond telling coming out stories and explore the types of narratives that haven't been traditionally featured in mainstream queer cinema.
Obviously, there's still room for improvement when it comes to racial diversity for these queer holiday romances. With exceptions like A New York Christmas Wedding and I Hate New Year's, the majority of these movies revolve around white queer couples and were neither written nor directed by BIPOC talent. It's a good reminder that as far as queer cinema has come, to the point where there are several queer winter holiday rom-coms being released in the span of a couple of months this year, it should only continue to become more inclusive.
Hulu's Happiest Season and Netflix's A New York Christmas Wedding are now available to stream while I Hate New Year's hits VOD on December 4 and The Prom stream December 11 on Netflix. The Christmas Setup and Dashing in December will premiere December 12 and 13 on their respective networks.