Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Lady Love Actually

All I want for Christmas this year is the movie Love Actually to be re-made so that all the romance plot lines are lesbian/bisexual in nature.

Is that too much to ask?

Imagine for a moment:

Jane Lynch would replace Billy Bob Thornton as the swashbuckling US President. Obviously. Archie Panjabi would play the UK Prime Minister and Zoie Palmer, perhaps, her nerdy-yet-charming new foreign policy advisor. After a falling out in which Palmer's character quits, Panjabi's character would go on a charmingly-funny door-to-door search for Palmer's character. On this search, two little girls would ask her to sing a Christmas carol and there she would find out that her bodyguard (portrayed by Abby Wambach, making a cameo) had surprisingly good vocals. She would, of course, end up with Palmer’s character, and being a gay Prime Minister would be a non-issue.

Ellen Page would play a character with an ex-girlfriend/best friend, played by Taylor Schilling. Schilling's character would be newly-married to a character played by Jamie Clayton, with whom Page's character is secretly in love, and for that reason overcompensates by being nasty to Clayton's character. One night, Page and Clayton's characters would run into each other at a karoake bar. Page's character would push the nastiness too far. As Clayton's character left the bar, Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" would come on. Page's character would grab a microphone and, tragically but beautifully, sing to Clayton's character, now gone. She would have given her all the stars. But also, she would never actually tell that to her best friend's wife, because that would be an emotionally-confusing, asshole move.

Gillian Anderson would play a character mourning the loss of her wife. To her young son, she would casually mention her longstanding crush on actress Lucy Lawless. By the end of the movie, Lawless would eventually make a cameo as a single parent at her son's school. It would be implied that Anderson and Lawless's characters end up together, effectively resolving the fantasies of many lesbian and bisexual women of a certain age.

Ruby Rose would play a character who travels to "Wisconsin" to engage in genderqueer advocacy at a university. While the advocates ze meets would be entertained by zir accent, and engage in many sexual escapades, it would be zir smarts and personality they truly admire. Zir friend, played by Samira Wiley would immediately join zir from across the pond.

Cate Blanchett would play a character in a longstanding and lackluster marriage to her husband. At her design agency, of which she is the CEO, she would develop feelings for her new secretary, played by Naya Rivera. Realizing that she has long denied her bisexuality, Blanchett’s character would leave her husband and go for Rivera's character. To be honest, she's always been a little bit of a cougar and there's nothing wrong with that.

Jenny Shimizu and Kate Moennig would play two characters who are playing two characters in a sex-positive feminist film featuring two strong female leads. In their movie-within-a-movie roles, they would embark on a sexual relationship, in consensual, empowering ways. Although mutually attracted to one another, both characters would be entirely too cool to ask the other out.

Kerry Washington would play a thoughtful writer who leaves for the French countryside to finish her novel. While there, she would fall in love with her Portuguese housekeeper played by Lucia Moniz (she can stay in the movie). She would have complicated feelings about the power differential between herself and Moniz's character, so she would not make her move until after the employment relationship has ended. Showing that U-Hauling perhaps is a universal language, Washington's character would quickly propose. "Yes" would "being" the answer.

Amy Rae and Emily Saliers would play two folk musicians who have mixed feelings about how they "sold out" by writing a popular Christmas song for a contest, fame, and fortune. At the end of the movie, they would come to the realization that, although both are lesbians with an inherent sexual tension between them, they prefer their platonic companionship. They would celebrate the Solstice by reading to one another aloud, by the hearth, from Virginia Woolf's diaries.

Lastly, Wanda Sykes would replace Mr. Bean and there would be no storyline that involves an irritating cell phone ring and sexual frustration.

You're welcome.

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