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Episode 41 · December 31, 2022 · 00:28:26

41. Homo for the Holidays

This weekAs the year ends, Alex and Mattie watch Hallmark’s FIRST movie featuring a gay couple: THE HOLIDAY SITTER.
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Show notes

As the year ends, Alex and Mattie watch Hallmark’s FIRST movie featuring a gay couple: The Holiday Sitter.

This is an obligatory apology for the audio quality since we recorded in a suburban hotel: we tried out best!

Show Notes:



Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexHi, I'm Alex Cox. And I'm Mattie Cox. This is a show about gender, our minds, and all sorts of transitions. Welcome to Two Headed Girl. You know what we don't get often, Matthew? Happy Gay Christmas. We don't often get Christmas movies with same-sex couples. I mean, let alone trans couple, but you know, let's wait for the tea for tea. But this year, for the first time ever, there was a Hallmark movie with a gay couple.

MattieI know.

AlexI like how I said that set up as if it's like, really?

MattieI think most of the gay community has been made aware and probably only because...

AlexWe all got a Christmas card.

Mattieoh well i was gonna say because one of the leads is from mean girls and that you know is a very gay

Alexmovie well i say the gay community or the queer community and i don't should i just say the gays the gays well i i just you know i did get the christmas card but i didn't get like the starter pack that a lot of people get you know what i mean and i well uh girls gays and theys

MattieShould I say that instead?

AlexI mean, we're just all homos for the holidays. I like that.

MattieAll right. Homos for the holidays. Yes.

AlexThere have been homo for the holiday movies in the past. Notably, The Happiest Season with Kristen Stewart.

MattieGay.

AlexYep. Kristen Stewart, Dan Levy, and oh, Mackenzie. Oh, God, I have such a big crush on her.

MattieMackenzie Davis.

AlexThank you, Mackenzie Davis.

MattieThis movie is called The Holiday Sitter, and I was disappointed that it wasn't about sitting dogs.

AlexOh my god.

MattieI'm serious. I just saw the title and I was like, all right, dog sitting. How's sitting? Here we go.

AlexOh, all right. This summary mostly comes from the Christmas specials wiki. The Holiday Sitter is a Hallmark Channel original movie that premiered on December 11, 2022 as part of its annual Countdown to Christmas event. It's notably the first Hallmark holiday movie to focus on an LGBTQ couple. Sam is a workaholic bachelor who babysits his niece and nephew before the holidays when his sister and her husband have to go out of town.

Well, they don't note that out of town is an emergency because their baby is being born. But anyway, completely out of his element, he recruits help from their handsome neighbor, Jason, and finds himself in an unexpected romance.

MattieTypical Hallmark, but with the gays, the homos. And the business boy, the stressed business boy is played by Mean Girls' Jonathan Bennett. And the hottie neighbor is played by someone who is not famous. He's a newbie. George Krissa. Yep. It was what you would expect from a Hallmark movie. But I still enjoyed it, even with all the tropes. Like, I kind of really enjoyed it.

AlexWell, let's talk a little bit about what you can expect from a Hallmark movie. because one of my favorite podcasts, American Hysteria, just did a rundown of this. But Hallmark movies are very different. I shouldn't say very different. They have a stricter template than most other Christmas movies.

MattieA formula, you may say.

AlexYes. There's, you know, the stereotype across all Christmas movies, the big business person who's sort of swept away by a country or suburban romance. The big bad, actually, the big bad is often capitalism, which is interesting. The big business person gets the classic call to adventure. In this case, you know, babysitting. It's like, okay, do I embrace the spirit of Christmas? Yes or no. and there are trees, there are just an absurd amount of Christmas decorations everywhere you

look, and of course, lots of snow, and its realness is based upon the budget. Hallmark does spend a lot of money on the snow but in hallmark movies there is rarely rarely more than one kiss and there is never any sex not even implied sex well i mean yeah because it's it's like christian family

Mattievalues basically so what happened at hallmark this year is their ceo went off to make a family values channel which is supposed to be even more traditional values and christian than the hallmark channel and there was a little bit of an uproar from the actress candace cameron burr also known as DJ Tanner from Full House, who decided to go with it with that CEO from the Hallmark channel

because she wanted to contribute to these family values. And everyone was saying it was a homophobia thing. But I think it was mostly honestly just like a money thing. I don't even think she thought of the homophobia, but it was like a big deal because she was in the first ever Hallmark movie, like the main lead and she did like so many movies for them so following the the ceo um william j abbott it caused quite an uproar but i honestly i personally think that it was just about

like moving because of the money and because she wanted to focus more on christian values and

Alexit had nothing to do with the gay movie i don't even know if i mean i know that she has said some iffy stuff about the same-sex couples and stuff like that but it's odd to me how she is very much again a maligned woman when william abbott who has been the hallmark ceo since 2008 at 2009 is the one who is leaving Hallmark to create great American media,

which is specifically, again, traditional family values. And what DJ Tanner said that made people angry is she didn't even say like, she meant like movies, we'll put the exact quote in, but movies about families.

Mattieso yes as opposed to romance and couples yeah exactly like focusing on family yeah yeah not

Alexnot to focus on the family tm but focusing on you know not a businessman gets swept off his feet so i think it was just timing and like go you do you and fuck greg not greg abbott sorry fuck william j abbott but now we have again a hallmark that is going to do the gays i i guess

Mattielifetime has done a bunch of movies yeah so lifetime actually i did some research and they pulled ahead they did their first movie in 2019 and they have a ton of lesbian movies do they they have a couple of gay couples but like the lesbian movies are out of out of control and i didn't i didn't do research on maybe maybe one of the creators is gay i'm not sure that like works on those movies but uh most notably recently uh lifetime did a a lesbian movie featuring a non

binary lead wait seriously yeah it's called mary and gay and it came out in came out in 2021 oh my god and then in 2022 they just had one featuring a mixed race lesbian couple oh man they were getting real scandalous so hallmark felt that they were being left out and jumped on the train of course they they didn't rock the boat too much just your typical

I wouldn't even say either gay man was super effeminate like maybe a little bit but it it was like there it was stereotypical gay stuff but it wasn't like over the top like think of modern family like over the top um it did not did not even come close to that yeah honestly

Alexit was truly beat for beat a hallmark holiday movie and what i actually enjoyed about it was you weren't reminded every 30 seconds that the couple was gay which i thought was going to be a thing because it has been in other um lifetime movies and in happiest season that's

Mattielike the whole plot yeah which is disappointing it's a great movie but that part is disappointing we think it's a great movie i don't know about how you know what kristen stewart is a gay icon and i will take none less and it is funny the comedy is there that's true yeah yeah the comedy

Alexis there this uh this movie's funny if you like slapsic humor no slapstick no no this is not

Mattieslab stick but bouncing off of you saying that you like how we weren't reminded they were gay every 30 seconds they no one had a coming out scene it wasn't like oh i'm revealing that i'm gay yeah like there was kind of like there there were one of those phone calls where like you pick up the phone and you call and you're like hey sis who lives in new york how are you doing yeah and it's like hey sam like but there's no like remember when you were gay in high school

there's no like overt over the top and even when you first meet the the neighbor next door there's there's no coming out there's no like just like having to come out it's just like they subtly the sitter and the neighbor give each other like little glances and then they just like no there's no like big announcement reveal and i think despite it being a really cheesy movie

Alexi really appreciated that i did think it was a little bit funny that the nephew of sam who is the big business boy he has a crush on a girl and they make that very i felt very like we are not groomers no groomers are here the kids are straight don't worry the straight don't worry they're spending a lot of time with their gunkle uh oh my god oh my god

Mattiethat was my one thing i'm like no thank you his best friend so business boy sam wants to go to hawaii for his vacation and doesn't want to spend it with family because he wants to enjoy his

Alexholiday vacation without family oh yeah and real quick like you said it's not big drama homophobia up but also he's he's not quite estranged from his family but in almost even the lifetime movies what would bring the family back together is like oh i'm awkward it was awkward because i was gay no it's awkward because he's a big business boy and he doesn't want to be in like the small well the suburbs you know what i mean he's brought back like the the big joke of like why he hasn't

been at their house is because he set uh he started a fire when he was cooking there's no

Mattieanimosity because of his gayness right he just doesn't know how to take care of kids and and they like that's why he hasn't spent time with them because he's awkward interacting with kids which if you don't have kids totally understandable like that's a thing but his sister calls him

Alexin a panic yeah and and that's sure a gay stereotype but also a stereotype of half of the hallmark movies with straight men like oh guy falls in love with the mom who uh

Mattieis a widow or something like that so because he wants to go to hawaii um before he gets the call from his sister he calls his best friend who is a lesbian who is getting married or got engaged or whatever on Christmas Eve and she's like how's the gunkle hood going and Alex laughed so hard it was so bad so I guess I'm a gunkle you're gunkle it's just it sounds gross it sounds like

Alexlike a barnacle on a boat like gunkle you're gunky there's some gunkle in this well that actually led us to wait because you are a trans mask guy and i'm non-binary are you a gunk like like what what are we again we'll have to come back to this verbiage but uh yeah do you want some gunkle on your shoes

Mattieyou want to talk about the big role that adoption plays in this movie because i was not expecting that and that honestly is not traditional hallmark like traditional hallmark would be big business for an emergency big business boy gets called into small town this was not a small town they

Alexbut whatever well pretend it was a small town more on the suburbs because the people who watch Hallmark are upper middle class moms. You know what I mean? Like they really hone into the demographic. And in more recent years, there have just been more and more suburb movies.

MattieLike rich suburbs. Yes. And then no Christmas spirit wants to get back to the business as soon as possible, away from the family, gets charmed by the person that they meet, that they do the meet cute and gets charmed by them. and gets wooed into the holiday spirit and slowly realizes that family and spending time with family is important. And that's the basic through line. But this had a big adoption storyline

and like a gay single man adopting a kid, like that was, I'm surprised they went there. That's a big deal.

AlexYeah, there are actually two unique adoption angles, or I don't even want to say adoption, but, you know, not traditional childbearing. The whole call to the call to adventure is because Sam, when he gets a call from his sister that they need to go out in town, out of town, is because their surrogate is giving birth early. and they're like we're supposed to have a new year's baby and instead we're having a christmas

baby and i was genuinely shocked that like surrogacy would even be in a christmas movie let alone a hallmark movie it was it was beautiful i it made me very very happy to

Mattiepile on that the handsome neighbor also is looking into he is looking into not uh adoption

Alexor i mean maybe surrogacy but i'm going to going to assume that a cis gay man is not going to be able to have a child on his own yeah probably yeah probably a circuit so uh so i guess again adoption whatever you know what uh the fam a family wants to call surrogacy or whatnot but um like that's that's another hallmark trope of a woman wants to start a family but can't find a

man and he's we don't really know but um the hot neighbor was from los angeles and was like you know no one wants to start a family there so now i came home and i live across the street from

Mattiemy mom and that was cute that was cute yeah he's oh yeah his mom did try to set him up that's true

Alexyes but it wasn't it it wasn't like no i guess you're right yeah it was like oh my god you guys

Mattieare gay you should hang out you should come over for family dinner we would love it if you came but it was cute that the boom it was cute that the boomer mom was setting them up for dinner yeah i thought that like it was very uh like more progressive than i expected i wouldn't call this movie for the hallmark channel for the hallmark channel okay yeah like lower case this movie makes progress i i guess the boomer mom being like bring your gay friend for dinner wink wink

Alexlike that's pretty cool i mean actually now that you mention it i realize that would be that that it's another tenant of the knowing parent inviting the big business lady to dinner being like my son it has you know he's a woodworker and he can help you or he can help you fix your car come to dinner wink wink it wasn't as boring as i thought it was going to be typically i'm quite bored through uh

like all of these holiday movies especially hallmark and instead of being like a woodworker

Mattieor a fixer guy he's great at making holiday pancakes and holiday hot chocolate and holiday coffee he just he's like the luke danes of holiday spirit he well i i mean he is literally a contractor so oh right he's making the nursery for the neighbors that's right yeah he is like

Alexyeah i i'm handy but uh one of the first notes i made was there's no girl meaning there's no like i'm the girl in this gay couple like i would be the wife and i'm the manly man There's no tops and bottoms in Hallmark world. I was in a good way.

MattieI was actually kind of expecting like a love triangle almost like the mom maybe trying to set her son up, not knowing her son was gay and maybe trying to set him up with this woman and him having to be like, Mom, I'm gay. Like I almost expected that, especially because rich white suburbs, like that's what you would that's what you would expect. Right.

AlexThat was literally spoilers for happiest. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, this is kind of like the Ellen DeGeneres of Hallmark movies in that it's just palatable. OK, pre problematic, like the Ellen show of Hallmark movies.

MattieWell, how so?

AlexBecause it just sort of slips into the Christmas pantheon right along with everything else. And moms have it on background. They're like, oh, look at these cute little gentlemen. As it skates into the pantheon of Hallmark movies, there are beat for beat moments. You've got a list.

MattieI do. And they're not necessarily the gay moments, but they're the meet cute, the businessman.

AlexOh, no, this is the opposite. The Hallmark stereotypes, the Hallmark of the Hallmarks, not the gay stereotypes.

MattieRight. Meet cute, business guy slips off the stairs, and the hot neighbor catches him and helps him inside so that he doesn't hit his head. They stare longingly into each other's eyes. There is a snowstorm the day before Christmas. So they have to save Christmas for the niece and nephew that he's watching by wrapping all their gifts together.

AlexMaking stockings.

MattieMaking stockings, all that. They go to the winter carnival with the niece and nephew. And that's where they have their first almost kiss. in the background is a christmas tree very center frame rainbow lights entirely rainbow lights the

Alexwhole and that was a little bit like oh and it is interrupted by the by the small child

Mattieof course as this tradition as this tradition and you know businessman is awkward or at all of these holiday events like knocks over the christmas tree doesn't know how to make christmas pancakes or hot chocolate doesn't know what a winter carnival is you keep saying christmas

Alexpancakes like it is a staple of christmas that no okay christmas shaped pancakes it's a thing christmas shape what is the shape of christmas there's tree santa trees all right all right

Mattiethe the one gay stereotype though is we mentioned the nephew that is straight he's very straight He has a crush on the girl in the Christmas play. And his uncle, Sam, used to be a gay theater kid and teaches him how to project on stage and how to be confident. And he like basically pageant moms the pageant gays.

He basically, he teaches the nephew how to be confident on stage so that he can be good in the play. But he does it with very stereotypical, like, I was a theater kid.

AlexNo, no, I'm going to push back on that one because I braced myself as soon as Dave, not David, sorry. Jonathan Bennett looks a little bit like yes uh discount David Levy he yeah he I was like oh he's kind of like a discount David Levy but um who is in Happiest Season I was bracing for him to start like singing or dancing which is not in his character at all but he talks about how he was

self-conscious as a kid and being on stage helped him grow as a person and made him good at his job it wasn't like i got it it made me confident to be gay no it goes back to the positive part of his

Mattiebusiness business business and that's how you know that was the moment he became a good uncle and then a good uncle and then him and the sexy neighbor go to the play because the parents can't be there and they hold hands and proudly watch the boy do well in the christmas play can i

Alextell you about actually i think i cried so you saw this but the one part of this movie that actually hit home was when the you know the the sister and brother-in-law come home with the new baby and Sam has decided to stay for all of Christmas instead of flying off to Hawaii.

MattieI just want to mention how before Sam leaves to go back to Hawaii and they tell him to stay and get the guy they almost miss each other crossing the street they have two passionate kisses on the porch not just one and the straight couples get just one they had two passionate kisses there was some tongue there spicy man and then real spice both the families come out and applaud and applaud actually is it the whole block that comes out and applauds i feel like it is the

AlexThe whole family lives on that block.

MattieOh, right, yeah.

AlexThe two families, yeah. And there's a group hug. Like, oh, my God. I was like, yep, that sure was a Hallmark movie. Yeah, the whole declaration of love on the steps. Just, I mean, it was really wholesome. in a way that didn't make me feel awkward the way that Happiest Season did at some points when the whole you didn't support us as kids there's it's not that there isn't a place for

those stories but there aren't enough boring ass movies like this and i'm glad it exists me too oh wait matthew there was there was a dog in this movie there was a dog and sam was afraid

Mattieof the dog and the dog woke him up one morning with a ball he said and i quote please stop trying

Alexto make fetch happen and we groaned i think i threw something at the tv uh like yes you're in

Mattiebeing you're in being girl but that's like the only thing he's known for so they just had to

Alexhad to tip a hat yeah i mean he's known for being gay which is fine stop trying to make fetch happen I hate it I hate it so much oh goodness well happy uh Christmas Matthew happiest season Alex Cox oh god I hey everyone I hope that your holidays aren't crappy and you know merry happy from us over here at Two Headed Girl and we hope you're hanging in there

MattieI don't want to say something cheesy, but I do. I want to remember that if your family sucks, there's a bunch of homos out there who still care about you.

AlexWe're all homo for the holidays. Hi, I'm Alex Cox.

MattieAnd I'm Mattie Cox.

AlexAnd this has been another episode of Two Headed Girl.

MattieIf you would like to support the show, head on over to patreon.com slash twoheadedgirlfm or twoheadedgirlfm on all social medias

Alexeven twitter we're still there

41. Homo for the Holidays 0:00 / 00:28:26