DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA

WIDEST RELEASE: 3,830 THEATERS

VITO RUSSO TEST: PASS

The second film continuation of TV series Downton Abbey continues to feature gay butler Thomas Barrow. In the previous film, he found a romantic interest in another man, Ellis, but in A New Era, he received a letter from Ellis announcing his engagement to a woman. Thomas tells this to the housekeeper, Mrs. Hughes, who is understanding, and while neither of them explicitly mention Thomas’ sexuality, Mrs. Hughes calls him very brave. Over the course of the film, a movie star, Guy Dexter, stays at Downton. He repeatedly flirts with Thomas and at one point asks Thomas to come to Hollywood with him and take care of him the way a wife would. Thomas wrestles with this decision, but eventually resigns from his post at Downton to go off with Guy, giving this gay period-piece character a happy ending with another man. The dialogue is all presented through subtleties of the era, yet Thomas is surrounded by support, even in upper class 1920s England.

HONK FOR JESUS: SAVE YOUR SOUL

WIDEST RELEASE: 1882 THEATERS

VITO RUSSO TEST: PASS

This mockumentary is a satire of megachurches and follows couple Lee Curtis and Trinitie as they try to reopen their church after Lee’s sex scandal. The scandal involved him taking advantage of several young men while preaching rampant homophobia. There is a scene that shows Lee trying to have sex with his wife, but he is unable to complete the act unless it is anal or oral. He also flirts with the sound man on set, Basil, and offers to give him a job in the church, but Basil brings up his boyfriend and quickly leaves. Lee is also confronted by a former victim and, over the course of the film, abandoned by his congregation. The film heavily calls out the deep hypocrisy within homophobic megachurches, yet still feeds into the toxic narrative that the people who propagate lies about the LGBTQ community are always gay themselves.

MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS

WIDEST RELEASE: 1001 THEATERS

VITO RUSSO TEST: FAIL

This film follows the titular Mrs. Harris as she falls into the world of fashion in 1950s Paris. It contains a brief appearance by Christian Dior, who had several little-known male partners in real life. Given that this part of his identity was not addressed in this film, GLAAD did not count Dior as queer.

SPOILER ALERT

WIDEST RELEASE: 738 THEATERS

VITO RUSSO TEST: PASS

This GLAAD Media Award-nominated autobiographical drama follows gay couple Michael and Kit through their relationship, from its beginnings to its complications to Kit’s eventual cancer diagnosis and death. The film also features several other LGBTQ characters, including Michael’s roommate Kirby, her girlfriend Jo, and Michael’s friend Nick. Spoiler Alert is riddled with pop culture references, from Michael realizing he was gay as a kid watching Days of Our Lives to the couple bonding over RuPaul’s Drag Race. At the start of the film, Kit isn’t out to his parents and Michael goes along with this, but eventually Kit chooses to come out and his parents are more than accepting. Over the course of the film, Michael becomes closer with Kit’s family and remains close with his parents following his eventual death. The film doesn’t shy away from the relationship issues plaguing the couple, including Michael’s jealousy of Kit’s co-worker, but once Kit is diagnosed with cancer, the two remain strongly together and in love until Kit passes away. The film is a tender story about gay love persevering in the hardest of circumstances.

TÁR

WIDEST RELEASE: 1090 THEATERS

VITO RUSSO TEST: PASS

This GLAAD Media Award-nominated psychological drama follows esteemed conductor Lydia Tár at the height of her fame and her meteoric downfall. Lydia has a wife and daughter as a self-described “U-Haul lesbian,” but her unmitigated power and ego make her harmful to others in the community. In an early scene of the film, she puts down a queer person of color and makes advances on other women. The film also reveals pieces of a dark past where Lydia mentored and then turned on a young woman, Krista, who died by suicide after Lydia blacklisted her from the music industry. Lydia is often seen with her assistant, Francesca, who clearly has lingering feelings for Lydia. When Lydia denies Francesca a higher up position with the orchestra, Francesca quits and helps orchestrate Lydia’s ousting from the industry by revealing the truth about Krista, which directly leads to Lydia’s downfall. 

There are so often stories of toxic geniuses in this culture, and they are normally straight men. Tár flips the script by showing a lesbian who embraces masculinity and traditional ideals of power, and betrays both other women and queer people. Lydia is not endorsed by the film and her actions are shown as harmful. Though it can contribute to untrue rhetoric to show this abusive person as queer, the film also shows other queer characters surrounding her, and Lydia’s narcissism and abuse of power comes from her ego and status, not her sexual orientation.