TEA AND SYMPATHY: okay this is Tom, who is Morrissey
Tom has beautiful hair and ten thousand sweaters and no one understands him

ME [quietly, from the audience]: oh my God
I understand him

TOM: I have the most beautiful sweaters and hair in the world but all the other boys hate it when I win tennis because I play tennis with my wrists

ME: OH MY GOD TOM
NONE OF THE BOYS EVER LET ME PLAY THEIR LITTLE REINDEER GAMES EITHER
TOM THIS IS WHAT TOXIC MASCULINITY IS
YOU DON’T HAVE THAT WORD WHERE YOU ARE IN THE PAST BUT YOU’RE LIVING IT

ALL THE OTHER MALE STUDENTS: Tom likes to hang out with women, he is clearly gay, whereas the fact that we are recreating the volleyball scene from Top Gun pretty much 24/7 reinforces our unimpeachable heterosexual bona fides

MY OLD PROFESSORS: MALLORY YOU ARE CONFUSING HOMOEROTICISM WITH HOMOSOCIALISM YET AGAIN

ME: OH AM I

TEA AND SYMPATHY THE ENTIRE MOVIE WRIT LARGE: okay but to be very clear
Tom is not gay
no one is saying that
[loudly, in case the Hayes Office is listening] NO ONE IN THIS MOVIE IS GAY
JUST THE KIND OF FEMME-Y GUY THAT WOMEN LOVE, LIKE RUSSELL BRAND

EVERYONE: UGH REMEMBER WHEN RUSSELL BRAND WAS A THING

DEBORAH KERR: let’s literally all maybe just consider that it’s not a good idea for the entire faculty and student body to refer to a single student as “sister boy” and strip him nude before beating him at an official school function

ME: DEBORAH KERR I AM SO WITH YOU

DEBORAH KERR’S TERRIBLE HUSBAND: well obviously you want to have sex with this high school effete, Deborah Kerr

ME: HOW DARE YOU SLANDER HER PURE AND DISINTERESTED –

DEBORAH KERR: oh Tom you’re just like my dead husband

ME: uh-oh

TOM LEE: I don’t have a mother

ME: UH
OH

TOM LEE: everyone is so mean to me that if I do not sleep with a woman or get a crew cut I will die
and I refuse to get a crew cut
because of my beautiful, beautiful hair

(you guys his hair was SO beautiful)

TEA AND SYMPATHY, THE WHOLE MOVIE WRIT LARGE: okay well
what if a boy were SO gay that he wasn’t gay at all

ME: wait what

TEA AND SYMPATHY: and in fact he was SO gay-ungay that if he didn’t sleep with his mother he would die

ME: wait

DEBORAH KERR: Mallory don’t overthink this
bullying and forced conformity are terrible

ME: right, I agr–

DEBORAH KERR: and the only way to keep this young man from killing himself is to have sex with him on this golf course

ME: WAIT

DEBORAH KERR: too late
I saved him

10 years later

TOM LEE: that boning saved my whole entire life and also carefully took place the literal day after my actual eighteenth birthday so as to avoid Consent Issues

You guys, I loved this movie so MUCH, every bonkers Technicolor SECOND of it.