Meet Cute in the Margins: Establishing Gay Community Contexts in the Gay Romcom

This essay argues that the gay romcom is a genre that modifies the generic conventions of the mainstream (‘heterosexual’) romcom. Focusing on the first two of Leger Grindon’s 10 moves of the generic romcom plot – unfulfilled desire and the meeting – it argues that the gay romcom establishes a film within a gay cultural context: a Meet Cute in the margins. The queer romcom (an umbrella term, under which this essay places the gay romcom) has recently seen new mainstream releases both in streaming and box-office distribution. This essay takes this moment of transition to look at the gay romcom, as a modification of the mainstream sub-genre, that found prominence through queer film festivals. To explicate, it conducts textual analysis of two gay romcoms: BearCity (Doug Langway, 2010), released through the queer film festival circuit; and Fire Island (Andrew Ahn, 2022), released through the mainstream streaming service, Hulu.