Luca is Obviously Gay. Here's Why.

[Music] ah after a long day of gay recruitment i can finally rest oh [ __ ] i forgot to do the nordvpn ad they paid a pretty penny to sponsor my nighttime thought holes live from the inside of alex's brain hi this is alex here to talk about this video sponsor nordvpn looks like you're watching weird things on the internet again i mean really are they gay of course they are but you're going to watch more right perhaps you want to watch something similarly bisexual oh what about a brooklyn nine-nine let's just check netflix and oh whoops i'm american so what is one to do if one lives in the richest nation on earth rank 33rd for child mortality wait nor vpn that's right with nordvpn you can access bisexual content from around the globe even if netflix says it's not available in your country just open up nordvpn choose to connect to one of 5 400 servers in 59 countries in this case we'll need to connect to canada and then go straight to netflix to watch those wacky bisexuals nordvpn masks 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haven't found a 300 000 word fan fiction to use as an excuse to begrudgingly stay awake let's talk about the new pixar movie luca are they gay or european both actually ah pixar a studio responsible for too much of my early childhood emotional development there was the food one the sad one the one that radicalized me the one the two and the three and the four and although woody and buzz sound like the names of downtown gay clubs we never really got a gay pixar movie that is until luca you know luca that pixar movie with the suspiciously curly haired italian fish voice you know the one with the two kids who are actually sea monsters but who run away to experience the totally not metaphorically infused human world to many oblivious heterosexuals let's call them derek to the average derrick luca is a story about two lads against the world bros until the end but to others those with a little bit of a higher sensitivity to certain subtextual cues luca is a frankly unsolicited mirror into the embarrassing crushes of semi-ambiguously gay childhood and for those who say kids can't be queer well you're just wrong queer people were kids once too you know we didn't just pop out of a cross-dimensional portal sent by the gay agenda plus i never hear anyone complain about the millions of shows and movies with straight kids crushing on each other so please acknowledging queer childhood crushes will not destroy western civilization and let's be real western civilization could use a little bit of destroying but what makes luka so gay besides it being gay the real question is what about luca isn't gay disney has made the literal gayest movie possible without technically being you know legally gay it's like this movie has every appendage flapping wildly outside the closet door while one toe keeps it technically inside so if you're a derrick you know just some dude from fontana california who doesn't know much about gay things or how to properly launder money luca just looks like luca but luca's made up of a lot of little pieces a bunch of cultural material that you can deconstruct pick up and rearrange if i shuffled everything around and took out a piece it probably stops looking like it was ever a part of luca if i showed you this piece without context you might think it doesn't look like anything at all but each piece of luca has a history each piece has a community that can recognize the little cultural signals imbued with its meaning what gay pieces make up luca aesthetics allegories lived experience gay well luca managed to pack a decent amount of the queer experience into one movie maybe not all the complicated delicate and intricate details of having a bisexual awakening while watching x-men first class but luca has a lot of it cuffed pants tumblr noses so let's go through the story of luca and figure out how pixar made the second gayest movie ever just behind barbie and the diamond castle [Music] so luca involves the story of sea monsters who face sea monster phobia in the human world luca and alberto are sea monsters who run away together because they're in love basically when they're dry they're human and when they're wet they're sea monsters and when they exist they're gay but lucas family is homophobic and doesn't want luka going with alberto to the human world but let's get a little meta first as many film historians like harry benshoff have noted monsters are kind of gay even the whole horror genre is pretty queer for scholars like robin wood queerness can be any narrative moment performance or stance which negates the oppressive binarisms of the dominant hegemony but what do those words even mean for those of us who don't swivel a cup of wine in ivory towers for legal purposes this is apple juice at the core of horror films especially monster movies is the battle between normality aka the heterosexual agenda and the other aka the gays as the horror genre developed over the course of centuries queerness and otherness became inexorably linked since the 19th century writers have written queer-coded monsters whose struggles mirror the realities of queer phobia several writers over the years have even made monsters explicitly queer like the lesbian vampire in the 1872 work camilla or elmo i mean plenty of 19th century gothic authors were just a bunch of gays sneaking in gay subtext into their books because they couldn't write about queerness in any other way or medium same thing with film since the motion picture production code banned positive portrayals of queerness on screen until the 1960s people found alternative ways to portray queerness if your movie's lesbian is a vampire then that can't possibly be a positive portrayal of queerness right they didn't know in the 20th century outsider groups watching horror films starring cisgender white straights didn't really feel fully represented by the main characters most audiences identified with the straight main characters but a number of queer people saw themselves in the otherness of monsters sure maybe the straight human characters had skin and stuff but did they tap into the experience of someone whose identity is seen as irreconcilable with the mainstream world maybe if they were ginger but the movies were mostly in black and white so you couldn't really tell now let's not get ahead of ourselves the association of homosexuality and villainy or otherness surely comes from homophobic constructions we'd be silly to recreate or celebrate but that's why luca is important luca is very much in conversation with this long history of gay monsters and outsiders i mean you're telling me that not one of the hundreds of film nerds working on this movie ever heard about horror's queer connotations in their film theory classes yeah okay and while we're at it pigs can fly and hell is frozen over and the earth is round curiously lucas allegory doesn't center one aspect of the queer experience luca managed to pack multiple shades of queer life into one unambiguously queer puzzle so it starts off with luca a curious young sea monster who lives with his sea monster family his family is extra cautious about luca going up to the human world since uh you know humans absolutely just do not give a heck and frick about ocean life shortly after the exposition luca runs into this kid named alberto and suddenly his curiosity becomes by curiosity okay so alberto takes luca to the surface but since luke has been programmed to think humans are evil and scary he's hesitant but he loves it he loves what the human world has to offer and we start getting some red i mean rainbow flags that this is going to be a metaphored allegory thing well isn't it great oh no it's bad and i'm not supposed to be up here good day right you gotta go home right this second yeah if my parents found out i was up here it would be bad right it sounds a little like it it might be nah despite what lucas parents have to say luca and alberto begin to bond over their mutual interest in human stuff like the vespa the vespa a scooter that represents freedom fespa is freedom freedom from what freedom to do what freedom to be who now so already the movie's covering multiple common aspects of the queer experience you know the homophobic parents internalize homophobia and now the first childhood gay crush that makes you re-examine your identity oh did i say crush am i assuming too much well if it isn't that then what is it tell me what's the point of all these romantic montages oh and why is luca now literally fantasizing about their life together okay an arm over the shoulder friends do that right oh wait they're looking at the sunset together uh no romantic connotations here right fellas it's not gay to enjoy nature right but fellas is it gay to abandon everything you've ever been raised to believe for one dude who's shown you a newfound love for adventure and yourself nah wait in this scene they're looking at the moon now so does that make them buy life is so much cooler than mine i never go anywhere i just dream about it you came up here thanks to you otherwise i never would have seen any of this ah so here's the important bit about having that gay childhood crush it's not just the gay childhood crush part that's important it's the self-discovery that comes with it alberto helps luca discover a side of himself he didn't know he had he's helping him overcome internalized self-hatred in a way there's this one concept that alberto comes up with called bruno the idea is any doubt or hesitation you feel is just an annoying dude named bruno making you chicken out now while alberto uses this idea to be somewhat reckless for luca it's liberating you got a bruno in your head a bruno yeah luca it's simple don't listen to stupid bruno why is his name bruno i don't care it doesn't matter call him whatever you want shut him up say silencio bruno luca has been socialized to stay in line and follow the rules fear humanity without question but alberto tells luca that rules don't need to define who he is he can define himself right so the fantasy can't go on forever eventually his parents find the collection of james mcavoy print outs under his bed and confront him about the gay wait wrong coming out experience what actually happens is one day lucas spends too much time with alberto and his parents are mad that he comes home late they're not just mad they're homophobic mad they're so mad that they even plan to send luca away with his uncle okay please they're sitting here talking about how much of a bad influence his crush is while threatening to send him somewhere that'll straighten him out i feel like i'm watching a cheesy gay short film from 2014 it's so by the book it's something many queer people will recognize why are you doing this the world is a very dangerous place luca and if i have to send you to the bottom of the ocean to keep you safe so be it you don't know what it's like up there i know you and i know what's best for you ah the allegory all comes together it's like poetry gay so after the coming out scene luca goes to alberto and tells him that his parents are gonna send him away to avoid the scenario luca and alberto plan to literally run away together to the human town nearby just as friends you know friends who continue to daydream about each other it's fine all straights go through this right this is the greatest drawing i've ever seen yeah i know luca think about it every day we'll ride someplace new and every night we'll sleep under the fish no one to tell us what to do just you and me out there free no it definitely doesn't sound like dialogue from a modern adaptation of romeo and juliet it's fine well once luke and alberto reach the town they immediately find the gay community first this lesbian couple then this lesbian here's the way it goes luca and alberto see this really italian dude and his vespa but the italian guy ends up being a dick and almost outs them as sea monsters but then they're saved by this clear fan of haley kyoko named julia but why does julius save them well you know gay stick together you know we underdogs have to look out for each other right what's under the dogs under dogs you know kids who are different different you say nah unless right kids who are different kids who perhaps might grow to identify as non-straight butting members of the agenda isn't it weird that queer people always seem to find each other even in childhood i swear literally all of my childhood friends have come out as something my childhood was full of alphabet people and i don't mean sesame street or do i alright so this whole underdogs have to look out for each other thing alludes to another gay thing we've had monster metaphors unaccepting families internalized homophobia the gay crush and now chosen family throughout history queer people have been excluded or disowned from their direct families or communities of origin as a result there is a long history of queer people creating their own communities and support systems through chosen family your chosen family may not be your blood relatives but the bonds between you and your chosen family are just as strong and necessary in lucas situation he faces being sent away from what he loves similar to how many queer youth are forced to go to conversion therapy or pray the gay away camps and like many queer youth who try to escape these threatening situations luca ended up in search of a new home so in this new town it turns out that there's this big annual triathlon thing where the winner gets a bunch of money julia always enters but never wins because she always ends up throwing up before finishing the race same reason why i can't watch supernatural anymore the homophobic italian dude always ends up winning and rumming it in everyone's face but this time it's different this time luca and alberto are gonna help julia win then when they win they're gonna buy a vespa and run away together at least that's the plan when luca tells julia they want to join her team for the race julia's hesitant but luca is desperate desperately clinging on to alberto for some reason but also desperate for help please my family was gonna send me somewhere horrible away from everything i love but if we win this race well we can be free interesting a very metaphorically charged moment luca doesn't just say that his family plans to send him away from his home but from everything that he loves and that love aspect is important lgbtq plus rights issues have often been advocated for within a love framework you know love is love the fact that luca equates the human world with love not just as something he likes or something he finds cool but as something he loves makes the metaphorical connection even clearer luca is ostracized for loving what he loves and he's asking julia for help in the end she agrees so luca and alberto commence their training they stay with julia and her unnecessarily attractive father and end up forming a bond through their time with them and nothing gay happens throughout all this time they're just watching stars as they drift into sleep together it's it's fine this is okay i'm not gonna say anything because this is heterosexual and platonic even if there is nothing gayer than astrology so like we talked about before julia also sees herself as an outsider she understands luca and alberto's pain every summer i come here and everyone thinks i'm just some weird kid who doesn't belong i think i know how you feel the kid who doesn't belong you wouldn't know how many queer people i've heard say these exact words none because i don't go outside but certainly that feeling of being an outsider and growing up as a queer person overlap maybe julia and luca understand each other a little too much for alberto's comfort which brings us to yet another gay thing ah projection we all do it but gay people are really good at it that's what this channel is after all it's a classic tale you have your gay crush but homophobia really gets to you when you start to feel bad about who you are so instead of dealing with homophobia in a productive and healthy way you lash out at other people unfortunately alberto has gone down this path since alberto doesn't know julia's gay he gets jealous of all the time lucas spent around her luca even proposes that he and alberto go to julius school together and that really pisses alberto off because they had this whole romantic runaway thing planned now maybe it's a platonic thing maybe alberto is afraid julia will replace alberto in a platonic way but also what if it's not how you consider that it just might for once possibly be gay for once how can you tell that alberto's jealousy is queer-coded do the montage test let's see is there enough for a montage yep it's gay [Music] this jealousy morphs into uglier things alberto wants control i know it looks scary but here's what you need to know just stop bossing him around what is your problem i'm his friend i know what he needs oh yeah well then what does he need me we'll just ride it like we did on the island but alberto's desire for control isn't just about luca it's about himself his lingering internalized homophobia teams up with his jealousy and so he wants to control luca because his relationship with luca is the only positivity he's been able to find as a queer flash fish person luca sea monsters can't go to school what do you think is gonna happen when they see your fish face bro chill we get it you're projecting your feelings of internalized self-hatred after losing control of the situation breathe so just as alberto's dealing with that we get another gay life trope jesus how did they fit all of that in there oh sorry that's a different gay life trope the actual next gay thing is the homophobic gang of pubescent terrorizers from the beginning anti-gay italian guy uh not that one suspects something between luca and alberto he even says as much let's go no something's fishy with you two beautiful and with a subtlety of a 2000 soap opera with a gay couple you're not the boy i raised yes i told you to shut up but seriously luca and alberto get like beat up over their secret like pro this is over a race if the italian dude really wanted the money that badly he could just mug someone the old-fashioned way but why the eerie recreation of homophobic violence that queer people face so frequently there were many ways to convey that the italian dude is a bad guy but why in this specific way why in this so horrifically recognizable way it really feels like a really intentional signal to the audience about what's really going on here and it keeps getting worse luca and alberto start fighting about the whole school versus running away together situation really starts to feel like a parallel to the historical debates within the gay community on whether or not queer people should run off and do their own things in radically reconstructed communities or if they should assimilate into the mainstream world luca wants to go to school and live a so-called normal life while alberto wants to run off with luca in a vespa and settle into a life of childless gentrification in the san francisco bay we just need to win that vespa and get out of here it's not gonna be any different i don't wanna i wanna go to school that again we can't go to school you're just afraid you can't do it but as they're about to fist fight and or stare into each other's eyes longingly julia comes into the scene luca then proceeds to ask julia if he and alberto can study at her school full-time alberto obviously doesn't like that so he interjects uh julia your school does it take all kinds of people i mean what if some of them were not human what if some were oh i don't know sea monsters this is a critical moment for alberto part of alberto wants to ruin lucas prospects and control luca so alberto comes out as a sea monster to julia to make the situation intense obviously it's not good she's afraid she doesn't know anything about sea monsters other than the scary story she's heard and in that moment luca rather than defend alberto as a genuine gay i mean guy plays dumb luca turned on alberto [Music] see i knew this was a monster the town homophobes come with harpoons forcing alberto back into the ocean and luca watches it all happen the closet door never felt so comfortable after the outing luca and julia go back to her dad's house luca tries to pretend that everything's chill but julia isn't stupid and knows that luca is also in the closet she pours some water on him and finds out the full truth but she isn't scared she stands in solidarity with them luca you have to get out of here but i thought we were underdogs do you think i want you to leave this is the happiest i look it's just not worth it she knows her town is homophobic and tells them they're not safe there so luca leaves to find alberto he finds alberto all sad because his boyfriend betrayed him and also because his dad went out to get some milk 10 years ago and never came back the picture of alberto's life all starts to come together alberto fears abandonment so he tries to retain control over whatever situation he can but he can't control who he is and he can't control how the outside world sees him his queerness or sea monsterness adds a layer of difficulty that's hard for a child to process in this turmoil luca and alberto have a tense to heart and although alberto is still angry at luca luca's intent on fixing everything he still wants to win that race and in turn win back alberto's heart and so the race finally comes luca decides to enter it by himself and luca's actually doing okay but just as luca's on the way to victory beating the italian homophobes and inspiring gay timothy chalamet types everywhere it starts to rain oh no he's at risk of getting outed but wait alberto is here with an umbrella and he's coming for him i'm coming for you but then gasp i say instead of gasping the italian homophobe is blazing down the mountain with more metaphorically rich epithets you two don't belong here get out of my dog whoopsie guess alberto just got outed again in front of everyone of course bystanders are shocked by the only potential by standing italian guy proceeds to capture him and what will luca do will he continue to hide his identity in order to secure his chance at being a so-called normal kid no he risks everything for alberto he cycles into the rain and can we pretend the airplane in the night sky and like shooting stars i could really use a wish right now wish right now i wish right now can we pretend that hi please you're putting me out of business here pixar is it even a question anymore if they're gay i can't i can't do this [Music] but eventually they reach the end of the race and the whole town is waiting for them with pitchforks italian guy confronts them one last time we're not afraid of you no but we're afraid of you everyone is horrified and disgusted by you because you are monsters stop again no subtlety with the homophobia come on pixar no need to revive the spirit of my homophobic distant relatives fortunately luca and alberto have allies ah another important aspect of the queer experience the allies who defend and support you julia sticks with them even if it means checking her sea monster bias and at this critical moment right here when all the town seems to have turned on them a new ally appears julia's dad they're not monsters oh yeah who are they then i know who they are they are luca and alberto and they are the winners exquisite the dad proclaims luca and alberto despite their different identity are still people see people but still people in the same way that queer people are also just people coming out doesn't change who you are obviously i've heard lots of stories of queer people coming out and having to reiterate to their crying families i'm still me i'm still your kid or sibling or whatever this doesn't change who i am and this is essentially that queer or not you are still you a person and it works with these crucial allies luca and alberto gained the town's acceptance also lucas family is there because of an unrelated subplot i decided not to go over but don't cry they're there they're there and they're proud of luca what and the lesbian couple were lesbians the whole time what we've done it y'all we've reached the end of the rainbow and here is our pot of gold acceptance one of the most important parts of the queer experience finding people who accept you for who you are and accepting yourself as well even if it's difficult luca's grandmother even spells it out for us some people they'll never accept him some will no it's fine this can't possibly be read as a gay metaphor and of course they use the word except for maximum homosexualism not saying that the word accept is gay but it's definitely up there but there's still one thing left luca is still intent on going off to school with julia but alberto doesn't want that they're gonna have to say goodbye and when i say this is the most romantic goodbye i have ever seen now look at me and tell me what is a really stereotypical romantic goodbye you know a trope that when you see it you go oh this is a romantic thing ah the train station goodbye one lover has to leave but the train is leaving maybe they kiss maybe one person goes running after the train maybe disney actually has substantial queer representation in an animated movie who knows but they do the romantic rope thing here in this movie obviously they hug there's tears and you got me off the island luca i'm okay alberto acknowledges how big of an influence luca was on his journey they helped each other accept themselves they're going to remember that for a lifetime and then the hands jesus christ the hands gerolla move trombetta seriously what does that mean no idea go find out for me will ya i need more apple juice okay so that was obviously a romantic trope there was obviously a bit of non-platonic-ness in that goodbye i don't know what to say it's just those extra milliseconds the way the shot is framed the tenderness of the scene and it all comes together to form something far from heterosexual this movie managed to be queer in every single way to the last second we went from being in the closet to having a gay crush to feeling liberation to finding found family encountering internalized and external homophobia and finally acceptance in a community i can't believe they did it the absolute madman they made the gayest movie in existence so let's talk about the creators the writers let's talk what were you thinking do you think you can keep getting away with this do you well you can i mean let's just say that hypothetically theoretically you released a movie during gay pride month totally coincidental and let's just say that hypothetically this movie bore a coincidental aesthetic resemblance to another gay movie with similarly curly-haired italians a movie directed by lucca guadagnino lucca luke and then let's just say that literally everyone on earth who watches the movie has the same question was this movie gay so what does director enrico casa rosa have to say for himself we really willfully went for a prepubescent story this is all about [Laughter] platonic friendships well i'm convinced and he's right hollywood has never made a piece of media where prepubescent kids have crushes on each other it's just not done it's also specifically a little bit of pre-romance that was something that i was interested in as well because there's just that moment that maybe we're not thinking about boyfriends or girlfriends yet which is really more about friendships okay okay okay okay maybe possibly he's actually sincere it's possible i mean the cultural norms between europe and america might be super different but this is an american movie made for a mostly american audience although casarosa's vision is his own and i can't tell him not to have it let's think about a purely theoretical world in which luca was gay and let's call that world earth if casarosa did want to portray a queer story at the center of a major disney movie would they have led him probably not considering that disney has basically tried everything to make their gay characters editable out of any story they appear in disney wants to make money and they don't want to lose socially conservative audiences and non-western markets so they push their gaze to the side but let's say casarosa planned a gay vision and got rejected why not make a gay spite movie why not make the gayest movie possible literally the gayest movie possible with uneditable and embedded queerness well i feel like he succeeded if that was the intention or maybe disney is in on it maybe they're testing the waters for queer animated films and they plotted to make the most obviously queer film ever to see how audiences would react because let's be real it's obvious what's going on in this movie there's no way thousands of writers producers creatives and executives saw this i didn't think for a moment there's no way casarosa didn't at least think about it at this point we all know it's gay disney and we liked it it was a good movie we're ready for more i promise i know why they aren't going to make queer kids films anytime soon they want money and gays are only profitable if you're in the iced coffee industrial complex but while we're in this weird ambiguous space let's try to critically celebrate what we can whatever luca is it took pieces imbued with queer meaning to produce and we can't just pretend it's not there it's there so are they gay yes bye sorry i meant yes or bye or pan or something else entirely are they gay you decide hey gay you want to act daily daily well here's a few ways you can do that support this channel by checking out my merch at www.it'sall.gay or consider supporting me on patreon also remember to follow my twitter tumblr 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Channel: Alexander Avila

Views: 888,644

Keywords: Luca, Disney, Pixar, Alberto, Animated, Gay, Lgbt, Video essay, Movie, Film, Funny, For minutes straight, Subtext, Call me by your name

Id: zHw7gdV7xF8

Length: 36min 51sec (2211 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021