Directed by Christin Baker
Written by Christin Baker, Maggie Cummings, and Megan Ullrich
Starring Dia Frampton, Andi René Christensen, and Stella Parton
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
Available December 1 on DIVABoxOffice.tv

by Jaime Davis, Staff Writer

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Candace Cameron Bure, queen of holiday content and submissive wife extraordinaire, discussed her move from the Hallmark Channel to Great American Family (formerly Great American Country, or GAC, which I will continue to call it until the end of time). Her exclusive contract allows her to get back to her roots: “I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.” What isn’t included in “good family entertainment?” The gays, of course. Per Bure, the channel will only feature wholesome, “traditional” marriage and values.

And here we are, the Year of Our Lord 2022, a mere two years after gay holiday romcom Happiest Season became a streaming hit and straight up polarized viewers (ahem, I mean me) with its depiction of one woman’s coming out under duress (after watching approximately 368 times, I still maintain that Harper was not ready for the angelic Abby). Yet it doesn’t feel like we’ve made much progress since then. There’s been another heartbreaking tragedy at an LGBTQI+ club, this time in Colorado Springs. Conservative lawmakers have beef with drag queens of all people (if they just watched one ep of Drag Race, I swear they’d come around). Elon’s Twitter mess recently re-instated a number of accounts originally banned because of anti-trans harassment. TERFs are boycotting Tampax (y’all I can’t even with this). And right-wing media are still into their whole “gays are groomers” thing (which is seriously played; make your hate salad creative at least). It continues to not be a great/safe/equitable time to identify as LGBTQI+ in North America and around the world.

It’s just a small thing, but I feel the community and our allies need as much positive visibility as we can get these days. The whole moral panic of the current decade is infuriating, confusing, and so totally backwards. (Seriously, make it make sense. Why does it feel like the powers that be want us all to progress in reverse?)

I’m writing this review on American Thanksgiving, a day that I’m not exactly celebrating as I now live in Canada with my wife. Who is also gay. We’re both gay and married to each other! Gay gay gay. Take that, Candace Cameron Bure. Canadian Thanksgiving has already passed (it’s in early October - in spooky season - how dare it!) and even though I’m not having any stuffing, cranberry sauce, or mashed potatoes right now, I still have so much to be incredibly thankful for. My wife. Being able to live in the same country as her. My family. My friends. My job. My Animal Crossing island. This season of The Real Housewives of Potomac. Shay Mitchell’s TikTok. Living in a major city where my wife and I feel relatively safe enough to hold hands in most public spaces. And cheesy holiday movie season.

This year, over 120 holiday movies will hit the screens via Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, GAC, BET, ABC, and more. 120+! And how many of those will feature a non-straight romance as its primary storyline? Not many. While Lifetime centered an LGBTQI+ romance for the first time in 2020 (The Christmas Setup), Hallmark is releasing its first lead gay couple in The Holiday Sitter, on December 11th of this year. Sure, Hallmark has featured some side plots involving non-straight characters or non-straight couples (ahem, The Christmas House and The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls), but Hallmark, the flagship for sincere programming, haven’t installed a gay couple as the central relationship, until now. I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some of the other LGBTQI+ holiday romances of the past few years: Christmas at the Ranch, Christmas on the Farm, Dashing in December, The New York Christmas Wedding, Under the Christmas Tree, I Hate New Year’s, Season of Love, and Single all the Way. There should be way more!

Thankfully, we’re getting another LGBTQI+ installment this year - Merry & Gay. Directed by Christin Baker, the film is set in both New York and quaint Evergreen, Tennessee, a suburban hamlet complete with charming main street, supportive community, a local bar that’s the hangout of the town, and just the right amount of quirky townsfolk. The story is delightfully twee and charming and Hallmark-esque: two Evergreen mothers and besties, Tilly (Hayat Nesheiwat) and Lucille (Janet Ivey), whose children, Becca (Dia Frampton) and Sam (Andi René Christensen), were high school sweethearts, hatch a plan to get them back together. The two initially broke up after Becca moved away to New York to become a Broadway star. But now that Becca is heading to Evergreen for a month around the holidays to direct the town’s Christmas Pageant, Tilly and Lucille decide it’s now or never. It’s all quite adorable good fun, until Becca and Sam come face to face. You see, Sam’s still hurt that Becca moved away and their lives went on different paths.

Becca just wrapped up a stint on Broadway as Monica in a popular Friends-themed musical, I’ll Be There for You (set at Central “Pike,” lol) and has a Christmas music album coming out. The upcoming single from her album, you guessed it, “Merry & Gay”, is an upbeat little ditty that Becca sings at least twice in the film (and is still stuck in my head). Sam, on the other hand, decided to hang back in Evergreen to work at the family bar, Sheridan’s, where they organize open mic nights and karaoke events among other things. The moms have their work cut out for them as they orchestrate things in their favor, pushing Sam and Becca together in all kinds of situations with the help of a cast of unique Evergreen locals. Does Sam start to soften towards Becca? Yes. Does Becca decide to turn her back on big city life because home is where the heart is? Yep. Is there a Big Disagreement that threatens to ruin their tentative reunion? Yes! But just as sure as lesbians love Cate Blanchett, you can bet that there’s a (very welcome) happy ending. Sam and Becca and their love truly can conquer all - thank God for the holidays (and moms)!

Filmmaker Christin Baker is no stranger to creating content with an LGBTQI+ lens. Alongside their production house, A Baker Production, Baker has created a number of films and television series centering lesbian and queer characters, including holiday fare Christmas at the Ranch, I Hate New Year’s, and Season of Love. (Side note: Baker has made four films in five years, which is seriously impressive). The budget may be a little lower than in Hallmark films, but so what. Merry & Gay is charmingly low-budget, with a cute story, cutesy chemistry between stars Frampton and Christensen, and cute original songs. It’s just too cute, dammit!

If Evergreen was really a place that really existed, you can bet that I’d really want to move there. For sure, Merry & Gay is worth the watch for the queer romance and holiday cheer, but the best part is the gay utopia created for its characters. There’s no coming out drama. Or people struggling with the main characters’ sexuality. Everyone appropriately uses Sam’s pronouns (they/them) without question or hostility. The town treats Sam and Becca like any other couple, which is refreshing. One local even goes so far as to say they “ship them so hard” (love it). At the end of the film, as Becca and Sam reunite, kissing right in the middle of the Christmas Pageant, Evergreen residents leap to their feet in applause, whooping, hollering, and wiping joyful tears from their eyes. Wouldn’t it be lovely if this was real life?