Call Me By Your Name: How negative representation perpetuates the ‘predator’ stereotype of queer folks and affects how young queer men form relationships

Luca Guadagnino’s beloved film, Call Me By Your Name (2017) may be progressive in its allegedly admiring depiction of a same sex relationship between two young men, however its deeper message and narrative are backwards. Whilst in quarantine, revisiting both the movie and the book recently led me to think about the harmful stereotype that this story perpetuates. Even though neither Andre Aciman’s book nor Luca Guadagnino’s film purposely play up the age gap, or how the relationship between Elio and Oliver is unethical and inappropriate, both versions leave an impression that this type of relationship is something normal in the LGBTQ community. 

The lush and dream-like movie is centered around 17-year-old Elio (Timothee Chalamet), who falls in love with Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old PhD student studying with Elio’s father in Italy for a summer, during the 1980s. As the two young men flit through the breathtakingly beautiful Italian  landscape, experience flings with women, and take advantage of lazy days in the summer heat, they begin to take notice of each other. To me, Call Me By Your Name isn’t simply about an older man and a younger man. It falsely romanticizes an exploitative relationship between a teenager and a fully grown man.  These manipulative relationships can cause lasting damage, as I have seen first hand. 

Many young queer teenagers coming into their own watch this movie to get a crumb of queer represenation and try to find little bits of themselves within the characters. One of my close friends, like many queer teens, looked to movies, music, and television to show him what a relationship for himself could look like. Heterosexual people have plenty of points of reference throughout culture; there are an abundance of films, television shows, and music that depict all types of heterosexual romantic relationships, both healthy ones (albeit sometimes unrealistic) and abusive ones. But what happens when relationships like Elio’s and Oliver’s are the only option for young queer men in mainstream media? 

That same friend of mine had been going through a lot in the spring. Like any 16-year-old he had the responsibilities of school already weighing on him, as well as coming to terms with sexuality, and battling with symptoms depression, (which is something that LGBT teens are six times as likely to experience than their heterosexual counterparts). We talked about anything and everything over the phone, catching up about our latest quarantine hobbies, new tv show obsessions, and our failed attempts at gardening. He told me about a man he met on Grindr, who he was regularly seeing, and joked that he felt like he was in his favorite movie, Call Me By Your Name. I was immediately taken aback. Alarmed, I expressed my concerns for his safety and health and flat out suggested he stop, before it became too late. He hung up the phone on me before I could say another word. That’s when it hit me. Movies like this, that romanticize abusive and unethical relationships, have an effect on every young person in the LGBTQ community - whether they have watched the film or not. Such films not only stigmatize queer folks as predatory to other people, but also affect queer youth coming into their own identities and searching for an example of what a relationship could look like for them. 

You could argue that some movies positively depict young queer relationships, like Love Simon (2018) for example. But we need not forget that Love Simon is not a critically acclaimed Academy Award Winning Movie and it doesn’t feature headlining actors like Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. The film wasn’t marketed and packaged to the consumer the same meticulous way Call Me By Your Name was. We cannot compare the influence of these two films on youth culture. Love Simon was a cheesy romantic comedy that covered the inner struggles of coming to terms with one’s sexuality. It was realistic in the sense that it depicted the raw emotions and struggles that went on in Simon’s head, but at the same time unrealistic in the whole ‘online secret admirer’ thing. Let’s face it, is that how any relationship starts - gay or straight? No. 

In Call Me By Your Name on the other hand, the viewer lacks the ability to empathize with Elio, because of how effortlessly he embraces his queer identity. When he discovers his attraction to men, he doesn’t seem to experience any anxieties or worry, which invalidates the inner battle that many queer people experience when coming to terms with their sexuality. Elio doesn’t seem to miss a beat before acting on his feelings of attraction and hardly worries about coming out to his family or friends, which frankly, is completely unrealistic. A similar storyline plays out for another queer character in the hit HBO limited series Europhia. Jules, a 17-year-old trans girl is new in a ‘side of the road’ suburban town. We learn by the first episode that she regularly hooks up with random grown men on an app similar to Grindr, for validation. This is yet another example of media that not only perpetuates the predatory stigma towards queer people, but is also a sub-par representation of authentic relationship options for queer youth. 

The friend I mentioned earlier, like Elio, is similar to any teenager who desires a relationship that is both exciting and affirming. Like any young queer teen he looked to the screen to find solace in someone who was similar to him, whom he could relate to. For most LGBT teenage boys, the dating pool is small in high school. Queer men are far less likely to be openly ‘out’ in high school due to the prevalence of toxic masculinity and homophobia. It isn’t as easy and glamorous as Love Simon suggests. Ultimately, like any teenager, they long to have a relationship with someone and find intimacy. So what happens when that isn’t readily available to queer youth? What happens when movies like Call Me By Your Name portray an alternative, ‘easier’ option? 

The most horrifying thing was hearing my friend rationalize this relationship by claiming it was similar to the one portrayed in the film. The movie ends without any type of repercussions or consequences for Elio, and therein lies the problem. Call Me By Your Name leads viewers to believe that what they’re seeing isn’t wrong, abusive, or inappropriate. It makes boys and young men, like my friend, believe that a relationship like Elio’s and Oliver's is completely okay and normal, without illustrating the consequences of such relationships. 

Call Me by Your Name is not a radical, brilliant piece of art. We need to call it by its name. That name is abuse. It’s incredibly important that others do not view this narrative as a model for how most queer relationships are and how they work. This film shouldn’t be thought of as a sexy coming-of-age romance, a deliciously painful tryst from which both partners emerge better for having known each other. In instances like these we have to ask ourselves: is this the representation that is made for us? If the answer is no, it’s not representation.