I know there's a second book but I honestly don't care to read it, I'm sure it was written beautifully and all but the whole elio and Oliver finding each other again after Oliver was being a real piece of shit.. Just makes me feel weird
personally I thought this was a beautiful movie especially the themes and visuals but tbh the age gap did creep me out a bit , I never liked Oliver and I thought I was the only one lol. Definitely am still a bit obsessed with how elio perlman thinks but yeah Oliver was creepy and this essay was much needed
tbh it is a rlly beautiful looking film and i think that’s why ppl consider it a romance whereas i would say it’s more of a cautionary tale also the actor that plays oliver being good looking rlly helps in making ppl think he’s not that creepy even tho he is
The Call Me By Your Name film and book came out when I was in high school. I thought the age gap was strange but all of my peers thought it was such a romantic story. I was in disbelief to see that adults shared the same belief as teenagers about a story like this. This was a really interesting read. I love the way you unraveled the layers behind the romanticization of this story.
I have an earnest question for you- Do you think that the movie shouldn't have been made? Or that its portrayal of the relationship should have been different?
I worry that a lot of media atm suffers from over-explaining. I didn't feel it needed a narrator or character in the background to remind me that relationships with age gaps (particularly when teenagers are involved) can be problematic. It's been foreverrr since I watched this film so I would probs have to go back and rewatch to figure out decisively how I feel about it as a whole
oh no i 100% think the movie should have been made because its an important story and lesson to put out there. I think there's two things that led to the misconception of the movie and its lesson, probably should have mentioned it in the essay but i digress. One, its gorgeous aesthetic hurt the plot and overall lesson, not only are elio and oliver conventionally attractive but the movie is beautiful to look at, doesnt help that the parents of all characters were all for the relationship which i understand is a part of the story but when you couple that with everything else the message gets lost. I don't think the movie needed to over explain for it to get the job done but the one character that is against the relationship, Marzia is pushed aside and made to look like the villain even thought shes entirely in the right for being worried about this twenty something year old man taking a liking to her teen friend. Secondly, media literacy is basically non existent now a days and sadly if you dont at least try to make oliver look obviously bad, at least for a single scene, people are going to entirely miss it and romanticize the hell out of it. Which is exactly what happened, particularly with straight women I've noticed. When you make a movie like this you gotta take into consideration your audience, good looking men are going to attract a certain demographic that probably isnt super educated on the queer community. I dont know i feel like i went all over the place with this answer but i hope it helped somewhat at least.
Thanks for taking the time to answer me! I appreciate it. :)
I suppose I’m more used to morally grey characters in TV and film in Western Europe, so I probably would have found it over the top for Guadagnino to go out of his way to portray Oliver as being “obviously” bad. The age of consent in Italy is 14 (ick) but it rises to 16 when one partner is in a position of authority over the other. 16 is quite common across Europe, so I think for a European audience our reaction was maybe a bit different.
Myself and a lot of other gay people I know (all European) have been in Elio’s position with similar age gaps (teens and early 20s). In that sense it felt very real to me. But I wasn’t a beautiful twink with a gorgeous summer house in Italy so that’s where the similarity ends 😭
I know there's a second book but I honestly don't care to read it, I'm sure it was written beautifully and all but the whole elio and Oliver finding each other again after Oliver was being a real piece of shit.. Just makes me feel weird
Ditto!
personally I thought this was a beautiful movie especially the themes and visuals but tbh the age gap did creep me out a bit , I never liked Oliver and I thought I was the only one lol. Definitely am still a bit obsessed with how elio perlman thinks but yeah Oliver was creepy and this essay was much needed
tbh it is a rlly beautiful looking film and i think that’s why ppl consider it a romance whereas i would say it’s more of a cautionary tale also the actor that plays oliver being good looking rlly helps in making ppl think he’s not that creepy even tho he is
thank you omg this movie unsettled me so much
i saw this for the first time last night and thought the same thing!!
The Call Me By Your Name film and book came out when I was in high school. I thought the age gap was strange but all of my peers thought it was such a romantic story. I was in disbelief to see that adults shared the same belief as teenagers about a story like this. This was a really interesting read. I love the way you unraveled the layers behind the romanticization of this story.
I have an earnest question for you- Do you think that the movie shouldn't have been made? Or that its portrayal of the relationship should have been different?
I worry that a lot of media atm suffers from over-explaining. I didn't feel it needed a narrator or character in the background to remind me that relationships with age gaps (particularly when teenagers are involved) can be problematic. It's been foreverrr since I watched this film so I would probs have to go back and rewatch to figure out decisively how I feel about it as a whole
oh no i 100% think the movie should have been made because its an important story and lesson to put out there. I think there's two things that led to the misconception of the movie and its lesson, probably should have mentioned it in the essay but i digress. One, its gorgeous aesthetic hurt the plot and overall lesson, not only are elio and oliver conventionally attractive but the movie is beautiful to look at, doesnt help that the parents of all characters were all for the relationship which i understand is a part of the story but when you couple that with everything else the message gets lost. I don't think the movie needed to over explain for it to get the job done but the one character that is against the relationship, Marzia is pushed aside and made to look like the villain even thought shes entirely in the right for being worried about this twenty something year old man taking a liking to her teen friend. Secondly, media literacy is basically non existent now a days and sadly if you dont at least try to make oliver look obviously bad, at least for a single scene, people are going to entirely miss it and romanticize the hell out of it. Which is exactly what happened, particularly with straight women I've noticed. When you make a movie like this you gotta take into consideration your audience, good looking men are going to attract a certain demographic that probably isnt super educated on the queer community. I dont know i feel like i went all over the place with this answer but i hope it helped somewhat at least.
Thanks for taking the time to answer me! I appreciate it. :)
I suppose I’m more used to morally grey characters in TV and film in Western Europe, so I probably would have found it over the top for Guadagnino to go out of his way to portray Oliver as being “obviously” bad. The age of consent in Italy is 14 (ick) but it rises to 16 when one partner is in a position of authority over the other. 16 is quite common across Europe, so I think for a European audience our reaction was maybe a bit different.
Myself and a lot of other gay people I know (all European) have been in Elio’s position with similar age gaps (teens and early 20s). In that sense it felt very real to me. But I wasn’t a beautiful twink with a gorgeous summer house in Italy so that’s where the similarity ends 😭