Why Call Me By Your Name Sucks

 

Hello everyone!

    You have probably all watched, or at least heard, of the movie "Call Me By Your Name". While it is a good movie in some aspects, it also presents many, many moral issues. 

 

After I have expressed my hatred towards this film several times, Mr Leah asked me to make an article about it, so I decided to go ahead! WARNING i cannot STOP rambling about stuff that angers me so this thing is long. Anyway, here it is: let the CMBYN slander begin!! *evil laughter*

 Disclaimer: Before we start, I want to warn that I will be mentioning: sexual relationships, pedophilia, manipulation,slight homophobia(??), and spoilers of the film.  Also, I want to say that yes, I did cry like a baby watching the movie. Yes I still hate it. We exist.

  The disturbing content

"Call Me By Your Name” is a film about the “forbidden” romance between a closeted seventeen year old boy (Elio) and a twenty-four year old man (Oliver). 

It came out (lol) in 2017, starring Thimothee Chalamet as Elio, Armie Hammer as Oliver, produced by Luca Guadagnino, from the book written by Andre Aciman. The film was adored by the audience and acclaimed as great portrayal of gay love: it talks about a predatory man who preys on a younger person to get into a relationship with him :) Cute right? Many people probably saw the movie and thought of it as a “cute gay romance uwu” or as a "sexy summer love" sooo...

...you might be wondering, “Why is it predatory?”.

    First of all, Oliver is 7 years older than Elio, meaning he is still IN HIGH SCHOOL?? As a 17 year old, you might come to think “oh yeah I could totally date a 24 year old”. The thing is, as a 24 yo adult, you will NOT want to be dating a high schooler. At such a young age, a seven years age gap makes a major difference. Andre Aciman, the author of the original book, says himself in an interview: “Those seven years, they do matter. The person you are at 17 and the person you are even at 16: totally different; and from 17 to 24 there’s a substantial difference.

Talking about this... there have been times were Andre Aciman made some questionable statements regarding stuff like that. On June 13, 2019 in a Spanish newspaper, he casually mentioned that he finds himself attracted to 12 year old girls. He says*: “The other day, talking with a friend, I told him "I see 12-year-old girls and I already find them attractive," and he told me, "Me too, but you can't talk about it." And I replied, "No, never." Because if you talk about it, you're almost guilty of it.“”  These rather pedophilic tendencies show in his work, when he pictures this 17 year old boy having sex with a 24 year old man, for example.

*(I could not find the original source of the newspaper (because I don’t speak Spanish,,,, sadly) so I do not know the veracity of this fact.)

On top of that, Luca Guadagnino, the producer of CMBYN, defended Woody Allen when he was accused of pedophilic sexual assault by his adopted daughter. And Actor of Oliver Armie Hammer stated in a recent interview that working with convicted rapists is “a grey area”. They've done nothing wrong, but I just think it’s funny how they defend twisted sexual behaviors, regarding the movie they worked on lol

That being said, not only does the age gap questions the healthiness of the relationship, but the dynamic between the two lovers is inherently sick. For context, by the end of the film, Oliver leaves Italy and Elio behind, without getting in touch with him until the winter (rude). When he finally calls Elio, he informs him that he is intending to marry a woman the upcoming spring, while we watch Elio, still very much in love, cry by the fireplace (and THATS when I started bawling my eyes out). This is explained by the fact that Oliver had no intention of pursuing any kind of romantic relationship once the summer ended. He only saw Elio as an easy to manipulate distraction while the 17 yo boy was heavily affected by their relationship.

The manipulating behavior of Oliver is seen in many more aspects: the fact that he keeps their relationship a secret, that he keeps making advances on Elio even if he has a girlfriend, that he voluntarily sexually frustrates him, that he voluntarily remains distant at first after showing interest in Elio, etc.

We saw Elio’s whole world start to revolve around Oliver. They are together at all times, the young boy falls heavily in love, and, as all of the action revolves around the two, you might come to wonder: Did Oliver feel the same? As he marries someone new less than a year later? Someone that he DID NOT mention once? Mmmh.

 

The Impact Call Me By Your Name Has.

Yessss here comes my favourite part.

It is, unfortunately, a pretty normal occurrence in gay experiences that young boys will date older men. I have heard many stories of 16 year old boys losing their virginity to full on grown men on a one night stand. Indeed, pedophilia is pretty normalized in the gay community. This movie is NOT helping. An article  talks about it better than I do, you should check it out if you’re interested

The fact that weird age gaps and unhealthy relationship are normal occurence in the community does not mean that it should be glamorized. There is no problem in picturing issues like these. The problem in CMBYN, is that it is not seen as such. It does not call out how difficult it is to explore your sexuality when you’re closeted without getting preyed on. The problem is NOT criticized, it is seen as normal, as a romance, a first summer love.

If you look up reviews on the internet, most of them will mention how CMBYN is a “beautiful coming of age story”:

“Guadagnino tantalises, seduces, teases with a sensuousness which threatens to climax throughout” (Screendaily)

“Call Me by Your Name offers a melancholy, powerfully affecting portrait of first love, empathetically acted by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer.” (Rotten Tomatoes),

“These are movies that turn your gaze into near-touch, inviting you to see and almost caress their sun-warmed bodies.” (talking about CMBYN and other movies from Luca Guadagnino, NYTimes). 

Armie Hammer, (who was later on found out to be into cannibalism??lmao), himself affirms that “nothing about the relationship was predatory”.

You get it, the audience loves to romanticize Call Me By Your Name. Not many people seem to care about the unhealthy aspect of these interactions, and the negative impact this movie has.

Yeah.. representation does more than we might think, especially on topics like these. If you constantly see gay men in crappy romantic situations you will end up thinking that it’s the norm.

• This movie enforces the idea that gay men pray on younger boys. 
• It enforces the idea that gay love cannot be innocent and not inherently sexual (this movie is VERY sexual… the peach scene…...oh my god THE PEACH SCENE). 
• It enforces the idea that gay love is “forbidden” and "unhealthy".
  

The fact that Andre Aciman is a straight man is also not helping in destroying these stereotypes. As he states in a interview, he truly wished for this book to be a depiction of gay love that was “easy, and harmonious and accepting” (hence the absence of homophobic people in it). However, although he's meaning well,  his experience as a heterosexual man did not enable him to see beyond these stereotypes, and he created a, yet again, unhealthy relationship between two males.

However... I must say, the movie is insanely beautiful. It’s not all bad! I mean look at THIS 

 

 

AND THIS

Also the soundtrack is equally as breathtaking: Love my way by the Psychedelic Furs got me feeling some type of way :sad yeehaw: and let’s not forget ICONIC Mystery of love by Sufjan Stevens! I know some of you cried to this song (before it became a meme lol)

Sadly... this only hides the underlying issue within the dynamic of the two men. The perfect and dream-like aesthetic of the film helps the audience to think of it as romance. The pretty envelope only strengthens the message “it’s normal to be in a toxic relationship. and huh.... nope, nothing wrong’s going on here”.

Overall view 

    I want to conclude by saying, I do not HATE Call Me By Your Name as much as I say I do (yeah the title was basically clickbait sorry). It affected me a lot, it  made me feel strong emotions and its beautifully made. I talked about it for days after watching it (yes i swear i said good things abt it): it truly is a great depiction of passion and falling in love! It simply fails to consider so, so many moral issues.

If “Call Me By Your Name” intended to be an introspection into the mind of a predator, or even a portrayal of the trauma that dating adults causes teenagers, there wouldn’t be a problem with it. 

However, it isn’t. And that’s the problem.

Well that's it! Sorry this was not as joyful as other articles, but I tried my best! Thank you for reading :)

 

PS: pls take a look at this. If I did not convince you, this will. 

- Lucas :^)