Making the Yuletide Gay- An Ode to "Dashing in December"
'Tis the season for a thousand and one holiday films bursting with evergreen farms, surprise snowstorms, last-minute flights, and of course, snow-capped romantic happily ever afters. But for many years, the movies all seemed to share the same glaring omission- a lack of representation. In the past decade or so, Hallmark and Lifetime and the like have made an effort to increase racial diversity of their holiday romances. (NOTE: They have not always been successful at this and they have not done nearly enough.) Still, pairings other than a man and a woman were nowhere to be found in the holiday lineups. Hallmark specifically has struggled with LGBTQ+ equality, making headlines in 2019 when they aired an ad that showed a lesbian couple, promptly pulled the ad after public backlash, and then apologized for pulling the ads. But in 2021, the company appointed a new CEO, Wonya Lucas, who said that Hallmark was committed to a “seismic” shift in their expansion of diversity. Now,