{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.021150592216582064, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004230118443316413, 'mean_word_length': 5.360215053763441, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Isn’t Straight Still the Default?

Chapter 3 presents a close reading of the 2018 film Love, Simon and contrasts it with its source material, Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. The comparative reading of the film with its original source material in the young adult novel makes clear not only just how much dignity has become an anchoring theme in pop cultural representations of LGBTQ+ life but also how the term’s meaning commonly emerges as a recurrent claim that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, and queer people are “just like you” or just like the straight majority despite what is conceptualized only as a relatively insignificant and highly personal individualistic trait: sexuality. Reading through the lens of Black queer studies, this chapter reveals how the film markets itself as progressive with its multicultural casting but falls victim to bolstering white supremacy with its single-issue queer politics. Consequently, the exclusionary force of dignity becomes immediately evident, for it is always privileging certain raced, classed, and gendered ways of living that conform to heteronormative and neoliberal assumptions.