[bold]Was Josh Hartnett a Millennial Gay Stepping-Stone? An Investigation - By Rachel Handler[/bold]
Most of Happiest Season is high-key gay in that it centers on two lesbians making out in a basement in secret. But there’s one (arguably, but not actually … you’ll see) low-key gay moment that struck me as particularly inspired on DuVall’s part. Early on, Harper’s uptight mom (Mary Steenburgen) is showing Abby (whom she believes to be Harper’s “orphan roommate”) around their home, the sort of stately redbrick manse that is a requirement for all Christmas-movie families.
The tour concludes in Harper’s old bedroom, where her kooky sister, Jane (Mary Holland), wrenches open Harper’s closet door to reveal a series of pasted-up photos of various nondescript hunks. None of the men are remotely recognizable, save for one large central photo of 1998’s hottest bachelor, Joshua D. Hartnett. “Looks, talent, brains, Hartnett’s got it all!” reads the poster, which has seemingly been ripped from a Teen Beat. Abby, trying not to laugh, breathes, “Wow.” Jane presses her face against Josh’s singed brow. “I know, right? Is it hot in here, or is it just him?”
The scene is meant to indicate just how deep in the closet Harper is and has always been, even going so far as to painstakingly decorate her own literal closet with photos of oiled-up men. But as I watched the moment unfold, it dawned on me that perhaps there’s another layer beneath that surface reading. Queerness is so often about subtext; I have to believe that writer-director DuVall, a queer woman whose second middle name is D’Etienne, would not place a photo of Josh Hartnett in a movie without imbuing it with multiple meanings.
After all, the two once co-starred in The Faculty, a movie about the importance of questioning the motives, and alleged species, of heteronormative authority figures. More important, they look very similar. I began to wonder if, by including this poster in Harper’s closet, DuVall was nodding to the fact that, for a certain subset of millennial women, Josh Hartnett was a quiet stepping-stone on the way to true queerness, i.e., lusting after Clea DuVall.
Hartnett’s appeal was obvious to anyone growing up in the ’90s with any sort of libido: the squinting eyes, the quiet brooding, the swoopy hair, the unibrow that indicated he did not care that he had a unibrow. It would be difficult for anyone, even megachurch pastors, to avoid feeling an attraction to Joshua Hartnett at his peak.
But the working theory I developed upon watching Happiest Season is that he was particularly attractive to young, confused gay women growing up in the ’90s. Again, in large part, due to the fact that he looked a lot like DuVall — who, thanks to But I’m a Cheerleader, was a burgeoning queer icon herself at that point despite still being in the closet.
