If "Barbie" (and Cormac McCarthy) taught us anything, it's that few symbols herald straight hypermasculinity quite like horses do.
Movie Review: Luke Gilford takes you on a trip to a queer rodeo in ‘National Anthem’
If "Barbie" (and Cormac McCarthy) taught us anything, it's that few symbols herald straight hypermasculinity quite like horses do.
Perhaps that's why queer cowboy stories have endured in Hollywood - one way to make a love story interesting after all is by making it subversive or forbidden.
Luke Gilford's "National Anthem" sits within that tradition of films. But it also doesn't.
It's true that 21-year-old Dylan (a phenomenal Charlie Plummer) has not been raised in an environment that celebrates or is even open to his sexuality. As a poor construction worker in the American Southwest and father figure to his younger brother, Dylan mostly stays quiet and keeps his head down when his mother (Robyn Lively) and co-workers scoff in disgust or make jokes about him being gay.