I went to see Love, Simon on opening weekend after having read Becky Albertalli’s book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. I enjoyed the movie as I had the book, though I knew as I experienced both that the edges had been smoothed over to the point where almost no one could be offended, including those who should be. But the fact that it is a coming out story with a few good conceits made it enjoyable overall.

Also, it was firmly rooted in the same blandness heterosexual high school comedies are rooted in so there was a familiarity that was easy to accept on first viewing. And it’s hard to fault Hollywood for making a gay movie the way they make a straight one. There’s a review on Towleroad which talks about the vanilla nature of the film and makes a strong case for liking it despite its blandness. And for the most part, I agree. I like vanilla too.

The best and most nuanced scene in the movie is one where Simon is called to the vice principal’s office with another gay kid, Ethan. Ethan is the kind of gay kid who’s never been able to be out. He’s flamboyant and obvious, and so Simon has stayed as far away from him as possible. As they wait to be talked to, Simon at least comes close to recognizing the internalized homophobia that kept him from (and actually continues to keep him from) being friends with Ethan.

For me, the worst part of Love, Simon is the fantasy world it’s set in. Both the book and the film are set in a very progressive school where kids mix regardless of race and income level. More than that, the neighborhood they live in is mixed — and almost obscenely wealthy. There are places that might be like that but this movie is set in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia Voice describes schools in Georgia as not safe for LGBT students maybe the schools in Atlanta are better than the rest of the state but I find that hard to believe. I also find it a dangerous thing to tell teenagers, both because it’s so far from what most kids experience and because it creates a dangerous perception that others have it better.

Much more problematic is the TV show Instinct which is apparently the first U.S. network drama with a gay lead character. It’s a police procedural so basically, it’s a gay mystery, the genre in which I write. As it’s source material, it uses a book written by James Patterson (or rather one of his minions). Despite the fact that the main character is gay, the show itself is about as not-gay as you can get. That might be okay if the show wasn’t basically generic. As a police procedural it’s awful — partly because they pay no attention to what police procedures really are.

I’ve watched two and a half episodes and despite the occasional and very brief scenes with Reinhardt’s attractive and conflict-deprived husband, the only thing I saw that was remotely gay was a woolen coat Alan Cumming wore in one scene.

The incredible blandness of this show is such a missed opportunity. If you’re going to have a TV show that’s a gay mystery it should be completely different from every other show on the air, it should be using its gayness to turn the genre on its head. I don’t know what the corporate mechanics were that produced this show but it seems that they have a crew of writers who know nothing about queerness and nothing about writing a good mystery.

One of the reasons minority-based mysteries are so compelling is that the crime and the search for justice mirrors the life experience of the characters. If you’re a member of a minority you spend your life, to a greater or lesser extent, seeking social justice. Here though, they’ve siphoned off the character’s gayness — focusing instead on his relationship with a straight female cop — and in doing so they’ve wounded their show mightily. Cumming does his best to be charming but the show is not going to last long on his charm alone and by the third show it began to feel like he was well aware of that. The ratings have begun to plummet.

The most unfortunate aspect of this debacle is that television executives all over Hollywood will not look at this and say it was just another crappy cop show and that’s why it failed. No, they’ll see it as the gay cop show that failed with the emphasis on gay. And it will be a long time before we see anything like it again.

Meanwhile, the much more successful Love, Simon which at least has a gay plot at its core, may spawn more movies like it. Yes, I remember we said the same thing about Brokeback Mountain and nothing happened. But maybe this time it will.

One can hope.