Yes and yes! I grew up on queer allegory, seeking it out intentionally, because it was pretty much all I had to nurture me in a harsh world. My late husband Lenny, who was 20 years older than me, was even more of the allegory expert — as were so many queer people of his generation.

He could rattle off film after film, play after play, that centered queer allegory and/or subtext. And why not? Explicit queer films in his youth were limited to such fare as the Leopold and Loeb story, in which queer characters don't just die in the end, they are the face of evil.

Lenny reveled in and celebrated allegory, because it's all he knew, all he understood as possible.

I think he would have loved this story — which celebrates the power of allegory while noting that much more is becoming possible.

We CAN have it all. We can have beautiful works of allegorical art but speak to people in various ways depending on their perspectives. And we can have positive, celebratory queer films that dive deep into positive lived experience.

We're getting there!