If you haven’t seen Baby Reindeer, I get it. The trailers are terrifying, and honestly, they don’t lie – the show is great, and ultimately satisfying, but it’s not easy, per se; there are genuine laughs but you pay for them, you know? 

 

One of the uncompromisingly bright spots, though, is Nava Mau. She’s one of those performers who instantly ascends above her role. You can’t tear your eyes away onscreen, and the same was true last night, wearing a wet-look red sheath designed by Gigi Goode – a fabric which, as Sarah points out, can be tricky, but Mau nailed the look, and the vibe last night. She knew she was both a bit of an outsider (more on that in a minute) and exactly where she was supposed to be. 

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I watched the first 20 seconds on repeat and cried. I love that we get to see this moment! And it just kept getting better. Laverne points out how happy she was not to be the last trans Emmy nominee, and Nava says she won’t be the last in her category, and it all just feels like… finally. Finally we’re here, you know? 

 

I think that was the vibe behind awarding Greg Berlanti the Governor’s Award, too. We’re finally here. Even though it doesn’t seem like his first show, Dawson’s Creek, happened long enough ago for him to have had a massive and illustrious career that has done wonders for LGBTQ+ visibility… here we are.

 

I loved his emotion, but what was most notable to me was that there was evidence of his efforts to make LGBTQ+ stories more visible everywhere, in all the Berlanti shows past and present, that were referenced, of course – but also in Fellow Travelers. In Red, White, and Royal Blue. In Hacks. In Baby Reindeer, which didn’t shy away from telling all the complicated sides of messy stories, because those exist too. In Jodie Foster shouting out her wife, and kissing her on camera, and all of us remembering when that would never happen. In the references to Glee and Schitt’s Creek and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and the universally beloved Bowen Yang and enough other people and places that listing them all seems to be kind of silly and extraneous and beside the point, which is the self-same point. 

 

I don’t want to be glib and say “we’re there”, because I know that “we” is still a relatively small bubble, that there are still millions of queer people or LGBTQ+ kids whose only sense that “it gets better” comes from people online saying so, and who have never seen anything in their actual lives to prove it. But it does seem like, if someone who feels alone is watching, we’re making a better case than ever that it really can be different. That when we’re giving someone the Governor’s Award, it’s to point out that, “Hey, that thing you were working so hard on? There are more people on it now, we’re gonna keep at it – we can go ahead and say we’re making progress.” 

 

When something that was a huge deal becomes unremarkable, something’s going in the right direction, and it felt great to see it all en masse — even if, when Jack McPhee first kissed a boy on Dawson’s, we had no idea it would take almost 25 years to remark on the fact that it’s finally the no big deal it was always supposed to be.