The gay drama ‘Straight Until He Kissed Me’ has everyone thinking the same thing

Way before the entertainment industry went belly-up, people were trying to find a way to make short content happen. Remember Quibi? It was a disaster! In a pre-AI slop timeline, people simply could not figure out how to make serialized scripted videos pop off, but now, we may have cracked the code. As it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with short form content. It’s just that it hasn’t been silly and gay enough.

That’s where the GoodShort original “vertical drama” Straight Until He Kissed Me comes in. As you may have gleaned from the title, it’s about a young executive who gets in touch with his queer side after he’s seduced by a dashing Lestat figure at the office. Specifically in the elevator.

It’s certainly not subtle, which is fine, because why would we expect subtlety from the studio that brought us Back From Hell To Take My Bow and OMG My Husband is a Callboy? We wouldn’t. What we would expect is balls-to-the-wall camp appeal, and Straight Until He Kissed Me delivers it tenfold.

How about we take this to the next level?

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“First of all, they got the world’s gayest man pretending to be straight,” says champion TikToker and Nicole Kidman defender Nirupam, who has done the important work of watching the full series so we don’t have to. “Mama, this closet is glass.”

They’re not wrong—”Why does everybody think I’m gay!” screams our protagonist, while sporting Joe Locke’s exact haircut.

In real life, actor Evan Gambardella describes himself as a “twink hypnotist” and he’s basically giving brunette Troye Sivan, so the casting is perfect here. His love interest, played by Greg Duffy, is also out and proud. So far, so good. In real life, these two are hanging out and making TikToks together and it’s very wholesome and sweet.

But back to the main event: how ridiculous is Straight Until He Kissed Me? Well, there’s an evil homophobic bully who calls a gay man “twink-a-link,” which, as Nirupam explains, is so homophobic it comes back around to being gay pride. And although each clip is loaded with looney tunes sound cues and the acting makes the performances in Road House seem subtle, something about Straight Until He Kissed Me just works.

Basically, this series (and GoodShort’s entire production model) is taking its cues from Japanese Yaoi or BL (Boys’ Love) dramas, which feature salacious, sexy pairings and steamy love affairs between men. It’s a hugely popular genre in Japan and Korea, and now it seems to be making its way over to the West—and not a moment too soon. This genre is often created with a primarily female audience in mind, but that doesn’t stop gay men from also being obsessed with it!

If you want to watch the full (ridiculous) movie, there are many ways to do it. And if you’re in the mood for even more ridiculous BL content, check out this obvious ripoff of Call Me By Your Name called “Sneak Me In Your Closet My Prince.” With a title like that, how could you resist!

As silly as these dramas are, there’s something deeply satisfying about them. We don’t have to wait for Netflix or Lifetime to give us the gay version of the Christmas Prince franchise—a new golden age of yaoi is dawning on our phones, and we’re here for it.

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