LGBTQ+ people and their love stories won't exist in Candace Cameron Bure's new slate of Christmas movies.
Best known for her roles on Full House and in Christmas movies from the Hallmark Channel, Bure has now joined a much more conservative network, the Great American Family (GAF) channel, to work on a new slate of holiday-themed projects.
When asked by the Wall Street Journal if these new Christmas movies will feature LGBTQ+ love stories, Bure said that they won't. Bure followed up by saying that these TV movies "will keep traditional marriage at the core."
The Great American Family channel has appointed Bure as the network's chief creative officer, meaning that she is reportedly "involved in content creation and curation across many genres." In other words, Bure is directly involved in the decision-making process behind which movies to make and which stories not to tell.
According to Bill Abbott, the chief executive officer of Great American Media, "spiritual or faith-based content is grossly underserved" nowadays. Abbott was the former chief executive officer of the Hallmark Channel who refused to air a commercial from Zola that featured a kiss between two brides. After a social media outrage known as #BoycottHallmark, the network apologized for its actions, and Abbott left the company shortly after.
Overall, Abbott's statement to the WSJ about the underserving of "faith-based content" is pretty jarring given how many films and TV shows with prominent faith-based storylines are released on a yearly basis in comparison to projects where faith isn't addressed whatsoever.
In turn, LGBTQ+ representation in the media is still very slim. And even when LGBTQ+ characters are included, their love stories are typically in the background and get edited out in certain countries for, you guessed it, faith-based reasons.
It seems like Bure and Abbott are well on their way to creating an LGBTQ-free universe of Christmas movies where their ideas of "American families" can feel safe to watch.
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