{"id":135410,"date":"2024-11-28T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/28\/caleb-hearon-has-a-message-for-queer-midwesterners-dont-move-to-new-york\/"},"modified":"2024-11-28T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T14:00:00","slug":"caleb-hearon-has-a-message-for-queer-midwesterners-dont-move-to-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/28\/caleb-hearon-has-a-message-for-queer-midwesterners-dont-move-to-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Hearon Has a Message for Queer Midwesterners: Don\u2019t Move to New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap\">\u201cIf you\u2019re not enjoying my answers, you can just say something,\u201d jokes <strong>Caleb Hearon<\/strong> shortly after we hop back on the phone. Due to technical difficulties, the 29-year-old comedian, actor, and podcaster was just cut off mid-sentence while in the throes of recounting his coming-out story. \u201cIn high school, in my very small Missouri town, I found another gay guy, and we started kind of hooking up. He was like, \u2018I want to come out.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Dude, I cannot come out in this town.\u2019 I was really jealous of him. I thought he was really brave. I ended up not coming out until my freshman year in college, when I had moved away. That was my journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That arc may be familiar to any queer person who grew up in a small, conservative town. It\u2019s also incredibly similar to the experience Hearon\u2019s character goes through in the Max romantic comedy <em>Sweethearts<\/em>, directed by <em>Dollface<\/em> creator <strong>Jordan Weiss<\/strong> and streaming on Thanksgiving. Hearon steals every scene he\u2019s in as Palmer, a newly out would-be college freshman coming home after his gap year in Paris to show off his fabulous new life to his hometown besties, Jamie (<strong>Kiernan Shipka<\/strong>) and Ben (<strong>Nico Hiraga<\/strong>). Jamie and Ben, meanwhile, are in the process of breaking up with their respective significant others and figuring out if their best friendship is actually a <em>When Harry Met Sally<\/em> situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">While Palmer may initially seem like a stereotypical \u201cgay best friend\u201d role, <em>Sweethearts<\/em> subverts expectations and takes Palmer on a wild journey of his own. \u201cThis character truly feels like his own developed person,\u201d Hearon says. \u201cIt felt like they actually cared about telling this gay story in a way that was authentic, and I thought it was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Palmer\u2019s lines aren\u2019t all one-liners and zingy bon mots, although he does have plenty of both. \u201cHe\u2019s not just a gay kid trying to figure out who he is in the world as a gay person\u2014he\u2019s also fat,\u201d says Hearon, matter-of-fact. In one montage, Palmer tries on an assortment of outfits and accessories as he psychs himself up for a party. \u201cI don\u2019t have the privilege of minimalism,\u201d he says to his reflection. \u201cThat is for thin people.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptionCredit-ejegDm iUEiRd cvffOM fNaHcW caption__credit\">Cara Howe<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cI really shaded a lot of his insecurities and his movements and his experiences through that lens,\u201d says Hearon. \u201cComing of age as anybody in a fat body is really weird and difficult in a society that doesn\u2019t super love fat people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Body image isn\u2019t the only thing Palmer is wrestling with in <em>Sweethearts.<\/em> \u201cI think a lot of young queer people from places like Ohio or Missouri, one of the first things we experiment with when we decide to come out is elitism,\u201d says Hearon. \u201cBy virtue of being different than everybody where I\u2019m from\u2014but not believing that I\u2019m worse than them\u2014does that inherently mean that I\u2019m better than all of them? I think you have to pass through the valley of the shadow of elitism on your way to being a healthy out person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">With the help of fairy gay-mothers played by <em>Severance<\/em> star <strong>Tramell Tillman<\/strong> and <em>Fire Island<\/em>\u2019s <strong>Joel Kim Booster,<\/strong> Palmer is able to pass through that valley and find queer community in his own hometown. It\u2019s something that Hearon can personally relate to. \u201cI\u2019m from a real small town in rural Missouri. I experienced my ideas about Missouri being a no-good place that I should just abandon.\u201d After his dad passed away a few years ago, Hearon reevaluated his relationship to his hometown. \u201cI just re-fell in love with it. I was like, \u2018Wait, I love this place. It\u2019s so beautiful here. It\u2019s so easy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Now Hearon has a house in Kansas City and splits his time between Missouri and New York. \u201cThere really are gay people who live very happy, exciting, successful, creative, artistic, interesting lives in the middle of the country,\u201d he says. \u201cI hope that some queer person in the middle of the country who\u2019s wondering if they can have an interesting life where they are or if they have to move to prohibitively expensive, faraway places like New York and LA\u2014I hope they watch the movie and at least some part of them feels like they don\u2019t have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/story\/caleb-hearon-has-a-message-for-queer-midwesterners-dont-move-to-new-york\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re not enjoying my answers, you can just say something,\u201d jokes Caleb Hearon shortly after we hop back on the phone. Due to technical difficulties, the 29-year-old comedian, actor, and podcaster was just cut off mid-sentence while in the throes of recounting his coming-out story. \u201cIn high school, in my very small Missouri town, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1224,340,3593,5678,4518],"class_list":{"0":"post-135410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-comedy","9":"tag-hbo-max","10":"tag-lgbtq","11":"tag-romantic-comedy","12":"tag-thanksgiving"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}