How the movie “Shelter” helped me come out and redefine love

The last thing gay men need in the queer film industry is another coming-of-age trope, but after rewatching 2007’s Shelter, I couldn’t help but think that maybe more would be OK. 

Seeing five-year-old Cody (Jackson Wurth) insist his young uncle Zach (Trevor Wright) be his ‘Daddy’ (in place of his absent father), I remember the times I, too, forced this role on unsuspecting older men. But I digress.

Nothing new could be said about being closeted besides that it sucks. And that’s what makes Shelter so refreshing; Zach is autonomous and supports his older mess of a sister and her kid as if he’s head of the family. There is minimal conflict among kin on sexuality. 

We don’t have to endure another young adult coming out to his parents. We know that storyline – we’ve lived it. So I suppose director Jonah Markowitz’s decision to kill the mother and make the father senile gave us a reprieve from what we’ve come to expect from these types of movies: the parents have an issue with their son’s gay love affair and then they get over it. 

How about we take this to the next level?

Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.

Daily

Weekly

Promotions and Partner Emails

I’m not saying coming-out stories don’t matter, but writers don’t always need to suffocate the plot with it. Enter Zach’s best friend’s older brother, Shawn (Brad Rowe), into the mix, and the theme more passionately channels that of forbidden love and, ultimately, a rescue arc. 

At 19, I experienced my first sexual relationship with a man, Jared, a 34-year-old realtor in New York. It happened right before I needed to return home to Miami from college for the summer. Unlike Zach, I had already moved to a colorfully vibrant city with endless opportunities ahead of me, yet I felt no less trapped with my hetero persona. After experiencing the euphoria of what happens between two naked male bodies, I felt a horrible knot in my stomach thinking about being forced to re-assimilate with my childhood friends. 

Also, this was around the time I started binging gay cinema in secrecy, including Shelter. The scene of romantic pillow talk following Zach and Shawn’s first time making love (yes, I’m calling it that) resembled my real-life encounter with Jared. 

While laying in bed staring at each other, Zach points out that Shawn is supposed to return to Los Angeles. “I’m pretty happy here,” Shawn responds, “Why don’t you come with me?”

Jared and my pillow talk initially followed a similar pattern. He called me beautiful and said he liked me. He insisted I spend the night. So why wouldn’t I think he might just let me live with him for the summer? Shawn and Zach eventually moved together to Los Angeles, presumably forever, and Cody even went with them! (The sister ends up abandoning her child to move across the country with another deadbeat boyfriend.) Was I crazy to hope Jared might want to rescue me from sleeping with another girl?

Viewing the film again as a more experienced adult with ten years of queerness in him (no pun intended), I notice obvious flaws: for example, the kissing imitates horny birds pecking at each other. Zach is technically Shawn’s rebound following a breakup with a boyfriend he previously lived with. Red flags decorate their entire relationship. Their happily-ever-after seems destined for heartbreak, either by Zach inevitably learning to separate love from lust with the countless muscle gays in LA or by Shawn getting over the honeymoon phase and realizing there’s no cockblocker in life like being a parent. 

When I became too intense, Jared ghosted me. This was a time before there was even a phrase for this phenomenon, so I interpreted it less as a trend and more like the worst thing to ever happen to me. Until the next guy, at least. Publicly identifying as gay taught me only the truth could save me. But the idea of a man coming to my rescue delighted my fantasies, and it still does. 

Disney’s a billion-dollar industry because it has ingrained millions of girls with the promise that their Prince Charming is out there. Shelter was the first time I considered a man might come for me. Though those fantasies now involve him arriving with a friend. 

Before Zach reconciles with Shawn, his beard Tori asks him if their time together was worth the heartache. Zach glances at her without needing to answer. It always is.