Queer adult animation is a medium that doesn’t get much attention, and when it does, it’s often mocked instead of reviewed fairly. For example, in 2021 Netflix released Q-Force, an animated series about queer spies. It wasn’t well received due to poor marketing and homophobic sentiment, with many taking clips out of context and slandering it, while those who watched it in full generally enjoyed it. It's difficult to get queer animated projects made at all, let alone review-bombed without anyone giving it a fair chance. 

This is the ecosystem Jim Queen was born into. Initially conceptualised in the late 2010s, the French film struggled to secure funding due to prospective investors not seeing the project as commercially viable, resulting in a seven-year production timeline. Due to this extended stay in production limbo, the movie struggles to weave together the motley of ideas and plot points it incorporates.

The conflict of the movie centres around an outbreak of “Heterosis”, a disease turning people straight. When Jim, a clout chasing gym influencer, is infected with “Heterosis”, he and his sidekick Lucien must overcome their differences and fight a colourful cast of villains while growing as characters. Lucien is the son of a conservative Prime Minister, who is working with the movie's main villain, Dr. Ragoult. The doctor can synthesise the cure for “Heterosis” but requires the extraction of Lucien's prostate. Jim, at Dr. Ragoult’s request, invites Lucien on his journey for a cure, with the hidden agenda of delivering his prostate. This leads to a MacGuffin-style chase for the doctor's address, hindered by Jim's stereotypical gay exes and the threat of the “Gaystapo”, a Nazi-esque group whose goal is turning all those affected by “Heterosis” homosexual through torture. The middle section is quite tedious, as it runs through the same plot beats repeatedly with minor changes.

While not every idea in its 90-minute runtime lands, they are interesting in their own right. The film opens with two musical numbers introducing our main characters: “On est Les Gym Queen” and “Comme Je L'aime”, the latter being a parody of The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World”. I wish the movie continued to explore this musicality more. The songs taper off as the film continues with the exception of a duet battle and one more standout track.

References are scattered throughout the film—some recognisable to the average viewer, some of which I learned while researching. Beyond The Little Mermaid gag, there are nods to RuPaul's Drag Race, a unicorn Trojan Horse and even Dragon Ball Z. The most notable is the inclusion of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that uses drag and religious imagery to serve the underprivileged while satirising all things from sex and gender to morality. One of the emotional highlights occurs when Glamydia, one of these sisters, performs “Adieu”, a lament to all things homosexual as she succumbs to “Heterosis” so the main characters can escape from the “Gaystapo.” It's a genuinely touching moment, and I wish the movie had cut down on some of the random plot points to make room for more tender moments like this. It also instigates the budding romance between the main characters a little before the third act comes in, so I wish it arrived earlier.

I wrote on my Letterboxd the second I left the film that you can feel every minute of its runtime. A good chunk of the runtime is spent on a MacGuffin, with the characters hopping from location to location dealing with the exes while the “Gaystapo” chases them. The scenes aren’t necessarily repetitive, but it can feel like little progression is actually happening. When the plotlines converge and we learn Dr. Ragoult is working for the Prime Minister, the “Gaystapo” thread gets wrapped up fast, which feels a little anti-climactic. Though I understand the message that infighting is pointless amidst systemic injustice, I wish it felt less rushed.

Furthermore, the parallels between “Heterosis” and HIV are hard to ignore, which makes it unfortunate that the film's lens stays fixed on cis, white, gay men. Aside from stray shots of lesbians and the rest of the LGBT community in one of the last group shots, the film’s only alternative representation is Jim's black, female and straight best friend. She is a fantastic character throughout, but it feels like a band aid solution to the larger issue. The movie tries to lampshade this issue by way of Glamydia joking early on that even though we are united as a whole, there is a lot of separation between different groups within the LGBT community, but I think this omission is really unfortunate when considering the role lesbians and trans people had during the AIDS crisis. These communities were a huge part in not only advocating for the community but also taking care of them when traditional healthcare turned HIV patients away, so their exclusion is felt.

I’ve spent hundreds of words mentioning my issues with the film, but despite this, Jim Queen is a movie I think most people should watch. While it does not reinvent the wheel, it does push against the edges of the box it sits in. The movie is not perfect by any means, but it’s a fun watch, and its success could signal that queer adult animation is an artform worth investing in.