I’m indifferent about Christmas trees, whether it’s the one I may or may not put up in my own home or the one that draws crowds at Rockefeller Center. In recent years, in this post-Elfster society, I’ve happily bowed out of Secret Santa exchanges. My hand-embroidered stocking collects dust in my parents’ basement, replaced on the mantel by newer stockings — embroidered by the same hands — that now hang for my nieces and nephew. This year, for the first time in my life, I’ll be flying on Christmas Day. I’m sentimental, but when it comes to Christmas traditions, I find myself most attached to one I accidentally created for myself in 2005.
Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I rewatch The Family Stone.
I have a vague memory of the first time I saw it. We went to the movie theater near my aunt’s house on Long Island after getting milkshakes at Itgen’s Ice Cream Parlour, where my older brother and cousin would crush on the girls behind the counter. We went to the parlour often enough that our group of cousins made up a song about the unrequited love between the teen boys and slightly older teen girls. I remember walking out of the theater, belly full of Whoppers and Slushee, into the cold while the adults moaned and groaned. I thought they must have had tummy aches too, but no, that wasn’t the case. They fucking hated the movie.
Nearly 20 years after its release, my mom stands firmly by her original thoughts on the film. “The end doesn’t justify the means,” she tells me, referring to the family’s refusal to accept Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) for who she is and their cruelty toward her. My mom feels strongly that the matriarch of the family, Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton), is an irredeemable, nasty woman who selfishly ruined Christmas for her family. She also argues that none of the other characters are likable, each contributing to an overall unpleasant experience for someone who has, ultimately, done nothing wrong.
Still, it’s for all the reasons my mom dislikes The Family Stone that it has become a holiday favorite among younger queer and trans people. The film does a near-perfect job of portraying a gay relationship between Thad Stone (Tyrone Giordano) and his partner Patrick (Brian J. White). The pair serve as a grounding presence amidst the high-conflict, anxiety-laden scenes, offering calmness, love, and reason. This portrayal earned The Family Stone a nomination for the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film (Wide Release) in 2006, though it lost to none other than Brokeback Mountain.
Thad and Patrick’s relationship isn’t the only thing that resonates with queer and trans people. It’s kind of… everything else in the movie. From the set design and holiday setting to Rachel McAdams’ spectacularly queer-coded character and the depiction of parental allyship, The Family Stone is many queer folks’ first introduction to warm, unconditional familial love. It’s to be loved is to be known in a perfectly paced hour-and-forty-minute runtime.
That’s my hypothesis, at least. I was able to identify all of this as unconditional familial love because, well, that’s how I was brought up. I come from a warm, come-as-you-are household, so when I saw it on the big screen (and many, many small screens thereafter), I was able to name it. But I know that not every queer person is as fortunate as I am to come from a family like the Stones. I wasn’t sure if other queer people felt as strongly about The Family Stone as I did… so I talked to them about it. Evidently, I’m not alone here! The movie seems to mean something to many different kinds of queer people — those with healthy relationships to their biological families, those who only have chosen family, those whose issues with their family have nothing to do with their queerness — all of whom are in agreement that it’s a necessary rewatch each holiday season.
Nearly the entire film takes place in the Stone family’s ambiguously New England house. But it’s more than just a house; it’s their home during Christmastime. There are plastic snowmen on the kitchen counter, Christmas cards lining the entranceway, and Polaroid pictures and souvenir magnets on the refrigerator. No two coffee cups look alike. A decorative bowl filled with pinecones sits on a table inside an office. There’s clutter everywhere. People live here. I have lived here.
Unlike many other Christmas movies, The Family Stone doesn’t overwhelm you with bright whites, emerald greens, and candy-cane reds. Instead, the set design is rich with wood: dressers, desks, staircase banisters, and a busy baker’s block in the kitchen. Even the wallpaper and curtains throughout the house are various shades of brown. The wardrobe reflects this brown palette, too — Patrick’s sweater, Sybil’s robe, Kelly’s flannel and vest — and each of the Stone siblings is brunette. When Julie (Claire Danes) arrives at the bus station to rescue her sister, she’s wearing a sand-colored leather coat and carrying an overnight bag in a matching shade.
In color psychology, brown is associated with comfort, security, and relaxation, and in interior design, it’s often used to make a space feel more open and inviting. When you watch The Family Stone, you are quite literally being welcomed into a home that three generations call their own, and you can feel it.
What better time of year for queer and trans people to get a little extra comfort, security, and relaxation than the holidays? Despite the uncomfortable drama taking place throughout the film, The Family Stone serves as a safe haven for many at a time when the uncomfortable drama is happening in their own homes. Seeing conflict they know well play out on screen is humanizing, especially when the consequences do not fall on the queer or trans family member. Being queer and around your family during the holidays can feel torturous, so, yeah, we’re going to enjoy watching an unlikable rich white lady get bullied for 90 minutes.
Speaking of bullies, Amy Stone (Rachel McAdams) is irrefutably, undeniably, and delightfully queer. Whether she’s closeted or it’s just not an explicitly defined character trait is unimportant to me because, regardless of whether she knows it or not, that girl is gay. We first meet Amy as she pulls up to her parents’ house in a clearly hand-me-down Volvo station wagon and struggles to carry both her (full) laundry basket and NPR tote bag out of her backseat. She wears a band tee over a white long-sleeve shirt and a knee-length red pleated skirt with thick, black tights underneath. She’s splendidly pathetic right off the bat, just like the youngest sibling in a big family should be. I would know. I am one.
When Amy meets Meredith, she’s confronted with everything she tries so hard not to be and, even worse, she has to grapple with the fact that this version of womanhood, the very version she has rejected, is desirable. When I was a closeted queer woman, I spent so much mental energy policing how women were… women. Projecting much?! Once I started dismantling comp-het and gender binaries — and, subsequently, my internalized misogyny — I stopped giving a shit about how other people displayed their womanhood. I suspect that’s what’s going on with Amy and her seemingly unjustifiable hatred for Meredith. There’s something about Meredith — whether it’s her voice, her face, or her clothing — that challenges Amy’s understanding of the world around her and, perhaps, herself.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that outside of all the underlying queer characteristics, at the end of the day, Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone is simply objectively fun to watch because she is hot. Specifically, she’s hot in a gay way.
Another reason The Family Stone is so popular among queer people is because it offers an alternative to the family dynamics we’re so used to seeing on-screen by making the Stone family a matriarchy. Of course, this isn’t groundbreaking. Women have been leading and managing families since the beginning of time. But it’s not very often that we get to see this portrayed on screen, especially in Christmas movies. It’s always the dad having some dick-measuring contest with his neighbor, falling off a roof and turning into Santa Claus, or discovering he has an estranged son visiting from the North Pole. So, to see a large, complicated family so sculpted by and enamored with their mother is refreshing.
Sybil Stone is not a mother without flaw. In fact, much like my own mother likes to point out, she has many shortcomings. But man, did she raise five emotionally intelligent, gentle, and (mostly) good kids. The unconditional love, understanding, and acceptance in that home and among those family members is so beyond what a lot of queer people believe to be possible. To them, Sybil is proof that a mother will love you despite what makes you different or difficult.
Take the famous dinner fight scene, for instance. Many queer people would kill to have a family member, let alone a mother, sit at the head of the table and go to bat defending them when confronted with bigotry — even if it ruffles some feathers. Even if it makes the rest of the dinner uncomfortable. More moms need to freak the fuck out and throw cutlery across the dinner table when their child is disrespected. Especially now, when households are so socially and politically divided, bigots need to know they don’t have a seat at the table. The whole scene is hysterical, both in drama and humor, but what really gets me every time is Sybil signing to Thad from down the table. She’s desperate for him to know that she loves him exactly as he is. Is that too much to ask for?
I really do think The Family Stone was ahead of its time in 2005. It does more than hold up; it might even get better with time as more queer and trans people redefine what family means to them. As more people cut ties with their biological families for their own safety, they may be seeking a fictional family and home to tuck themselves into for a moment, especially during the holidays. The Stones aren’t a perfect family, but queer people aren’t asking for perfect.
