This year, the Hallmark Channel will broadcast 24 all-new, made-for-tv holiday romance movies as part of its "Countdown to Christmas" programming. That's up three from last year. None of those films, however, will feature any same-sex couples. In fact, to date, Hallmark has never produced a single movie featuring a gay lead.
But that may soon be changing.
Bill Abbott, CEO of the Hallmark Channel, recently told The Hollywood Reporter that the company is "open" to making movies featuring LGBTQ leads and storylines, it just hasn't received the right script… yet.
When asked specifically whether Hallmark has considered incorporating stories about same-sex couples at Christmastime, Abbott replied, "We're open to really any type of movie of any type of relationship in any space."
"We are always encouraging people to bring us stories across the board," he added. "It's certainly something that we do discuss consistently with our team and with our talent and with the agencies."
Abbott went on to say the company receives a lot of really bad scripts and stories, which is part of the problem.
"It's not always that simple a process where you put the word out and you get back three great scripts and three great stories," he explains. "We put the word out that we're doing an original series and we get 50 bad stories."
Naturally, many conservatives don't like the sound of this. Even if Hallmark hasn't made any LGBTQ movies yet, it's clearly eminent, and that's not good. After all, the channel is supposed to represent the status quo of America, which, until recently, meant only telling stories about straight, white, cisgender people. If they start adding LGBTQ perspectives into the mix, what does that say about our Judeo-Christian values?!
