Review: Aesthetics of White Middle Class Suburbia in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Love Simon

Though Netflix’s interpretation of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is groundbreaking in its diversity, it has been rightly criticized for the white washing of Lara Jean’s story and her primarily white love interests. Part and parcel to this white washing is the construction of a normative upper middle class suburban experience, most clearly emphasized by the ski trip and Lara Jean’s room. I will discuss the aesthetics of white suburbanization as a deradicalizing feature of To All the Boys, as well as other recent YA adaptations ranging in their success and diversity, like Love, Simon (based on Simon V. The Homo Sapiens Agenda) .

In To All The Boys, Lara Jean is not white washed through her racial identity but through the aesthetics of the film-her upper middle class home, white physician father, fashion, and bedroom. For a teenager to be able to follow trends closely, bid on vintage boots on etsy, and develop a unique and fully formed style is evident of a certain privilege, as many teens, even middle class teenagers, don’t have the freedom or money to buy and wear what they want. But her bedroom is even more evident. On a bookshelf near her bed, Lara Jean has a display of Nancy Drew books, a series criticized for its overt racial stereotyping and racist language as early as the 1950s (https://electricliterature.com/the-not-so-hidden-racism-of-nancy-drew/). Lara Jean uses a pink and white vanity as a desk, a coordinating but not matching pink and blue set of bedding, various vintage (or vintage inspired) lamps, baskets, and small dressers. It’s repeated throughout the film that Lara Jean never cleans her room, but it is an aesthetically pleasing form of mess-a mess that doesn’t consist of a lack of storage or a substandard room, but a large wardrobe, various bags, and books strewn across the room. Even the mess of her room, and the kind of mess (no mold, no old dishes, etc) is evident of white upper middle class aesthetic. The mural painted on Lara Jean’s wall is meant to show her creativity and love of all things girly, but also shows the class privilege-to paint, one generally owns the house, one must have the time to devote to painting a mural, the access to paint and other supplies, and an inclination to decorate-something that is only available to those with spare time and money.

Lara Jean’s room might not be a display of wealth that seems ostentatious-it’s not gauldy, gilded, or filled with Jewelry. But the time it takes to decorate a bedroom in this way, and the cost of furniture (a vanity like this seems to start at about 200 dollars according to a cursory google search) and a large set of Nancy Drew texts, is expensive. It is aesthetic evidence of a white suburban ideal represented in the film.

The kitchen is another place of ideal suburban white aesthetics. Featuring a stainless steel refrigerator (that averages about 1000 dollars), a kitchen aid mixer, le creuset kitchenware, built in shelves, and of course, Lara Jean’s floral apron-necessary for more of an an aesthetically pleasing mess. Baking, and loving the kitchen-is certainly not a class or race exclusive practice, but the kitchenware and appliances are an aesthetic of upper middle class whiteness featured commonly in lists of wedding registry items and best gifts.

Simon’s bedroom is very different from Lara Jean’s-and certainly more minimalist-but also exudes these upper middle class aesthetic ideals. Simon’s room features a chalkboard wall, a set of matching bedding, posters, a closet full of shelves and a dresser, records and an expensive stereo system, a skateboard, a huge workspace, a laptop, and a solid wood dresser. Of course, these kind of items can be found in bedrooms straddling class and race lines, but the amount of wood furniture, expensive technology, and a cohesive decorating scheme does signify upper middle class order. Similarly to To All The Boys, the kitchen features stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and a le creuset teapot to name a few items. Even as Simon struggles with his sexuality, he does so in an upper middle class white experience represented in the aesthetics of his home. Other nods to this in the film are his friends stopping at starbucks on the way to school-something unfathomable for people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, but also to me-as someone from a very rural area who did not have a starbucks close to town.

In the case of Lara Jean, aesthetics are used to decenter her identity as a women of color within a suburban white culture. In Love, Simon, the aesthetics depict a suburban experience of LGBT identity that is not queer, even as it challenges some dominant power structures.

This isn’t to say that these films are bad-they are both much needed forms of representation. Both LGBT and Asian American deserve the kind of simplistic (and often problematic) romantic comedies that white straight people have enjoyed for years.