Over the previous few years we’ve seen efforts to incorporate extra LGBTQ+ {couples} on the Hallmark film schedule. Jonathan Bennett, as an example, made historical past alongside George Krissa in 2022 as the primary main homosexual couple on the community, after 2020’s Marriage ceremony Each Weekend confirmed its first same-sex marriage ceremony. One other actor who has been part of this motion is Alec Santos, and he spoke with CinemaBlend about why queer romance is so vital to indicate on Hallmark.
Alec Santos will star within the upcoming flick Unwrapping Christmas: Tina’s Miracle, which premieres on the 2025 TV schedule July 5. A couple of years in the past, nonetheless, Santos performed Chris in Hallmark’s Campfire Christmas, who’s concerned with Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman’s Beckett. Santos opened up about why he likes to see Hallmark telling LGBTQ+ tales, saying:
Hallmark Channel is watched by households, so it could be watched by a child who’s feeling confused and perhaps having questions on themselves. Or it could be watched by a grandmother or father or mother who’s going via that who has a queer baby, and perhaps they’re nervous due to so many alternative causes, and these tales form of enable them to expertise different tales of queerness via tv that’s healthful, that’s utterly acceptable, and I do assume it bridges that hole and it creates form of a dialog.
Alec Santos has performed each straight and queer characters, telling me that no matter gender, “if the opposite actor is a pleasing human being, it is simple to fall in love with them.” In Campfire Christmas, Santos and Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman apparently shared Hallmark’s first same-sex interracial kiss, and he mentioned he thinks due to Hallmark’s giant viewers, there’s a chance for moments like these to make a huge effect. He continued:
Hallmark has an enormous viewership and a lot affect, and you already know, hopefully folks simply see that love is love. And it sounds cliche, however Hallmark is ‘the love channel,’ so I believe in a manner, it is virtually extra influential than another channel. So the easy kiss between two folks which can be falling in love, no matter race and intercourse, is so vital, and yeah, hopefully, they carry on trending in that course, and it is actually, actually cool to be part of it.
Hallmark actors Jonathan Bennett, Holly Robinson Peete and extra expressed pleasure within the community for its inclusivity, whereas Candace Cameron Bure — who left Hallmark to develop into the chief artistic officer at Nice American Household — suffered backlash for her remark about “conventional marriage” throughout a Wall Road Journal interview a couple of years again.
Whereas queer illustration has been on the forefront of the community’s programming, Alec Santos acknowledged the problem might be divisive however that films, music and different media function a mirror to society, so if individuals who determine as LGBTQ+ are accepted there, it may possibly assist them really feel extra accepted general. In his phrases:
I actually do assume illustration is vital. I do know there’s form of a division behind it, however I imply, on the finish of the day, once you’re a child and also you see any person that appears such as you, it does change your life.
You may see Alec Santos within the first of 4 Unwrapping Christmas films — Tina’s Miracle — which premieres on the Hallmark Channel at 8 p.m. ET Saturday, July 5. That and his June film, A Machu Picchu Proposal, are each out there to stream on Hallmark+.