I’m a cis white guy. That privilege has given me a parade of characters to look up to for as long as I can remember. Han Solo, Chandler Bing, Bob Hartley, Cannonball of the X-Men, even non-human characters like the weirdo Gonzo and the ninja turtle Donatello–I’ve had it pretty good! The fact that none of the aforementioned characters are gay like me gets me down, but not enough to ruin the fact that the vast majority of aspirational characters in all of fiction check off all of my representation boxes save one.

I know that not being able to see myself in the few gay characters I encountered during my teenage years kept me in the closet later than I would have liked. I’m just saying, if Chandler Bing had been gay, I would have pieced some things together about myself waaay sooner. Now that I’ve been out of the closet for almost 13 years (no thanks to my Friends), I see gay heroes here and there–usually on ’70s game shows or Drag Race, but still, they’re out there and I love them. But I’ve been waiting for a gay hero to pop up in a Marvel or Star Wars movie, my two fave franchises that are still lagging in that area despite their increasing diversity. Again, I’m not suffering all that much, because I do bear a tiny resemblance to Martin Freeman, and there are dudes like Martin Freeman in seemingly every movie, if it’s not Freeman himself. I want gay heroes, but also, I’m good, and there are puh-lenty of marginalized groups that need rep before me. I get all that.

That’s why I didn’t really need to see The Shape of Water, but when I finally saw The Shape of Water, I realized I definitely needed to see The Shape of Water. There are layers here.

Guillermo del Toro’s Best Picture-winning fantasy/romance is about a lot more than a lady having sex with a fish-man (although it is about that, too). It’s a movie about outsiders, outcasts, people marginalized by society (both in the ’60s and today) that come together to… well, save the fish-man that their friend is in love with. This is the ultimate movie about the overlooked (people of color, people with disabilities, queer people) teaming up to stop an injustice perpetrated by a straight, white man with a massive ego and unchecked power. I didn’t really know that going into my theatrical experience, so I was not emotionally prepared to meet–surprise!–the totally unlikely gay hero that I’ve been waiting to see in movies. I’m talking about Giles, played by Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins.

Giles is Elisa’s (Sally Hawkins) neighbor and, as we see through their daily routine, the closest to family that she has. But as soon as I saw Giles, I felt seen, on a level I didn’t know I needed–on a level I didn’t even know was possible in a feature film. He’s gay, and older, and wears glasses and a lot of cardigans and professorial looks. Honestly, he looks like a spoiler for what I’ll probably see in the mirror in 40 years. There’s also the fact that he bears a striking resemblance to my IRL gay hero Charles Nelson Reilly, so there’s no way I was going to ignore him.

Giles is whimsical but weary, devoted to his friend but also his status quo. He’s an artist, one that’s been shut-out of his advertising profession (you get the not-so-subtle vibe that it’s because of his sexuality) and left at home, living with just the company of his cats and his neighbor. And while The Shape of Water is about Elisa and that dashing fish, you also get to spend time with Giles solo, existing outside of the main plot. You watch him visit the same diner every day in order to flirt with the cute cashier (awww!), and you watch him get aggressively shut down by that homophobic cashier after making a tentative move (uuggh!). Giles longs for romance and he just can’t find it.

And then came the turning point when Giles has a one-on-one talk with the rescued creature, soaking in Elisa’s overflowing tub. He finally gets what she sees in him, why she reached out to him. They’re all lonely, and they just want to be seen and appreciated. And then Giles said this:

“Sometimes I think I was born too early or too late for my life.”

This was Jenkins’ Oscar clip, and rightly so. That line brought me to tears in a movie theater, and I tell you this: I usually only cry over Star Wars. My tears are reserved for the things that I feel on a gut level, and it takes years of fandom to dig down to my gut. But here was a line in a movie, a new movie, said by a character I’d only known for an hour, hitting me in a spot I did not know existed. I felt seen, and I felt validated. I felt recognized and celebrated by this lone gay character, expressing a sense of sadness and regret that I’ve never seen in a film before but I have heard myself say in therapy on numerous occasions! I was bonded to Giles in that moment.

Seeing that moment of emotional vulnerability, a vulnerability I share as a fellow gay man, connected me to Giles in way that’s totally different from my deep Han Solo feels. I’ve seen myself reflected in characters before, but not this part of me, one that is so integral to who I am and the struggles I’ve faced. And all this happened just before Giles’ big action turn! Seriously, an elderly gay man gets to do things like sneak past security and drive the getaway car and dodge bullets and save his friends! Are you kidding me?! The Shape of Water is not Captain America: Civil War by any stretch, and I know Giles is not Steve Rogers, but I reacted to every moment in the back half of this movie as if it was. I was cheering for him, I was worried about him, I was having a totally uncontrollable and visceral reaction to, again, a character I had just met. And all that was because I saw myself in this man, the gay man I would have been had I been born 70ish years earlier. I saw him fail and I saw him win, my hero in a cardigan and tweed.

This movie gave me what I expected in that it showed me how a woman can hold her breath long enough to get busy with a merman. But that was, surprisingly, beside the point for me! The Shape of Water, by spotlighting those usually left in the dark in these kinds of stories, illuminated a part of myself that I’d never seen in film before. It gave me the gay hero I never knew I needed, but now I’m so glad I have.

Where to watch The Shape of Water