Move over, Hollywood. The Sims 4 is serving up the queer romcom we need!
A new ad for The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories expansion pack tells a tale not too far off from the plot of LGBTQ+ classic, Imagine Me & You.
At the start of the three-minute spot, boyfriend and girlfriend Sims get engaged — a gleeful story intertwined with their female friend struggling to find love. It showcases all the bridal options the pack has to offer as the bride-to-be plans for her wedding with the help of both the groom and her BFF.
It becomes more and more clear that our brief protagonist and her beau are incompatible, even as she grows closer with her friend.
The wedding day comes, but the bride instead walks in and plants one hell of a kiss on her friend, dumping the poor groom at the altar.
The story culminates, of course, in the two beautiful brides getting married in their own ceremony later, exchanging vows in Simlish and looking on as the jilted groom finds a new love of his own among their guests.
Despite same-sex marriage being legal in the United States for almost seven years — and even longer in some other western countries — there’s still a lack of inclusion when it comes to representation in the wedding industry.
Just over a year ago, Zola ads including a same-sex couple were briefly removed from the Hallmark channel after conservative complaints in 2019, kicking up a controversy that resulted in the parent company’s CEO resigning. And every so often, yet another story about a couple running into unexpected discrimination while planning a wedding goes viral.
The Sims creating a cute little story of queer love to advertise their product, of course, isn’t a groundbreaking moment. But it is symbolic that casual inclusion is becoming more normalized in some arenas, and that this company believes they can use a queer couple to attract buyers the same way they would have used a straight couple in another time.
And what’s even better is that the majority of the comments on the YouTube video seem to be focused on the content of the game pack above anything else. Time to get married, kids! In the world of Sims, at least.
The new expansion drops February 17.
