Why You Are Gay: Toy Soldiers

If you’re like us, the movie “Toy Soldiers” came out when you were just starting your delicate tweenage years. Maybe you were heavy, maybe you had headgear, maybe you had to wear a backbrace because you were misdiagnosed with scholiosis by your gym teacher. For whatever reason, you didn’t fit in. Later, this sense that you were the Best Supporting Actor in the movie of everyone else’s life would translate itself into a biting sense of humor and a throbbing alcohol addiction. But back then, you were just angsty.

Then came “Toy Soldiers.” It was a movie about misfits, the kids who didn’t fit in at prep school and were sent to the uptight Regis School to reform. These freaks and geeks never thought they were worth anything, until the inevitable happened, and a group of terrorists took over their school. Then the kids used their troublemaking skills to fight them off.

The movie made it okay to not fit in – in fact, it made you feel as though being a reject might actually be sort of heroic. And what’s more, there was something else about those boys that you liked. It was hard to put your finger on, but the way they all hung off each other and wrestled, rung a bell somewhere inside of you. Specifically Wil Wheaton, the fey martyr with the perfect floppy hair. Come to think of it, you’d liked him ever since you saw him in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” And not the way you liked Deanna Troi. What was it about him….?

Oh damn you, Wesley Crusher. You done made us gay.