If you could make someone love you, would you?
Were The World Mine is a 2008 musical film directed by Tom Gustafson and starring Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, and Zelda Williams.
Timothy is a gay teen who attends a private high school filled with homophobic jocks. After his teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play's love potion. With the power of the magic pansy, he turns much of his narrow-minded town gay, including his jock-crush, Jonathon.
The movie provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The film was created as a highly expanded and fleshed-out version of Gustafson's earlier 2003 short film, "Fairies".
- All Musicals Are Adaptations
- Alpha Bitch: Jonathan's cheerleader girlfriend likes it when Timothy is beaten up, and is extremely annoyed when Jonathan shows interest in Timothy.
- Closet Key: It turns out that Timothy did not really need the pansy to make Jonathon fall in love with him.
- Coming-Out Story: For Jonathon.
- Crystal-Ball Scheduling: Many events in the film mirror those in the school play A Midsummer Night's Dream; this is lampshaded extensively in the relevant quotations from the play uttered by characters under the influence of Timothy's magic flower.
- Disappeared Dad: Timothy's father kicked his son out for being gay.
- Dodgeball Is Hell: The movie opens on a dodgeball sequence, ending in a ball thrown right at Timothy hard enough to give him a black eye.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Timothy is cast as a fairy.
- Don't Try This at Home: Outing your son to everyone you meet is considered incredibly poor form.
- The Fair Folk: It's hinted that there's more to Ms. Tebbit than meets the eye, though it's never fully confirmed.
- Foreshadowing: The reveal that Jonathan was attracted to Timothy all along is hinted at early on if you realize that the musical number during Timothy's audition was actually Jonathan's fantasy, not Timothy's.
- Gay Aesop
- Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: Timothy, the only openly gay boy in his class, is in love with Lovable Jock Jonathon, the captain of his school's rugby team.
- Jerk Jock: All of Timothy's classmates except Jonathon.
- Karmic Transformation: Coach Driskill, Nora Bellinger, Becky, and most of the boys in Timothy's class all start out homophobic, and are all caused by the magic flower to fall in love with someone of the same sex.
- Literary Allusion Title
- Lovable Jock: Jonathon.
- Love at First Sight: Highly subverted.
- Love Dodecahedron: Two chains of unrequited love are created by the magic pansy: firstly, Jonathon's girlfriend and her best friend -> Frankie -> Max -> Timothy, and secondly, Coach Driskill -> Lawrence Bellinger -> Nora Bellinger -> Donna. Timothy and Jonathon, however, are mutually in love, and the other boys in their class seem happily paired up with each other.
- Love Potion
- Only Sane Women: Frankie and Donna (Timothy's mother). Lawrence Bellinger also qualifies as an Only Sane Man.
- Purple Prose: Those under the spell of the pansy begin speaking in a more Shakespearian manner.
- Queer Romance
- School Play: The whole plot.
- Shirtless Scene: Plenty of them.
- Single-Target Sexuality: The pansy does this to those sprayed by it. They become utterly infatuated with the first person they see, to the exclusion of everyone else, regardless of existing romances or their own sexual orientation.
- Squirting Flower Gag: The pansy takes this shape to spread the fluid of love.
- Straight Gay: Timothy doesn't hide his sexuality, but neither is it in your face. Likewise, Jonathon is implied to be attracted to Timothy before the pansy's spell, though only Frankie and Max comment on it.
- The Show Must Go On: Word-for-word, several times
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Timothy releases Jonathon from the love-spell and resigns himself to losing him, only to discover that Jonathon still loves him even without the influence of the magic pansy.
- Title Drop: "My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, my tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody, my tongue your tongue, were the world mine."
- A Wizard Did It: Everything that happens in the movie has this for the explanation, except why the lead Jerk Jock is suddenly totally cool with gay people at the end.
