How Gym Queens Influence the Gay Community

Gay fitness influencer Jim is racking up the likes on social media at lightning speed. He looks stunning — the payoff for hours of brutal grinding at the gym. The twink Lucien, the son of a conservative politician, worships him. But then Jim contracts a mysterious illness: heterosis makes gay men straight.

“Jim Queen” isn’t just a wildly funny, razor-sharp, and affectionate gay animated comedy. The film also tackles serious themes. Shortly after its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, we had the chance to speak with the two directors, Nicolas Athané and Marco Nguyen, about their film.

“If my own gaydar isn’t failing me, you’re not gym queens, are you?”
Marco Nguyen: No, we’re not! But I’ve known gym culture for a long time. I used to party a lot, at Circuit parties or at Berghain. In the gay community there are standards set by gym queens: if you have muscles, you’re in; if you don’t, you’re out. There was so much to say about this community — it was fun to poke fun at, but always with affection. We laugh at ourselves and at the community too.

So your film isn’t a revenge tale against a gym queen you had bad experiences with?
Marco: No! I’ll admit I’m not a gym queen, but I did try to be one. Everyone tries to be one, because that’s the standard you strive toward. If you want to go to these parties and hit the bars, you have to hit the gym.

Nicolas Athané: Gym Queens influence the entire gay community. That’s why people despise them so much — because they somehow dominate everything.

Marco: And that’s exactly the part of myself I critique in the film. It’s not that I’m judging others.

Nicolas: You were basically Lucien yourself.

Marco: We all are the characters in the film, because everything springs from our real-life experiences and what we encounter daily in Paris.

Nicolas: Yes, I’m living Lucien’s life, because I’m heterosexual-leaning. (laughs) We created Lucien as a character to help people like me dive into the world of gym queens and the entire community. When Simon and Marco told me about their film idea, I asked, what are you talking about? Bears? What’s a ciffeur? (A French slang term akin to “chav” or “hick,” ed.)

Marco: And puppies! You thought we were making this up.

Nicolas: Yes, a fantasy world. I told them we should rather show the real world. But they said that was exactly their world. It’s the world of gay Parisian parties. Then I said: you’ve got to take me with you.

Marco: Exactly, I’ll show you the darkrooms! (laughs)

Nicolas: Our character Lucien doesn’t know any of this yet. Through him, the audience gets to meet the different communities.

Marco: We’re a team of four screenwriters — the two of us plus Simon Balteaux and Brice Chevillard — two gay, two straight-leaning. We were able to compare our lives quite a bit.

Nicolas: We wanted to show that this world truly exists. That’s why the details had to be so accurate. For example, how you use a fan when you rush onto a stage as a drag queen. You’ve seen it, but for me and Brice, it was all new.

And it’s not just straight people who need to learn this world; young gay audiences need to understand it too.
Nicolas: Exactly! Simon isn’t from Paris. If you’re coming from the countryside and visit Paris for the first time, it feels like what Lucien experiences for the first time.

“Jim Queen” also carries a deeper message: it’s about solidarity and being kind within the community. Still, the film isn’t preachy. How thin was that line for you?
Marco: We never set out to be moralistic. Our goal was to make people laugh, but that’s not easy. Shocking people is easy; making them laugh requires truly touching something in them. Moreover, the film is a love letter to the community. It’s beautiful and full of incredible culture. But there are flaws worth addressing — never in a cruel way. Kindness is central, because the community can be very hard on itself.

Yes, sometimes the queer community can be harsher on itself than the mainstream society.
Marco: Yes, but isn’t that funny? If you’re gay, you’re oppressed by heterosexual norms. Yet gay people themselves create norms that you’re expected to meet.

How provocative did you intend to be? I’m thinking of the “Gaystapo” — did you have any red lines?
Marco: When we started, we simply wanted to do whatever we wanted. Of course, we kept questioning ourselves the whole time.

Nicolas: We didn’t want to shock. But when it came to “conversion therapy,” which is often extremely violent, we wanted to portray it that way too.

Marco: Yes, because we want the audience to react. The hardest part of the script was balancing all of this — not being too political, but staying open and funny at the same time.

But the film is very political. It centers on a virus spreading among gay men, and the health system pays it little heed.
Marco: The AIDS parallel is intentional. When Jim is rejected by his own community for having heterosis, it mirrors what millions of people with HIV/AIDS have experienced.

Nicolas: But we also show the sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — the good side in this era as well.

In the film there’s a conservative health minister. In the coming year, France will hold presidential elections. Someone like that could really lead the health ministry.
Marco: We began writing the film eight years ago. Back then, that political aspect wasn’t planned. The mood was different. There weren’t these attacks on the LGBT community; things felt lighter. France had marriage equality, PrEP, everything seemed okay. We simply asked, what would happen if all of that vanished again? And that’s exactly what’s happening now. We wrote heterosis as a humorous metaphor that has become a political reality. It feels like reality is catching up with our fiction.

L et’s talk about the film’s style. Did you have influences? Do you know Ralf König?
Marco: Of course!

Nicolas: He was one of our references. What I love about Ralf König is how sexy and funny his comics can be at the same time.

Marco: The men have muscles, but they also have those big, comic-like noses.

Nicolas: For us, the characters shift with the scene — sometimes they’re sexy, other times very cartoonish or more realistic, depending on the story we want to tell.

Marco: Our technique is cut-out animation — it’s fast, but a bit limiting, and our budget was limited as well. So we had to find creative solutions to align our imagination with our finances.

Music plays a big role; at times “Jim Queen” even feels like a musical. Who wrote the great songs?
Marco: We collaborated with the amazing duo Kirosen, Mathieu Rosenzweig and Benjamin Nakache from Paris. We needed artists who could switch between styles because there are so many genres within the different communities. And they were perfect for that. I even wrote two songs myself. The project began with the very first music I originally composed for promotional videos for my parties.