Best gay friend movie
Pop-Cultured: The ‘GBF’ Advocacy in Cinema is Problematic
I would wish as a civilization we are past the days of automatically applauding the cinematic representation of sexual minorities simply for its mere existence. Don’t acquire me wrong — the novelty of seeing queer characters portrayed in motion picture and on TV hasn’t worn off for me yet. It’s a privilege that neither my younger self, nor queer audiences of decades prior, had the opportunity to enjoy. Yet, no matter how thrilling it can experience to be superficially acknowledged by a heteronormative film industry, real problems with representation still exist.
A plethora of deadly stereotypes takes up space in cinema that should be filled by concrete, honest depictions of queer experiences. The classic “gay optimal friend” trope is certainly no exception. In this trope, a queer or queer-coded character (often male) is only allowed to subsist if attached to a straight protagonist (often female) as a sort of social commodity. This best friend is often a sloppy caricature of LGBT+ stereotypes who receives little to no character development beyond their sexual orientation. Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel) of “High School M
“Friendships between gay and straight guys can be healing and uniquely satisfying for all involved.” ~ Michael C. LaSala Ph.D., LCSW. Psychology Today.
Gay men possess befriended women in media for decades. Today I’m looking at films focused on friendships between gay and straight men. Most are mediocre. A few are downright unpleasant. But there are some gems.
The following reviews consist of mild spoilers
Coming of Age
Date and Switch (2014). Dopey straight Michael and vulgar gay Matty look for dates for prom (despite clearly pushing 30). Matty doesn’t enjoy guys who act “too gay” so he starts dating a masc-for-masc jerk. Michael feels abandoned and spends the rest of the movie moping. The clip thinks these oafs are hilarious. Your mileage may vary. Wastes the talents of a robust supporting cast. C-
Heartstone (2016). Surly Icelandic teen copes with crushes, bullies, and an unhappy family. His sole defender is his gay best friend who’s fallen in love with him. The gay friend is empathetic but he’s there to endure and further the straight boy’s journey. The slow pace, slender plot and relentless gloom build this one hard to settle through. Contains t
Rethinking the ‘gay best friend’
Ryan and I met productive behind the tills in HMV Cork in the winter of 2009. We bonded instantly, and as we are both innate romantics, began the process of myth-making in our friendship while it was still slippery from birth. We moved in together quickly. We began writing a sitcom based on our lives, then got stoned and paranoid about being sued by former co-workers when we became famous. We left lengthy Facebook posts on each other’s walls, quoting the things we said to one another, terrified that our specialness and our closeness would not be noticed or rewarded by the wider world. We wanted them to say: you two really hold something here.
We were 19, and we were insufferable. But there was a lot of that nice of thing around. Luminous young women and their even brighter gay friends were burning up our screens. There was Will & Grace, of course, and there was Stanford Blatch from Sex and The City. There was Stanley Tucci’s Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada, and Damian in Mean Girls, and Rupert Everett’s George in My Foremost Friend’s Wedding. We opened Word documents, centre-aligned the text and transcribed ourselves.
Insufferable as we we
Gay Top Friend
Such a caring friend.
— Tanya, The White Lotus
The Gay Best Buddy exists mostly to add variety, hilarious mannerisms, and inexpensive laughs to an otherwise all-straight story and sometimes shows political correctness. The gay best confidant is depicted as mostly interested in shopping, fashion, and makeovers.
The GBF may talk about sex a lot but is seldom depicted as having any because too many viewers would find that disturbing. Either he has no love animation to speak of (which never seems to bother him), or it's forever offscreen, only discussed with the heroine over brunch at some pretentious cafe.
As modern culture grows increasingly content with gay people, fiction is tediously seeing more well-rounded gay supporting characters with onscre