A History of the Gay Bt Friend Film and TV

Contents:

• THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY BT IEND ROMANTIC EDI
• THE TROPE OF THE ‘GAY BT FRIEND’ MOVI AND TELEVISN, EXPLAED
• THE BT QUEER HOLIDAY MOVI TO MAKE THE YULETI GAY

THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY BT IEND ROMANTIC EDI

Cast & crewUser reviewsTrivia2013R1h 32mWhat happens after Tanner is outed by his classmat and be the tle "gay bt iend" for three high school queen be? See productn, box office & pany Vios2JoJoSoledad Brnste(as Joanna 'Jojo' Levque)More like thisReview Very narrow appeal, maly to people like the on This movie has a few isolated good moments, but 's mostly an unfunny and pafully predictable edy about gay teen will appeal maly to very young people who are very much like the characters - silly, bchy, superficial and not overburned wh telligence - or to olr people and others who wish they WERE like those characters (I assume s wrer and director are that group) do NOT have the more universal appeal of a genuely great movie like Cluels, to which some reviewers have pared . And fely is NOT one of the bt gay movi ever if you're an secure gay teen and wish more than anythg that you were popular, or if you fd such characters appealg, you may love this movie; but if you're olr and have wir terts you'll probably be as bored by as I was.

Often an important first step troducg queer storyl to mastream dienc, the GBF trope had a tenncy to rerce stereotyp about gay men: that their only terts are makeovers, shoppg and drama, that their stggl and relatnships fa to the background unls they're supportg a straight person's story, and that they only exist to be wise oracl about love and LGBTQ+ reprentatn Hollywood improv both onscreen and behd the mera, movi and TV shows are gettg creasgly self-aware, creatg gay characters who provi the ic relief we love while tearg down outdated ias.

Perhaps the earlit example of the classic Gay Bt Friend character is 1984 movie The Woman Red, a Gene Wilr edy about a married man who be obssed wh a mol (Kelly LeBrock) after he se her skirt get blown up by a wd grate, Marilyn Monroe-style.

THE TROPE OF THE ‘GAY BT FRIEND’ MOVI AND TELEVISN, EXPLAED

A mor character wh limed screen time, Buddy do w pots for beg portrayed as jt another one of the guys, who happens to be gay -- a big al for movi the 80s. Rickie Vasquez (Wilson Cz) of ABC's short-lived cult classic My So-Called Life (1994-1995) is one of the first exampl of a gay character a high school ensemble seri -- but what mak him pecially noteworthy is that he challenged the Gay Bt Friend trope before was even a trope.

THE BT QUEER HOLIDAY MOVI TO MAKE THE YULETI GAY

While Rickie was bt iends wh straight girls at his school, the way his storyle alt wh homophobia and self-acceptance was years ahead of s time. Helen Hunt stars as Carol, a sgle mom and his love tert who "mak him want to be a better man, " while former Talk Soup host Greg Knear surprised dienc wh his imprsive actg chops as Simon, the gay neighbor who be iends wh the curmudgeonly Simon, an artist, is badly beaten up by a iend of one of his mols, his agent (Cuba Goodg Jr.

She enlists the help of her gay iend Gee (Rupert Everett), who drops everythg to fly to Chigo, pretends to be Jul' fiance to make Michael jealo, and trolls the hell out of her while dispensg nuggets of wisdom about her love is such a fantasy of a character that he may as well be a unirn, but Everett is jt so charmg about the whole thg. In The Object of My Affectn, New York social worker Na (Jennifer Aniston) is roommat wh Gee (Pl Rudd), a gay elementary school teacher.

The flash-forward at the end, wh all the characters beg one big happy fay, was progrsive for s time; but the ia that a gay man uld be attracted to a woman if she plays her rds right is a b unfortable.

But then Abbie meets a guy who wants to get married and move to New York, and the romantic edy spirals to a bizarre urtroom drama as they fight over ctody of their Ebert gave the movie one star and lled "a garage sale of gay issu, " bombed at the box office, and Everett later revealed that led to the llapse of his iendship wh Madonna.

Ta Fey's 2004 high school edy is proof that the gay bt iend don't have to be an offensive or trivial character, bee what would Mean Girls even be whout "too gay to functn" Damian (Daniel Franze) and "big lbian csh" Janis (Lizzy Caplan)?

(Y, Janis' classmat spread gay mors about her and she's datg a boy by the end of the movie, but we're not buyg for a send that she's heterosexual. Few straight actors play gay as well as Stanley Tucci 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, about aspirg journalist Andy (Anne Hathaway) who gets a job at Vogue-spired Runway Magaze. As much as we love and appreciate Ryan Murphy's high school mil seri (2009-2015) as a formative experience for lennials everywhere, s portrayal of LGBTQ+ people ran to a few be fair, Chris Colfer's character Kurt was a TV breakthrough, offerg a much-need posive role mol to gay kids.

His relatnship wh Blae (Darren Criss) was one of the first tim we got to see two young gay characters kissg onscreen a mastream, fay-oriented edy, and we'll never fet the way his father Burt (Mike O'Malley) fied stereotyp by beg pletely supportive when Kurt me out to him.

But his gossipy iendship wh Rachel (Lea Michele) and her hab of llg Kurt her "bt gay" had some crics wonrg if he was beg treated like an accsory, a bate that n set off Tumblr fandom shoutg match to this day.

Chigo improv edy troupe The Send Cy left their mark wh Sassy Gay Friend, a viral YouTube sk starrg Brian Gallivan as a GBF who talks sense to Shakpearean hero and other women om ancient history. Instead of him supportg the female lead, 's actually Olive (Emma Stone) who looks out for him, by pretendg to (loudly) have sex wh him at a party so he n keep homophobic bulli off his back until he n graduate high school. A llege ex-boyiend of Dunham's character Hannah, Elijah reveals that he's gay early Season 1 when she tri to fd out if he gave her HPV -- and then drops the memorable bombshell, "It was nice to see you.