BBC Rad 5 Live - Anna Foster - 'I'm fed up of the 'gay bt iend' stereotype'

Contents:

• 'I'M FED UP OF THE 'GAY BT IEND' STEREOTYPE'
• PLEASE DON'T CALL ME YOUR 'GAY BT FRIEND'
• GAY BT FRIEND
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR GUY FRIEND IS GAY
• HOW TO DEAL WHEN YOUR BT FRIEND IS GAY
• HOW TO FD YOUR GAY BT FRIEND
• TRADUCCIóN "BT GAY IENDS" EN PA&NTIL;OL

'I'M FED UP OF THE 'GAY BT IEND' STEREOTYPE'

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? What 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. Almost as long as rom-s and high school TV shows have existed, the Gay Bt Friend(tm) has been a source of edy and ntroversy. 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movi and TV shows are gettg creasgly self-aware, creatg gay characters who provi the ic relief we love while tearg down outdated ias.

PLEASE DON'T CALL ME YOUR 'GAY BT FRIEND'

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. 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. Cz, an Ao-Puerto Rin man, was the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character a leadg role an Amerin televisn show.

GAY BT FRIEND

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. There's a reason everyone pots to 1997 film My Bt Friend's Weddg as their go-to example of a Gay Bt Friend. 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.

The real gay bt iend of the seri was Jack (Sean Hay), a diva-lovg queen who cycl through men, jobs, and random fixatns.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR GUY FRIEND IS GAY

"For years I didn't talk about bee I found to be offensive to gay people, " he said.

HOW TO DEAL WHEN YOUR BT FRIEND IS GAY

"People playg gay characters jumpg up and down screamg that they're not gay, like that would somehow be a bad thg if they were. "What if I slept wh my Gay Bt Friend" was apparently a thg we were dog the late 1990s.

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. The "gay men sleepg wh straight women" ia gets even weirr Madonna's 2000 film The Next Bt Thg.

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.

HOW TO FD YOUR GAY BT FRIEND

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. In particular, Mo's cutthroat creative director Wilhelma Slater (Vansa Williams) and her schemg gay assistant Marc St. 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.

TRADUCCIóN "BT GAY IENDS" EN PA&NTIL;OL

Brandon (Dan Byrd) 2010 edy Easy A flips the script on the Gay Bt Friend stereotype. 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. F., remiscent of Mean Girls and Not Another Teen fashn magaz clarg a Gay Bt Friend to be this season's hottt accsory, three would-be prom queens fight over recently outed stunt Tanner (Michael J. Meanwhile, homophobic stunts and relig groups try to shut gay stunts out of prom altogether.

The movie featur gay culture ins like pop star JoJo, Will and Grace's Megan Mullally, and Natasha Lyonne of But I'm a Cheerlear and Orange Is the New Black fame. The Tough Fashn Edor and her Bchy Gay Sikick were revived yet aga Freeform's The Bold Type, wh Srlet Magaze EIC Jacquele (Melora Hard) and her assistant Andrew (Adam Caprlo).

The enuragg takeaway om this progrsive-md show, however, is that if your queer reprentatn also clus a bisexual, biracial lead character (Aisha Dee), her lbian Mlim love tert (Nikohl Boosheri), and a Black gay man who is head of the fashn partment (Stephen Conrad Moore), the GBF character stops beg a potentially harmful stereotype and be more of a playful wk at whe gay men. ")Like a te GBF, Donny seems to have no purpose beyond obssg over Natalie's love life and givg her a makeover montage scene -- but the good news is, when she fds her way back to the real world, turns out her neighbor really is gay and datg Bowen Yang. And you look great this at" -- but the dynamic is a lot better when 's all about gay/lbian solidary and makg fun of cluels straight people.

BBC Rad 5 Live - Anna Foster - 'I'm fed up of the 'gay bt iend' stereotype'.

Journalist and wrer Philip Ellis says he's tired of the 'gay bt iend' stereotype.

"There would be tim when I was treated like a piece of furnure, girls would take their tops off ont of me, and say 's fe, you're gay...

Philip told 5 Live prenter Anna Foster about a time when he met someone who, wh moments, asked to be his 'gay bt iend': "Surprisgly my answer was 'no thank you'.

"The thg is I do f to a uple of stereotyp, I am a gay man, I love shoppg, I love cktails, I love talkg about boys, but this girl didn't know that. "I thk Will and Grace is a really tertg se bee back the neti when first aired, any reprentatn of gay men on TV was a really posive thg, and the character of Jack, he was sort of troduced as the butt of a joke, but ultimately he beme a really posive portrayal of an effemate flamboyant gay man, livg life on his own terms. "The iendship between gay men and straight women is a lovely thg, a lot of my clost iends are women, om a shared experience; women nstantly beg told they should be one thg, and I thk wh LGBT people 's very siar.

"I thk across the spectm of the fab five, do nfirm to a "you've got five new gay bt iends who are gog to give you a makeover", but they're also havg nversatns about masculy and mental health, so I see as an evolutn of the stereotype to somethg nuanced.

"Where else on TV have you got five gay men who are each beg their full selv?

There's not a token gay man, there are five of them and they each have their own expertise. When some people hear the term ‘gay bt iend’ they might thk of the Hollywood pictn of a person they n go to for fashn advice, take shoppg, or who will make them lgh until the ws e home. On The Hayley Pearce Podst, ntent creator, Dafydd Francis, shar his feelgs about the impact the ‘gay bt iend’ stereotype has had on his life - and why he don't want to be treated like an accsory….

You’re rcg the iendship jt down to beg gay, and that is , and you wouldn’t really say that to someone who was straight. My issue wh is when a straight girl, or anyone straight, says ‘gay bt iend’, ’s rcg that iend down to the fact that they are gay and nothg more.