The evolutn of the gay bt iend romantic edi |

Contents:

• KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
• THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY BT IEND ROMANTIC EDI

KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND

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movi and TV shows are gettg creasgly self-aware, creatg gay characters who provi the ic relief we love while tearg down outdated ias.

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. 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.

THE EVOLUTN OF THE GAY BT IEND ROMANTIC EDI

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. "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. 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)?