Howdy doodly, neighborinos, and welcome back to The Friday Post here on Trauma Response! Suffice it to say, I like movies, I love movies, in fact. I also love discourse, though much of it pains me. Whenever there comes a time when a film creates a rumbling, a rustle of the leaf, my ears perk up, and that is what I’m here to talk about today. Bros is a romantic comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, co-written and starring Billy Eichner of Billy on the Street fame. The film is another in the pantheon of films executive produced by Judd Apatow, and yet another one of Apatow’s films that serve as a vehicle to propel the career of its lead actor (see: Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, Steve Carrell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Pete Davidson in King of Staten Island). Sadly, despite a warm reception at the Toronto International Film Festival and a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Bros only managed to make $5.9 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, against a budget of $22 mill. “Homophobia!” cried Billy Eichner, on Twitter. An oddity? Yes. A logical inconsistency? Perhaps. But homophobia, in my opinion, it is not. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today!
As I said above, Bros is a romantic comedy, and a gay romantic comedy at that. How novel! How brilliant! Well, apparently not. While I do hope that Bros recoups its $22 million budget, and when it’s all said and done it probably will, there’s no sugar-coating the fact that the box office numbers don’t lie, and Bros is a bit of a dud. How could that be? It was critically very well received, and you couldn’t walk down the street without seeing an advertisement for it plastered somewhere, so why did Bros fail to connect? In my humble, and homosexual (that’s very important here), opinion, it’s for a couple of reasons: romantic comedies, as a genre, are a bit played out in the year of our lord 2022, gay people have better things to watch, and (sorry, mom) Billy Eichner just isn’t as likable as everyone involved with this movie wants him to be.
Let’s start with the easiest issue. When was the last time a romantic comedy truly wow-ed the world? It’s been a minute. Sure, there have been rom-coms in recent years that have been decent, or even good, but they either star A-listers with a draw or mix genres so that they are not just a rom-com. The first example that comes to mind for me is this year’s The Lost City starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Wikipedia doesn’t even classify The Lost City as a romantic comedy, but instead an “action-adventure comedy film,” and it stars two big-name celebrities who tons of people will shell out money to see. Gone are the days of The House Bunny and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. People just aren’t interested in the “same old” romantic comedy, and, let’s face it, even though it’s a gay romantic comedy, Bros is still just a pretty normal romantic comedy.
We live in a world where Moonlight won Best Picture at the Oscars, Timothee Chalamet and the cannibal known as Armie Hammer starred in Call Me by Your Name, and Heartstopper was one of the biggest shows on Netflix during its release. I’m going to be harsh, but fair, and say that gay people, gay men especially, have no shortage of media “for” them. We don’t need gay rom-com Bros. It’s good to have another piece of gay-centric media, I would even say I’m happy we do have it, but it’s not the first of its kind and isn’t breaking the mold in the way I think Eichner thought it would. Gay cinema is hardly new-fangled, the drag queen documentary The Queen was released in 1968, then Paris is Burning really got things rolling in 1990, and there was a whole movement known as “New Queer Cinema” throughout the 90s.
Moonlight, Call Me by Your Name, and the New Queer Cinema movement can all be categorized together by the fact that they are all independent films. Independent films mean a few things: lower budget, lower stakes, and a niche audience. The only thing Bros has on any of these films is the fact that it was produced by Judd Apatow and distributed by Universal. Billy Eichner wants Bros to be the “mainstream” gay movie but he fails to realize that being mainstream has rarely been a factor in the success of any other piece of gay cinema, and frankly antithetical to the entire idea of being gay. Gay media and gay culture have always thrived on the fringes, movies like Moonlight or Call Me by Your Name, or any of the works by Gregg Araki, would simply not be as good if they were subjected to the “by-committee” mentality of modern-day mainstream production companies. I understand the desire for your gay movie, and by extent gayness, to be beloved by the world and have the numbers reflect that, but it’s a fool’s errand and one that only hinders subversive sensibilities.
It also probably doesn’t help that Bros was not even the first gay romantic comedy of 2022. Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island was also released this year, and similarly to Bros, also featured a screenplay written by the leading man, in this case, Joel Kim Booster. Fire Island is another film that follows the sexual exploits of urbanite homosexuals in the state of New York. Like Bros, the film features a majority LGBT cast, but unlike Bros, Fire Island is far more diverse when it comes to race. Fire Island also kind of wanted to be mainstream (it was distributed by Searchlight), but was released exclusively on Hulu, so we will never know how much money it would have made, had it been released in theaters. Two films, both alike in dignity. Of course, no one has to “pick” which gay film they watch, it’s not a competition between these two films, but it’s easy to see why some might avoid Bros after having seen a separate film that is so remarkably similar.
My last point, and perhaps my harshest, pertains to Eichner himself. I like Billy Eichner well enough, I enjoy Billy on the Street, he was funny in his minor role in Parks and Recreation, I think he’s alright. But Billy on the Street started as a web short on Funny or Die before going to cable networks like Fuse and then truTV (hardly the most mainstream networks), and his, again, minor role on Parks and Rec didn’t begin until the show’s sixth season and he only appeared in 17 episodes of the show overall. Taking a look at Billy Eichner’s filmography you can see that he has never been a leading man, while it may be disappointing to some, he has always played the gay (and loud) coworker/friend/associate/guy.
Most people probably know Billy Eichner from Billy on the Street, a series that follows Eichner as he trolls the streets and (sorry, but it’s true) accosts people, demanding that they answer a question or play a little game for a small cash prize. It’s like Cash Cab if there was no cab, the trivia was based on Ben Bailey’s own opinion, and Ben Bailey wasn’t Ben Bailey at all and instead was a 6’3 gay man with a camera crew screaming in your face. Again, I like Billy on the Street! It’s funny! Don’t let my unflattering portrait of the show fool you, it’s good entertainment, but it can be abrasive or off-putting. I can see why Billy on the Street could propel someone into the co-star or bit-role position, but it’s hard to fathom the man who screams at people while they rush to get a hotdog on their lunch break in New York City being a leading man.
Whether or not any of these reasons are why Bros failed I’ll never know, these are just my expert guesses. Why did you not see Bros? What I think happened is that Billy Eichner couldn’t fathom that his movie wasn’t the movie, it wasn’t the only gay movie, it wasn’t the best gay movie, but it was his movie that he wanted to be everyone else’s as well. Billy Eichner couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that it was critically doted upon, but that the numbers weren’t matching up. He was faced with two decisions: maybe my movie isn’t as good as I thought it was (which is a hard pill to swallow), or homophobia is the real thing behind this (which is super easy to say on Twitter). Unfortunately for all of us, Billy Eichner chose the latter, and here I am talking about it.
When faced with the unimaginable our minds seek to hide, to deflect, and I think that’s exactly what Billy Eichner did. It’s tragic, and I actually feel kind of bad because I would like Billy Eichner to succeed and find success and happiness, but I don’t think he’s doing himself any favors. To be quite honest, I probably won’t see Bros, it’s just my kind of movie, and this isn’t going to end with some impassioned plea from me for you all to see Bros either in an attempt to soothe Billy Eichner’s damaged ego. Go see Bros if you want, critics seemed to like it, but, if you would rather not see Bros, don’t let Billy Eichner’s temper tantrum on Twitter force you to spend your hard-earned American money on his movie.
That’s our show, ladies and gents! Another long-winded dissection of a piece of media by none other than yours truly. I’ll see everyone again on Sunday, and then again on Tuesday (for real this time). Good morning, good evening, and goodnight!