What Billy Eichner’s ‘Bros’ Means for LGBTQ Film Representation
Universal Pictures recently announced Billy Eichner‘s history-making Bros. He’s the first openly gay man to co-write and star in his own major Hollywood studio movie. Bros will also mark the first all-LGBTQ principal cast, who will also be playing heterosexual-identifying characters. Finally, it’s the first gay romantic comedy from a major Hollywood studio. These are major feats, but what does that mean for the future of LGBTQ film representation?
Independent filmmaking picks up the slack in LGBTQ filmmaking
The first credited gay film is The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, also known as The Gay Brothers. It showed two men dancing. As a result, audiences were shocked. Overtly gay content has historically upset mainstream audiences. The MPAA has unfairly given LGBTQ movies the “kiss of death” NC-17 rating for content that didn’t actually exceed what many PG-13 and R-rated movies were doing with straight-identifying characters. The documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated expands further upon this topic.
This typically pushed LGBTQ narratives to the independent scene. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Paris Is Burning, and But I’m a Cheerleader are examples of LGBTQ movies that generated a cult following. More recently, movies such as Oscar Best Picture-winning Moonlight, Tangerine, Blue is the Warmest Color, Weekend, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire have really become beacons of hope for LGBTQ film representation. The narratives making it to the silver screen is meaningful, even if they aren’t all perfect in their representation.
Billy Eichner’s ‘Bros’ needs to break LGBTQ character tropes
Hollywood tends to push LGBTQ characters to the background in various ways or capitalize on their misfortune. Sometimes they exist for the sole purpose of being comedic relief or the token gay best friend. LGBTQ folks are expendable fodder in other cases.
LGBTQ trauma is typically the root of most gay films. Stories of the AIDS epidemic, sexual trauma, and violence are most common. These stories are important, but the world also needs more joyous and celebratory LGBTQ movies. The community deserves representation with rich, diverse, and complex characters played by LGBTQ-identified actors.
Bros is a romantic comedy with an LGBTQ-identifying cast. This is a great start. A major studio movie is a tremendous amount of exposure, so hopefully, it won’t fall victim to the character tropes that have dragged representation down over the years. If Bros performs well at the box office, more studios will be more likely to jump on the bandwagon and allow LGBTQ storytellers to tell their narratives on the silver screen.
Billy Eichner’s ‘Bros’ can’t be the end-all for LGBTQ storytelling and casting
Bros‘ achievements deserve to be celebrated. It’s shocking that it has taken until the year 2021 for these achievements to become possible, but Eichner is right to be proud of himself. The Hollywood Reporter revealed Eichner’s statement regarding the film.
“I could not be more proud or excited about the historic nature of the all openly LGBTQ+ cast of Bros,” Eichner said. “After queer actors have spent decades watching straight actors capitalize both artistically and professionally by playing LGBTQ+ characters, it is a long overdue dream come true to be able to assemble this remarkable, hilarious cast.”
However, Eichner does recognize some of the aforementioned LGBTQ media tropes and understands that Bros can’t be the end-all. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of major studios greenlighting such projects.
Eichner continued: “And while Bros may be the first of its kind in several ways, my real hope is that it is only the first of many opportunities for openly LGBTQ+ ensembles to shine and show the world all we are capable of as actors, beyond just being the wacky sidekick, token queer or a straight movie star’s ‘gay best friend.’ And beyond all of that, this cast is f***ing hysterical and you’re going to love them.”
Bros is scheduled to hit theaters on August 12, 2022.
