‘The Other Two’: The Music Video for ‘My Brother’s Gay’ Was Inspired by One Direction and Christina Aguilera
The Other Two, the HBO show centered around a teenage pop star, features several original songs to showcase Chase’s work. After the viral music video “Marry U At Recess,” Chase gains a team of writers (headed by Wanda Sykes) to create his new music. The show’s creators, Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, are the real-life minds behind the music. They took inspiration from real music videos to produce the video for “My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!”
‘My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!’
In the fourth episode of The Other Two Season 1, a horrified Cary (Drew Tarver) learns that his younger brother Chase (Case Walker) released a new single called “My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!”
The song, which features lyrics like “My brother’s gay and here to stay/So haters, you’d better stay out of his way,” includes Cary’s first and last name. He was not aware of the release; instead, he learns of the song when people on the street recognize him. While the lyrics are laughable, Chase sings them earnestly.
“It’s a joke, but it’s also very sincere. Chase loves his brother. The whole song is about how he’s proud of him, and how he supports him,” Walker told Vanity Fair.
Though the video propels Cary’s career in entertainment, it also forces him to come to terms with the knowledge that the entire world knows his sexuality.
The music video is based on real-life musicians
The music video to “My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!” features Chase singing in a barn filled with pictures of Cary. According to Kelly and Schneider, the premise is based on the videos for Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and One Direction’s “Story of My Life.”
“We were kind of like, ‘Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful meets One Direction’s The Story of My Life.’ That’s the vibe we were going for there. Genuine and raw and wooden barn and hanging photographs and all that,” Schneider said to Refinery29.
The One Direction video also features the band in a barn, singing against a backdrop of childhood photos.
“We took that visual and then applied it to over 1,000 pictures of Drew Tarver,” Schneider said to Vanity Fair.
The songwriting process in ‘The Other Two’
Schneider and Kelly both have experience writing comedic music. As head writers on SNL, they wrote songs like “(Do It On My) Twin Bed” and “Back Home Ballers.” For The Other Two, however, they wanted the tunes to be more believable as chart-toppers.
Per Billboard, they needed to take the funny lyrics and make them sound like actual songs. They partnered with Leland, a songwriter who has written for Troye Sivan and Selena Gomez.
“Basically we would explain to him what vibe we were looking for,” Schneider said. “We would send him our dumb lyrics, and he would make it sound legitimate and amazing.”
By balancing humor with professional songwriting, Schneider and Kelly fit three original ChaseDreams songs into the series.
