Bros Movie: Slam Dunk or Massive Flop?

The Q+ Magazine family went to see the Bros movie last night, and sorry bro, but we didn’t love it. The promo for this film was so well done that there was definitely an air of excitement around its release. Despite this, all the best parts of this movie ended up in the trailer, and fam, that’s painful. 

Written by Billy Eichner and Nicholas Stoller, and directed by Nicholas Stoller, the Bros movie was supposed to be one of the biggest smash hits of the year. When it failed to hit its projected box office sales on opening weekend (by a huuuuggeeee margin), curiosity as to why piqued the interest of the internet. Many took to slagging off the film before they even saw it, based on those involved in its production, but not us. We dragged our sorry asses to the cinema to form our own opinions on what we hoped was going to be the next Big Gay Thing™. 

We are big fans of Luke McFarlane in this house, so we went with our pitchforks ready to defend the film against those speaking out against it. However, we wandered out of the theater with our tails between our legs, because yo, there was very little in this film that we felt worthy of our support. 

Marketed as a romcom for the gays, Bros is definitely not what we were expecting. Here are our thoughts on this controversial LGBTQ+ movie release. 

Bros Movie: plot overview

Bobby (Billy Eichner) is an opinionated, disgruntled gay. He has just landed himself a gig as the curator of the very first LGBTQ+ museum in the United States, set to open in New York City. All the staff are some kind of queer, and it’s clear that Bobby himself is well versed in the history of his people. 

However, his jaded disposition to all things in life and the way he expresses this to absolutely everyone and everything he comes into contact with presents him as nothing but bitter, rude, annoying and man, this aspect of his personality is utterly relentless. 

When he meets Aaron (Luke McFarlane) at a dance club, we’re honestly not sure how Aaron tolerates his catty, in-your-face, snotty attitude. Aaron, big, buff, and definitely on the “bro-dude” spectrum of the cis gender white male archetype, seems to develop a soft spot for Bobby, and the two enter this weird courting-but-not-dating arrangement that is quite clearly supposed to be the backdrop for a romcom. 

Bobby obviously has self-esteem issues and spends a large portion of the film telling Aaron that it’s “clear that Aaron just doesn’t like him and babe, that’s okay” (we paraphrased here). The first time this sentiment is presented to viewers, it seems to have its place (because yo, we thought the same thing). But then, Bobby keeps saying that over and over and it gets old pretty fast. 

We get it: Aaron is hot and buff and can definitely pass as straight, and Bobby isn’t those things. Opposites attract, blah blah blah. 

Le sigh. 

The target audience

The marketing campaign for this film centered around Billy Eichner attempting to convince straight people that they needed to see this film, and honestly, now that we’ve seen it, we’re not sure why. The film expends a lot of energy making fun of straight people, and not in a way that is likely to make them laugh at themselves. 

The character of Aaron is also created as a straight passing dude. Clearly, this was an attempt to give straight guys a character within the film to which they could relate. Except, they wrote Aaron as a dumb meathead bro-dude that has commitment issues. The average straight, white man who would be likely to go and see this film is unlikely to fit that stereotype (but we never know, we guess). The way Bobby criticizes straight people, and the bro-dudes that occupy his queer spaces comes off as insulting, rather than humorous comedy. 

Despite the campaign to encourage straight folks to show up and see this film, after watching it, it’s abundantly clear that cisgender white gay men are definitely the target audience. Maybe to the cisgender white gay men, the Bros movie is funny and relatable, and maybe it’s because Billy Eichner clearly lives in a cisgender white gay man’s bubble of privilege, that he thought this would be a hit. However, as queer, gay, and people of color, that bubble does not apply to us here and we found this movie completely unrelatable in many ways. 

Representation (not)

The film was also marketed as having all kinds of queer and cultural representation. However, the best of that was crammed into the trailer and not really expanded upon in the narrative of the film. The LGBTQ+ museum that Bobby curates also employs a butch lesbian, a bisexual man, a black nonbinary character, a white trans woman, and a black trans woman, but their characters are so underdeveloped and so two-dimensional that we can’t even remember their names. 

These characters added nothing to the narrative of the story and felt like they were there so the creators of the film could check the diversity box. Simply including LGBTQ+ folks to sit outside the cisgender white gay man is not enough to claim the diversity card. These characters need to be developed and be given the chance to provide alternative points-of-view, which these characters were not. 

Chemistry

Apart from the fact that we thought the Bros movie was going to be the second coming for the gays, we showed up for Luke McFarlane. Everything he does always leaves a warm fuzzy feeling in our stomach – until now. There was no chemistry between McFarlane and Billy Eichner and we just didn’t buy the relationship that developed between them on screen. 

It was hard to understand why Aaron was into Bobby at all, what with the way he complained and whined about absolutely everything, and the film charged on with awkward scene after awkward scene between the two. 

The attempts at comedy fell short and left us watching with our hands covering our eyes at many places throughout the film. If there is no investment in the two people allegedly engaging in a romantic affair, how can one possibly call such a film a romantic comedy? Especially if it’s not funny.

Saving grace

However, Bros did get one thing right. Despite what Hollywood would have us believe, there is no one proper way to be gay, and Bros definitely attempted to convey this message. This particular message was received loud and clear, and rather successfully so. 

Despite the fact that Aaron is not a walking LGBTQ encyclopedia, that doesn’t make him any less gay than Bobby – even if Bobby definitely insinuates this frequently enough. It’s a lesson that Bobby needs to learn if he and Aaron are ever going to have a shot at making their relationship work. 

And the depiction of what a gay man should look like, how a gay man should act, has been held hostage by Hollywood for far too long. The Bros movie makes a concerted effort to dismantle these stereotypes and archetypal constructs, because baby, gay is whatever you want it to be, Hollywood assigned rules be damned. There is space for gays like Aaron, and there is space for gays like Bobby. 

If you’re a cisgender white gay man, you might find a place for yourself in the world that Billy Eichner created in Bros. It’s worth noting that Judd Apatow produced this film, so that might help fill in some of the blanks about what happened to this story. There was so much potential here, so many chances for incredible LGBTQ storytelling, but unfortunately, it fell flat. 

Billy Eichner is claiming that the reason the film flopped is because straight people didn’t show up for the Bros movie. However, had we gone on opening day, we would have told our queer folks the truth about what we watched and we’re not sure they would have shown up either. 

So is it really the fault of the straight community, or is there a disconnect between the creators of this film and the target audience they so hoped they would reach? We urge all who see this to ask that question.

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