This is Parting Glance, a new column on Cinephiled about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) film. Sometimes we will discuss serious gay issues. Sometimes we will profile queer movies both past and present. Sometimes we will look at shirtless pictures of Ryan Gosling and daydream about the possibilities.
So many possibilities.
Today, we’re talking about Magical Faggots.
The eight-year run of Will & Grace on NBC did a lot of wonderful things for the LGBT community. So did the six-year run of Sex and the City on HBO. Both shows were created or co-created by gay men. Both provided rich opportunities for terrific gay comic actors like Sean Hayes and Mario Cantone. Both contributed to a rapid cultural shift whose ramifications can be felt from the Supreme Court to the latest episode of Glee.
Both shows also caused a lot of collateral damage. Their main crime? Turning the gay best friend into an accessory. A must-have item for any young woman wishing to project a sense of glamour and worldliness.
The desire for a gay best friend is understandable. No one is more sophisticated than the stereotypical gay man. He knows how to dress. He knows what music straight people will be dancing to six months from now. He knows just when to enter a room with wine coolers and a sassy retort.
This stereotype exists for a reason. There are plenty of gay men who order vodka tonics because they’re low in calories and squeal like little girls when the new Katy Perry song comes on. They are Flaming with a capital f.
But the way they’re presented is a fantasy. When was the last time you saw a movie with two gay characters interacting with each other? For most people, the answer is probably Brokeback Mountain. That movie came out eight years ago. Think about the cell phone you had eight years ago. Now imagine if you still viewed that as the standard.
This happened before the iPhone. Just saying.
The fantasy is the lone gay mixing freely among the heterosexual herd. No gay person surrounds themselves with straight people all the time. That’s the quickest path to celibacy. And as we all know, celibacy is for squares.
TV has caught on to this fact in recent years. Several popular shows like Glee, Modern Family, True Blood, The Good Wife and Scandal have multiple, complex LGBT characters. The movies are woefully behind.
The Magical Negro has been a favorite cinematic trope for decades. The term describes a friendly, black supporting character whose sole narrative purpose is to assist the white protagonist. The Magical Negro exists only in his or her relation to the majority.
Just as there are Magical Negroes, there are Magical Faggots.
“I can be Grace and you can be my Will!” is something I heard in college more times than I can count. It never failed to send me running in the other direction. These women weren’t actually seeking friendship. They were seeking shoe advice with the possible subsequent side effect of friendship. They saw my gayness only as it related to their own prosperity.
With Parting Glance, I hope to quell the Magical Faggot by drawing attention to him or her whenever they appear. This deconstruction of the gay best friend is going to be a regular feature of the column. It’s going to be called The Gay Best Friend because I am the most inventive writer in history.
Adam Brody in Baggage Claim.
The aim here is not to be super serious or to sound the homophobic alarm. The aim is to widen the cinematic potential for gay characters. Magical Faggots are just one small slice of the LGBT pie. Why limit yourself to a single slice when you could have the whole pizza?
You can check out the first installment of The Gay Best Friend by clicking here.
And if you have any ideas for things you’d like to see in Parting Glance, please put them in the comments below.