To be honest, I had no idea that “Bros” had been released in movie theaters when it first came out in September, and the only promotion that I briefly saw of it was a ten second Tik-Tok trailer that I quickly forgot. And when I saw the movie poster of two white men holding each other's butts with a cutesy looking title in large font, it hardly stood out as peak graphic design or even a comedy worth watching. If anything, its opening box office numbers of $4.8 million prove that most everyone else thought the same thing. However, I’m happy to watch all kinds of stupid movies in a theater if it’s with my friends, and I went in to watch the movie expecting at best a mindless rom-com. What I saw exceeded all expectations. Although it features a romance between two cisgender white men, Billy Eichner shows a refreshing amount of self awareness as both lead actor and writer, and takes care to feature a diverse cast and intersectionality within the entire movie. It never felt as if the story ignored the many different systems of oppression that LGBTQ communities face, and it accounted for other factors like race and class alongside sexuality and gender. It also calls out popular queer movies that perpetuate harmful stereotypes and commodify queer culture, such as “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Power of the Dog.” “Bros” is set apart in the fact that it doesn’t diminish or warp itself to appeal to a more heteronormative audience. Even though the movie is a mainstream Hollywood release, its plot is unapologetic in its queer romance. In true rom-com fashion, the conflicts are centered on miscommunication, rather than homophobia and pain (“My Policeman” could never), which is of course rare in the narratives we see about LGBTQ lives in popular media. It’s nice to see a movie that is, at its heart, a simple, sweet romance but is still entirely conscious of its queerness and the unique complications that this raises in dating culture and relationships. In addition, Billy Eichner’s sharp dialogue throughout helps keep the story from feeling too cheesy.
After an extremely disappointing performance in theaters, though, Eichner took to Twitter to call on “Everyone who ISN'T a homophobic weirdo” to show up to see “Bros,” and criticized straight people for refusing to watch the movie despite its overwhelmingly positive reviews. Unfortunately, it’s not completely surprising that “Bros” flopped, considering that rom-coms have been on the decline in recent years. This is largely due to dropping attention spans and franchise film approaches to cinema that focus on high action, big budget blockbusters instead of more independent movies that aren’t as intense for viewers–often dubbed the “Marvelification” of movies. Even though this movie was a solid romantic comedy that had me laughing out loud at the theater and tearing up at surprisingly poignant emotional moments, and managed to present a serious commentary on less obvious parts of navigating queerness in the modern age as a middle aged man, “Bros” didn’t sell. This was probably a combination of both homophobia and the dying genre of rom-coms as a whole. “Bros” differs from past American mainstream gay romances—like “Love, Simon,” which had a definite box office success—in that it doesn’t feature a large conflict surrounding “coming out,” infidelity, or characters stuck in extremely homophobic communities. These tropes usually have the effect of letting cisgender, heterosexual audiences be more comfortable in their viewing as it still upholds much of the status quo. In contrast, the leads of “Bros” work through more nuanced issues than coming to terms with their sexuality, presenting a more progressive happy ending to their romance that isn’t defined solely by heteronormativity. In my opinion, Billy Eichner’s goal of portraying the complexity of queer people as “funny, sad, lonely, extremely confident, messy, brave, horny and hypocritical adult human beings” was ultimately achieved.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.