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Last month one of the big controversies in online movie discussions was the box office failure of the film BROS:
https://deadline.com/2022/10/bros-billy-eichner-reacts-disappointing-box-office-results-proud-movie-1235133197/
The movie, which was which was promoted as a pioneering mainstream romantic comedy about gay men, earned $11.6 against a $22 million budget.
A lot of coverage lamented that romcoms of all varieties are simply dead as far as theatrical excursions are considered:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/bros-disappointing-box-office-debut-142922789.html
This may not be true if the romcom features major Hollywood stars -- the new Julia Roberts/Geroge Clooney movie has already broken the $100 million barrier -- but the cast of BROS is niche, to say the least, if Eichner (a Youtube celeb and bit player in later Parks & Rec seasons) is the most recognizable face in its cast.
Some questioned whether marketing the movie as an important milestone in gay cinema made it less enticing than marketing it as a funny comedy. Apparently, the narrative of the movie gives some prominence to the discussion of gay history, making it feel even more like a "lesson movie;" I don't know -- like everyone else, I did not go to see the movie, and I watch considerably more movies than most people.
Co-writer/star Billy Eichner blamed "homophobic weirdo[s]" for his movie's failure:
https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/03/gay-rom-com-bombs-box-office-billy-eichner-blames-audience-bros/
The movie podcasts I listen to couldn't find their way into discussing this elephant in the room beyond shallow references to Eichner's comment: Is it actually "weirdo" to be "homophobic" by Eichner's standard? Or is homophobia normative and homophilia is the "weirdo" position? 'Not homophobic' in this context, one assumes, means something like Ibram X. Kendi's "anti-racist:" that is, it's not enough to merely not be homophobic, one must be actively affirming of homosexuality (to the point of buying one or more tickets for BROS) to display one's lack of homophobia. However, if homophobia is to be measured by the reaction to BROS, it suggests that so few people are not homophobic that "not homophobic" is a position on the outer fringes of positions.
What I suspect is that maybe even most "allies" who support homosexuality politically with rainbow avatars, buttons, and bumper stickers, aren't going to go out of their way and spend their $30+ for a night out to watch gay men love each other, including an allegedly strong sex scene. Allyship's appeal as a virtue maybe doesn't easily translate into casual "date night" entertainment. For all of the battling over culture war insertions into big franchises mostly owned by Disney, those are still properties that appeal mostly to normies, who are the biggest box office spenders. If you take away all of the normie appeal -- the movie stars, the special effects -- and just leave the important socio-political content, the audience almost completely vanishes, as should be expected.
It also probably didn't help the box office of BROS that its target market --- young urban progressives -- is the same one most hawkishly cautious about COVID and the least likely to return to movie theaters out of what now could be ascribed to superstitious fears of deadly illness.
I had another thought about this movie today that I'm almost sure didn't occur to anyone who is 100% in on the Ally train, and which suggests a systemic blindspot within the pro-homosexual community: the title. "Bros" may be a term that has entered popular lexicon as a synonym for "Buddies," but etymologically it derives from "Brothers." Its meaning is an intentional blurring of the two: "Buddies" who are so close they are like "Brothers." The poster, https://nerdzone-cinemanerdz.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/bros-poster.jpg, which over the title shows the backs of two men each with a hand on the other's blue-jeaned ass, has an inescapable connotation of incest in this context.
If for many normies who have internalized decades of calls for tolerance and are no longer actively anti-gay, gay men still seem, when considered closely, pretty gross, adding an incest connotation multiplies that potential nausea exponentially. Can you imagine a movie poster just like that of BROS, but with a hetero couple, for a movie titled, "Like Brother and Sister?" It's almost inconceivable that this would happen outside of some edgy indie fare. (The only comparison that came to mind is Spanking the Monkey (1994) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanking_the_Monkey, a dark comedy about a fraught and erotic mother-son relationship, which grossed less than $2 million but launched the career of Oscar-nominated director David O. Russell.)
I suspect that, if homosexuality is still, in the broad scope of sexuality, a fringe deviation from the norm, the act of promoting homosexuality as "normal" has made its proponents tone-deaf to the general public's overall aversion to other sexual transgressions, like incest. That suggesting an extreme taboo like incest in the title either was not noticed as an obstacle or was noticed and dismissed is noteworthy because movie studio marketing departments are notorious for micromanaging every detail to an obnoxious degree to be the most blandly appealing to the widest audience.
Even if you don't think the title BROS connotes incest, the far lesser taboo it suggests has been treated as a consequential obstacle by romcoms for several decades. To take the title BROS at its most benign: How many romcoms are about the earthshaking repercussions of crossing the line from platonic hetero friendship to a sexual relationship? It's a staple of the genre and is often the primary conflict for an entire narrative. My guess is that, IRL, the friends-to-lovers pathway is a far more common transgression than vanilla homosexuality, and yet BROS wants to steal the less common transgression as a given and expects a wide audience to accept it without a blink. It doesn't seem a shock that ignorance of one taboo is joined hand-in-ass with willful ignorance of another taboo within the same broad category, increasing the reasons why a normie audience member could be put off from going to see this. The problem is, as I see it, not only that lines are being crossed that the general audience is not ready to cross, but that the censorious nature of public discourse about homosexuality has made its proponents unaware of the lines that are being crossed.
Also, one more line is being crossed: This is an unusually sexually bold poster for any mainstream comedy, let alone a gay one, right? I can't think of any others that depict fondling, except for some low-grade 1980s sex comedies, and even those are mostly leering rather than active groping. If BROS is supposed to be the gay equivalent of middlebrow comedies like NO STRINGS ATTACHED (2011) (https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTg2MDQ1NTEzNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTgxNTMyNA@@.V1.jpg) or FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011) (https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/417b9424-88ce-47b9-affe-58804b299ea0_1.09201acca0a0b0759d602d050606699d.jpeg) those posters don't show touching at all, surprisingly. I also looked through the posters for several other Judd Apatow-produced comedies from the last 20 years, and the only ones that show actual physical contact are STEP BROTHERS (2008) and BRIDESMAIDS (2011), and the contact in those is non-romantic. This is not a prudish criticism of BROS as much as it is to point out how out-of-step it is with mainstream Hollywood, which does have prudish marketing for comedies, and even for comedies mostly about sex. If the intent of BROS is to push envelopes, fine; but it shouldn't then expect mainstream success. If its makers want mainstream success, they need better self-awareness and management of their envelope-pushing.
I’m not homophobic in any way, but I’m not interested in this movie because I’m just…not gay.
Other movie genres I’m not interested in: marvel movies, children’s movies (although I repeat myself, HA!), movies where old people get their groove back, sports drama movies (except Rudy), slasher/gore movies, anime…I don’t know I’m sure there are many others. My point is that while I don’t have any problem with gay people, I’m not gay myself and won’t seek out gay media in the same way I don’t seek out gay bars.
If a friend invited me to go see this movie, I would go, but again I don’t think then would because I’m not in the target audience.
Target audience for this movie is about 10% of the total population, or about 5% since only men. Meaning this movie if Herero would have done about $200M in sales.
Target a tiny audience and get a tiny box office. Simple as.
Surely the target audience must have been imagined to be primarily fujoshi-adjacent straight women, and not gay men?
Well it missed that audience as well... straight women want the gay experience catered to their tastes, they want a nicholas sparks novel or rom-com where they get to drool over both leads, and it feels slightly taboo. Brokeback Mountain hit this audience perfectly.
They don't want a movie named after a frat term of endeerment and that conotes jock humour... There is stuff like that but that's usually compromise fair like American Pie, Neighbors, etc. that Exists to straddle the line of mixed company where several straight friends might be together and female tastes won't dominate.
They alienated the female audience with "Bros" and male audiences with "Gay"
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I think activists would still loudly declare you homophobic. Being straight is OK, but your inability to move past the gayness and enjoy the movie is problematic. It's unacceptable to go around saying, "I like straight romcoms but not gay romcoms" for the same reasons one can't say, "I like cis-women but not trans-women."
We should distinguish media made about X from media made for X. If a niche piece of media is made for say, black people, I could envision "cultural appropriation" complaints if too many white people start enjoying it. OTOH, blackwashing batman isn't about making media for black people, it's about making media about black people, for everyone (mostly white people) to watch.
Back to Bros, this movie is about gays, but is for everyone. It's alright if the only way a straight person to enjoy this is to mentally replace the characters with ones that appeal to them. Indeed, maybe audiences already do that when watching straight romcoms (maybe you don't like their hair color?). But watching a relationship between two men is probably too weird and distracting that people probably find it difficult to make the mental substitutions (probably for me, too).
I think when it comes to charges of "homophobia" the only time you're ever allowed to treat gay and straight differently is in matters of orientation, which is to say, you wouldn't date a gay person if you're straight. Even then, you'd probably have to phrase it pretty carefully.
Is he actually saying that he likes straight but not gay romcoms? I read him as apathetic to the genre, with BROS giving no reason to buck the trend.
I don’t think “activists” would label the latter stance as homophobic...
Yeah. I don't like romcoms, so I'm not going to go see one, and I'm particularly not going to go see one where I'm lectured about how I have to go see it or else I'm an -ist or a -phobe.
Hm, avoid spending time and money to be bored out of my skull watching a movie that doesn't appeal to me and wouldn't appeal to me if it had straight male and female leads, all for the low, low cost of being called a homophobe? I'll take that bargain!
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Probably worse than that, since I think generally LGB is estimated at 3-5% of the population, so it’s really more like…2.5% on the high end?
I’m aware that a higher % of people engage in same-sex behaviors (but i think still less than 10%) but it isn’t a core part of their identity, ergo, not likely to be motivated in particular to watch this.
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