Get your hot topic graphic tees and turn on some Clash inspired rock music, we’re going back to 2010 for this week’s installment of Gay Best Friend. Inspired by comments from readers Scott C and Jesus Alonso, we returned to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for the first time since seeing it in theaters 10 years ago. It turned out to be a fascinating watch in more ways than one, so thank you for the suggestion!
It’s fitting we’re examining the role of Wallace Wells, played by Kieran Culkin, 10 years later. Culkin has graduated from “Maculely Culkin’s talented brother” to stardom thanks to his Emmy-nominated work in Succession. Additionally, in a movie stuffed with zaniness and stylization, Wallace’s role as the GBF is more as a stabilizing, grounding force. While it’s a small role, the film makes Wallace an interesting, modern portrait of a gay man that strays away from typical characterizations...
However, before we delve further into Wallace, we have to talk about the plot and protagonist. Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a bass-playing slacker narcissist who becomes infatuated with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an Amazon delivery girl who is beguiling, mysterious and changes her hair color frequently. That was a big way people knew you were cool in 2010. However, in order to win Ramona’s hand, Scott must defeat all seven of Ramona’s evil exes in video game stylized battle royales.
We’re introduced to Wallace five and half minutes into the movie. The disrespect of calling cutie Kieran Culkin a 7.5.
It’s important to talk about Scott because his worldview is the prism through which the movie deals with misogyny, racism and homophobia. It’s not so much that the movie “deals” with these topics. It’s more that Scott’s boundless narcissism forces him to only see the people in his life as one dimensional props, characterized by what makes them “other” in relation to him. This makes him a hard character to sympathize with or get to know from the onset. However, Edgar Wright is skilled enough to fully flesh out the rest of Scott’s world so they can effectively challenge his worldview.
We’re introduced to Scott bragging about his new 17-year-old Chinese girlfriend. We later learn her name is Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), but that’s incidental. Ever the narcissist, Scott only sees people by their designations. For Knives, Scott only recognizes her by her age, gender and ethnicity. We’re also taking the requisite moment to point out (as most characters do) that it is very creepy of Scott to specifically go after a 17-year-old girlfriend. As their relationship progresses in the first act, it becomes clear Scott is seeking worship from her, while never asking a single thing about Knives. She’s a fetish object to him, someone to boost his ego and status, even if everyone sees right through him.
Wallace Wells, Scott’s roommate, is another one of his fetish objects, just not in a sexual way. In an introduction to Knives, Scott introduces Wallace as his “gay rommate.” He then says “gay” four more times, because that’s all Scott really knows or cares to know about Wallce. Luckily, the movie and Culkin have more fun building the character out.
When we’re introduced to Wallace (admittedly, sexuality first), we learn Scott is essentially a freeloader in Wallace’s home. Though the apartment is like a sadder version of the IKEA filled Fight Club apartment, it’s still very much Wallace’s home that Scott bums around in. Culkin’s Wallace likes to take the piss out of Scott. This is a skill Culkin puts to great use on Succession today. He’s a fun, grunge-y guy who doesn’t adhere to the more overt, splashy gay best friend modifiers. Yet, his sexuality is still a cornerstone to his life which he leads openly. It’s Scott who adapts to Wallace’s world, not the other way around.
Wallace always has to pick Scott up off the floor, emotionally and physically.
Wallace Wells: If you want something bad, you have to fight for it. Step up your game, Scott. Break out the L-word.
Scott Pilgrim: Lesbian?
Wallace Wells: The other L-word.
Scott Pilgrim: ...Lesbians?
While there are aspects of his personality that subvert the typical portrait of a “gay best friend,” Wallace is still saddled with the same duties. Roughly 90% of his lines are pieces of love advice to Scott. In the worst cases of “gay best friend” syndrome, the characters are merely there to be over-enthusiastic oracles who live to impart wisdom on the protagonist, but have no inner life themselves. Luckily, Wallace is spared this sad fate, as the character delivers each piece of advice with exasperation towards Scott’s inability to handle his own life. One of the better running gags involves Scott’s sister, Stacey (Anna Kendrick), calling Scott out on his shit minutes after Wallace. She gets all her information from Wallace, as the two of them have an independent relationship that includes them texting about dumb shit Scott does.
Additionally, Wallace is able to dispense love advice to Scott because we get to see Wallace’s own very functioning love life. Wallace at first seems to be dating “Other Scott” (Ben Lewis), until we start seeing other men pop into bed with Wallace. He has the ability to be honest and juggle different relationships, which is something Scott tries to call him out on. Wallace gets a great reply:
Wallace Wells: Look, I didn't write the gay handbook. If you got a problem with it, take it up with Liberace's ghost.
Not all gay relationships are monogamous. Some healthy gay relationships are open. While Wallace and “Other Scott” don’t exactly seem destined to go the distance, Wallace displays honesty and maturity towards his open and promiscuous lifestyle. It may be a stretch to say the movie celebrates Wallace’s lifestyle when we only see glimpses of it. However, this ranks as the most honest depiction of a gay sex life we've seen in the Gay Best Friend series so far.
How much fun would a trip down Wallace’s exes be? If only that had been a spin-off. Plus, let us not forget that Wallace canonically lusts after action star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans). The man has good taste.
This is a look saying, “Scott, please just let us fuck in peace.”
Wallace Wells: Scott, you know I love you. But I need my own bed tonight. It's for sex.
Scott Pilgrim: Right.
Wallace Wells: I may need it for the rest of the week too... and the year.
Scott Pilgrim: Right, I get it.Wallace Wells: Hey, maybe you can move in with Ramona.
Scott Pilgrim: [pause as Scott shakes his head] She's with Gideon now.
Wallace Wells: Ah, that sucks, but you know it's probably just because he's better than you.
One of the more interesting aspects of Wallace and Scott’s friendship is the sleeping arrangements in the apartment. They share a bed together, including with any and all of Wallace’s gentlemen lovers. These scenes are a lot of fun as the men in Wallace’s life all to some degree share some sort of disdain towards Scott’s choices. However, the decision to have Scott not have a bed of his own speaks to his insane co-dependent issues. As Wallace alludes in the passage above, he wants nothing more than for Scott to fly the coop and give him his own space (and bed).
Representationally, 2010 falls into this interesting period where comedies have become, to some degree, kinder to gay people as queer culture has started to make its way into the mainstream. That’s not to say the “gay panic” jokes from the 80s, 90s and early 00s are at all dead by this point. Kevin James is still making frat boy comedies where the idea of another man looking his way would be cause for fear and retaliation. Having Scott sleep platonically in the same bed with his gay roommate and his lover feels like an overcorrection. It’s a way of showing how comfortable he is with his own sexuality that he can literally invade the space of his gay roommate to prove it. However, Wallace is a hot, horny gay on the prowl. Let him have his bed!
If this were a real video game, wouldn’t we all want to play as Roxy Richter?
Scott Pilgrim: You know her?
Ramona V. Flowers: It was just a phase.
Scott Pilgrim: You had a sexy phase?
Ramona V. Flowers: I was just a little bi-curious.
Roxy Richter: I'm just a little bi-furious!
While we are on the subject of queer representation in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, we have to talk about Mae Whitman’s Roxy Richter. Iconically, she is far from the “gay best friend” trope, and instead is the lone female in Ramona’s band of seven exes. In just her short exchange with Ramona, we get a very interesting look into their sordid breakup. Ramona insists their relationship was “just a phase,” while Roxy still harbors both love and resentment for her in equal measures. In a film that’s all about the relationship/breakup wounds left to fester, this one hits deep. Ramona came of age in a metropolitan area and felt free to explore her sexuality, eventually concluding she preferred men. In response, Ramona leaves Roxy who now must contend with the fact that she loved Ramona more than Ramona loved her. Ignore Scott’s reductive comment about it being a “very sexy phase,” it was a real relationship to Roxy, which makes their fight both fun and emotionally involving. Plus, Roxy calls Ramona a “has-bian,” which I loved deeply.
Re-watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was a much more prickly experience than I expected. Scott may be one of the most unpleasant lead characters in recent memory. However, for the most part screenwriters Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright do a good job of making Scott confront all of his shortcomings and answer for how he treats women. Combined with Wright’s singular vision and some incredibly well-constructed set-pieces, it winds up being quite a satisfying film to rewatch.
Previously in Gay Best Friend