The Film Experience

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Even before officially coming out, Nathan Lane (left) wasn't afraid to play gay in "Frankie and Johnny," pictured here with Kate Nelligan and Al Pacino.Especially in the early days, the inauthenticity of the “Gay Best Friend” trope came from straight actors mincing about to sell the part. The role is able to gain a whole lot of authenticity when a queer person is either writing or acting the part. In the case of Frankie and Johnny, both the writer and performer of the 'gay best friend' were gay, though both were not out. Theater legend (and out gay playwright) Terence McNally adapted his Off-Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune into a movie in 1991. He was able to get A-List talent to take the titular roles for film, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino headlining. However, he also gave Nathan Lane one of his first breakout roles as Tim, the gay best friend and neighbor of Pfeiffer’s Frankie.

The 1991 film did not achieve the level of acclaim that McNally’s play did (thus it was the subject of a great This Had Oscar Buzz episode). Still, there are things to appreciate about this adaptation...

Fresh out of prison, Johnny (Pacino) gets a job working at a small diner in New York City. Here he instantly falls in love with the guarded waitress Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer). After bad breakups, she has sworn off dating. However, Johnny’s persistence and charms threaten to break down the walls that she has built up.

While well acted, many of the movie’s scenes do not transfer well to screen and are often flatly directed by Gary Marshall. Where the movie really shines is in its humanistic approach to the rest of the supporting cast. Different montages depict the evening routines of all the waitresses and guests in the local diner. This mashup of ordinary nightly occurrences has a certain beauty to it. We’re so used to seeing these people in relation to each other, there’s something revealing about watching them when they think they’re alone. Especially in an apartment complex, no one is truly alone, as people are living on top of one another. This is how Frankie makes friends with her gay neighbor, Tim (Nathan Lane).

Tim (Nathan Lane) comes to his friend Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) with some exciting news... a new boyfriend, Bobby (Sean O'Brien).

Tim: We met at a Dr. Pepper commercial audition. He was Big Pepper and I was Little Pepper.

While Tim is never given much of a part in the film, he is at least introduced as a sexual character. In fact, we are introduced to his latest boyfriend even before him. Frankie walks into her apartment and is treated to the hunky Sean O’Brien as Bobby in her living room. As she wonders who he might be, Nathan Lane flounces in with flannel and some unbecoming facial hair. He may still be the queenier of the two, but this is one of the butcher lewks of Lane we’ve seen on screen. Tim enters Frankie’s apartment and excitedly introduces her to his new boyfriend. Even though he soon becomes a sounding board for her issues, we at least first see him celebrate his good news with her. There’s at least some tit for tat in this friendship.

Tim: I love watching TV with you, I hope we'll be best friends the rest of our lives but there's a whole world out there, it's no use pretending there's not just because our feelings got hurt or there's some virus.

Tim functions less as a plot device and more as an engine reinforcing the inciting incident for Frankie. She’s stuck in a rut that she needs to get out of. As much as Tim likes hanging out with her, he wants more from their lives than watching TV and hanging out. This is a great kick in the butt for Frankie to begin working through her issues with intimacy and relationships. Also, it’s great that the gay character is the one breaking the cycle of codependence. He’s the first one to get back into a real relationship and he’s the one trying to get them engaging with the real world.

This also marks the only real mention of AIDS in the film. There’s something nice about how AIDS is presented as a reality in Tim’s life, but not THE only thing on his mind. In the face of a disease ravaging gay men, Tim chooses to chase after happiness with Bobby and be open to the world. This is a quietly radical decision in a time where gay men were not encouraged to be out and open in the world. These small bits of characterization provide interesting shades to a character that gets very little screen time. Though he’s always seen with Michelle Pfeiffer, Tim alludes to a life that exists outside Frankie.

It wouldn't be a Gay Best Friend article without a makeover scene.

Johnny: You know, I have a cousin who's gay.

Tim: Oh, most people do.

Frankie: Ready!

Johnny: He's a really great guy.

Tim: I'm sure.

Johnny: He just found out he was gay a couple of months ago.

Tim: Well, I'll look him up in the directory. Under the new listings.

Of course if there’s a gay best friend, there has to be a makeover scene. Frankie has enlisted Tim’s help in dressing her for a party that she’s dreading going to. Out of nowhere, Johnny calls and asks to take her to the party. Tim delights in Frankie finally getting back out in the dating game and goes into overdrive getting her dressed. It’s a fun scene that veers into stereotype, but still manages to treat Tim like a human. It also helps that while Tim is playing dress up with Frankie, his boyfriend Bobby is setting up her VCR. Gays come in all shapes and sizes and aren’t this prissy monolith.

When Johnny comes up, he’s left alone with both gays while Frankie finishes putting herself together. It’s a sweet scene that is built upon a certain gay panic that was present throughout media in the 80s-00s. Rather than fear being left alone with the gays, Johnny tries to rack his mind for topics to speak to them about. Both Tim and Bobby appear stiff, feeling weird that they’re being looked at like some foreign species. Yes, the “I have a gay cousin” trope is tired. However, in 1991, these touchstones were important for straight Americans to accept their gay counterparts. These reaches across the aisle are reductive now, but did mean a lot during the AIDS crisis. Here, the movie cements that it sees Tim and Bobby as real people, and not punchlines.

We don’t get much more of Tim throughout the rest of the movie. Yet, like the rest of the supporting cast, their memory looms over the rest of the movie. Frankie and Johnny’s story may be the primary one, but the movie wisely insists that each apartment in New York has some sort of story, romance or drama happening within it.

Nathan Lane (left) pictured with writer Terence McNally (right), a frequent collaborator.At the time, Nathan Lane was primarily a Broadway actor with only a few film credits to his name. Though we all know Nathan Lane as gay today, he wasn’t out at the time of Frankie and Johnny. In fact, he didn’t publicly come out until 1999 in The Advocate, years after his breakout role in The Birdcage. Since the time of Frankie and Johnny, Lane remarked how journalists would often ask him about his sexuality. This even includes Oprah, who pried into his sexuality during an interview about The Birdcage. This is part of why gay characters were fewer and far between in the 90s and before. Unless you are a star at the level of Tom Hanks or Robin Williams, playing gay could easily make people think you are gay and preclude you from any straight roles. Lane managed to play straight roles in sitcom guest spots on Mad About You and Frasier, as well as the lead of The Producers.

Still, playing gay roles kept stoking these questions from journalists and the public, which only takes away from focusing on his fabulous performances. Now, we can watch Nathan Lane in The Birdcage and appreciate his ability to give a full bodied comedic tour de force. In 1996 though (just like in 1991), Lane’s performances were watched with a judging eye - “This is good, but is he actually… you know... gay?” Perhaps this is why Tim feels both flimsy and lovable. He’s written as a side character and performed as a side character. Yet, Lane was able to breathe life and authenticity into him, despite being underwritten.

Previously in Gay Best Friend

pre stonewall

post stonewall

1990s and the 2000s

the now