Gay Best Friend: Matt (Matthew Wilkas) in "Gayby" (2012)

A series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope... also yes, this is part of my takeover of The Film Experience today.

How many of us have had babies with our straight female friend?Who doesn’t love gay lunacy? 

The classic straight girl-gay best friend trope takes center stage in the hilarious 2012 microbudget comedy Gayby. Unlike other films that have tackled this relationship (think The Object of My Affection), the film is set primarily in the gay world, rather than framed through the straight world. This movie has everything: gay comic book store drama, hookups lined up for every day in the week, early cameos from Girls stars Adam Driver and Alex Karpofsky plus, finally, an impromptu dance break.

Matt (Matthew Wilkas) and Jen (Jenn Harris) have been best friends since college. Both have been through their whole adult lives together and find themselves in the same post-relationship rut. Matt feels uncomfortable having one night stands with other men after his seven year relationship ended. Meanwhile, Jen feels her biological clock ticking and wants to have a baby. How to do it though? There’s no romantic interest to speak of in her life, and Matt has been the most consistent relationship in her life. She proposes they do it… the old fashioned way. Soon, Matt also becomes excited about the idea of having a child with Jen. He can move on to this stage of fatherhood and bypass the frightening world of being single.

Though the synopsis feels more centered around Jen’s desire for motherhood, the narrative does give heavy weight to Matt’s feelings about being a Father and also being a gay man navigating singlehood. As he and Jen embark on their journey, Matt begins to go on more and more unsuccessful dates. However, he does become smitten with a Dad, Scott (Mike Doyle), who brings his kid into Matt’s comic book store. 

Never Grindr alone...Helping him through his dating escapades is his own gay best friend who fulfills the typical functions of the stereotype. Writer/director Jonathan Lisecki also stars as Nelson, a femme growing out his facial hair in order to be a bear on the hookup apps. The typical “sassy gay best friend” would only offer up quippy one liners and advice to the protagonist. While Nelson definitely does this, he also exists outside of the frame. He always feels like he is in between hookups or fabulous parties. Even in relation to other characters, he has his own independent history. Jen has her own gay best friend at her yoga studio, Jamie (Jack Ferver). By the end of the film, the two reveal that they have their own years-long feud from all their time at the club. Everyone gets to have fun and exist fully in this gay ass world.

Jonathan Lisecki’s Gayby feels like the mumblecore version of what Paul Rudnick and Don Roos were making in the 90s. It’s a lot sweeter and less angry, but that feels more from the reflection of the times than anything. For movies like Jeffrey or The Opposite of Sex, AIDS was still an ever-present fear in the gay community and LGBT people were still thought of as being on the fringes of society. Gayby comes right before the Supreme Court decision ruling in favor of gay marriage. The conflict is less about the gay community surviving and more about the gay community finding their place integrated within society. 

One pitfall Gayby could’ve so easily fallen into would be the streotype that gay men are repulsed by women’s bodies. When Jen first has sex with Matt, she worries if he can get it up, to which he scoffs at her. He’s still a man after all. Conversations about bisexuality or attraction and gender being a spectrum weren’t quite the norm yet. However, the movie wisely asserts that someone can identify as gay and still be able to funcitonally have sex with women. Even better, later in the movie Nelson demonstrates his skill at insemination thanks to other times he has done it with lesbians looking to conceive. He compliments Jen’s pubic grooming and knows his way around insemination. There’s no “ewww vagina” joke anywhere in there. In fact, the joke is on the audience’s expectations. Why do we expect gay men to be grossed out by the human body?

Oh yeah, Dule Hill and Charlie Barnett both are potential beaus midway through the movie. The movie is stacked with characters.Every romance and every friendship in movies has to have a moment where the two people break up. In Gayby, Jen finally gets her groove on with a sexy painter, Louis (Louis Cancelmi), and shortly after finds that she is finally pregnant. The issue: the condom used by Louis broke and she’s not sure whether the baby is from Louis’ or Matt’s sperm. She tells Matt the news on his birthday, causing him to lash out. Even after their friend-break-up, both parties are allowed to take charge of their lives in positive ways. Jen finally gets her “warm yoga” for pregnant women off the ground and it's a hit. Matt takes his relationship with Scott to the next level and manages to stand up to his ex-boyfriend, who he had been sheepishly avoiding. 

Still, no rom-com (or friend-com) can end without the main couple getting back together (ok, they can, but go with me). Jen meets Matt in his comic shop and asks for his forgiveness. No matter who genetically fathered the baby, he is the baby’s Father. A family can look like anything. When the film flash forwards a month, Jen is going over to Matt’s house to pick up the baby. He and Scott are busy fawning over the baby and making sure that Jen has all the accoutrements that the baby needs. It’s trite to say that it’s the portrait of a modern family. And yet… it is. Relationships are messy, but love is a bond that can’t be broken. By the end, Matt’s comic “Gayby” has been a huge hit. One has to love that this baby, regardless of who they turn out to be, will be loved by three people and live in this modern, queer fantasia.

Previously in Gay Best Friend

pre stonewall

• Plato (Sal Mineo) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

• Sebastian Venable in Suddenly Last Summer (1959)

• Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons) in Rachel Rachel (1968)

post stonewall

• Bernstein (Antonio Fargas) in Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)

• Erich (Norbert Weisser) in Midnight Express (1978)

• Toddy (Robert Preston) & Squash (Alex Karras)  in Victor/Victoria (1982)

• Dolly Pelliker (Cher) in Silkwood (1983)

• Buddy (Charles Grodin) in The Woman in Red (1984)

1990s and the 2000s

• Tim (Nathan Lane) in Frankie & Johnny (1991)

• Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Graham Knox (Peter Friedman) in Single White Female (1992)

• Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) in Reality Bites (1994)

• Gareth (Simon Callow) and Matthew (John Hannah) in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

• Christian (Justin Walker) in Clueless (1995)

• Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) in Boys on the Side (1995)

• Sterling (Patrick Stewart) in Jeffrey (1995)

• Cleo (Queen Latifah) in Set It Off (1996)

• George Downs (Rupert Everett) in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)

• Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear) in As Good As It Gets (1997)

• George Hanson (Paul Rudd) in The Object of My Affection (1998)

• Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) in The Opposite of Sex (1998)

• Michael (Stuart Wells) in Billy Elliot (2000)

• Robert (Rupert Everett) in The Next Best Thing (2000)

• Buck (Mike White) in Chuck & Buck (2000)

• Patti (Sandra Oh) in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

• Michael (Robin de Jesús) in Camp (2003)

• Damian (Daniel Franzese) in Mean Girls (2004)

• Todd (Keir O’Donnell) in Wedding Crashers (2005)

• Nigel (Stanley Tucci) in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

• Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

• Brandon (Dan Byrd) in Easy A (2010)

The Now

• Patrick (Ezra Miller) in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

• Abby Gerhard (Sarah Paulson) in Carol (2015)

• Duncan (Pete Davidson) in Set It Up (2018)

• Oliver T'Sien (Nico Santos) in Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

• Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) in Can You Ever Forgive Me (2018)

• Artie (John McCrea) in Cruella (2021) and other “First Disney LGBTQ+ Characters (2013-2021)

Who is your favorite (or least favorite) example of a “gay best friend” in movies? Let us know in the comments below.

Comments

[JDM]

I thought for sure Matt Wilkas would be a bigger star after that movie. He was in an episode of HBO's Looking (I think the premiere) and maybe a few web series. Hopefully he'll get into something again soon.