Gay Best Friend: Cleo (Queen Latifah) in "Set It Off" (1996)

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

Queen Latifah stood out in the ensemble thriller "Set It Off" as Cleo, a butch lesbian bank robber.Be gay, do crimes.

The film business was born with stories of outsiders committing crimes just to survive. The entire gangster genre is built on that premise. Bonnie & Clyde captured the zeitgeist by making robbing banks seem cool. F. Gary Gray’s 1996 thriller Set It Off gives us a very different view of the Bonnie & Clyde story. The film focuses on four inner-city black women each pushed to the brink by a financial system working against them. Rather than lay down and take it, they band together and start robbing banks just to get by. The cast, which includes Jada Pinkett (before Smith), Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox and Kimberly Elise in her first role, is uniformly excellent, building a dynamic that believably has lasted decades.

For the purposes of Gay Best Friend, we’ll take a look at our butch firecracker, Cleo, played with great ferocity by Queen Latifah in the midst of her Living Single fame...

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Gay Best Friend: Michael in "Camp" (2003)

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

I wish I looked as good as Michael (Robin de Jesús) at my prom.Back in 2003 there weren’t many places where a gay kid wouldn’t be the “other” person. That’s why the “gay best friend” trope became so prevalent. Film would always show us the “token” gay person in a non-threatening supporting role, reinforcing that they were “different” than the norm. Camp flips this on its head. The comedy takes place at Camp Ovation, a musical theater camp outside of New York. It’s one of the few places where the gays outnumber the straight men.

This dichotomy between being “othered” and being welcomed is established in the first scene, with the song “How Shall I See You Through My Tears” from The Gospel of Colonus. This performance is intercut with the entrance of Michael (Robin de Jesús), as he arrives at prom in drag...

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Gay Best Friend: Patrick (Ezra Miller) in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012)

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

Ezra Miller had one of their biggest critical successes playing Patrick in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."With the recent release of Love Victor season two on Hulu, it has been remarkable to see how the depiction of gay teenagers has grown over decades. The sweet natured, loving depictions of coming out in Love Simon and (to a certain extent) Love Victor stand out compared to the harder times that queer kids like Rickie Vasquez (Wilson Cruz) from My So Called Life had to go through over twenty-five years earlier. This is a great sign of progress in our world’s treatment of LGBTQ+ people, but we know queer kids still face plenty of bullying, violence and, in the case of trans kids, legislative battle.

One of my favorite depictions of a gay teenager has been Ezra Miller’s performance as Patrick in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This gay best friend got the chance to be a fully rounded character. He experienced joy and love, rather than being defined by the trauma heaped upon him by others. In his friendships, he could be the center of attention, and have both power and support. Patrick doesn’t go through a journey of figuring out his sexuality. Instead, he goes on a journey of loving all parts of himself - his sexuality, his strength, his weaknesses - everything...

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Gay Best Friend: Artie in "Cruella" (2021) and All The Other 'First Gay Disney Characters'

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

How many Arties are we going to see at Halloween this year?The “Gay Best Friend” in romantic comedies used to be the de facto example of empty virtue signaling. However, like most things in the film world, Disney has decided to do it bigger and... better? This weekend, Craig Gillespie’s Cruella has touted that it features “Disney’s first openly gay character.” All gays stand on the shoulders of their forefathers, and Artie (played by John McCrea) is no exception. In fact, his claim to the title is laughable not just because of how sanitized his character is, but also because Disney has declared having their “first openly gay character” more times than the boy who cried wolf.

So how does Artie compare to the other “first openly gay characters” in the Disney universe?

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Gay Best Friend: Buddy (Charles Grodin) in "The Woman in Red" (1984)

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

Don't worry, Teddy (Gene Wilder). Buddy (Charles Grodin) isn't going to take your girl, he's gay.The recently passed Charles Grodin (1935-2021) leaves behind an enviable film career. From Beethoven to Clifford, Grodin mastered being the “straight man” in comedies opposite zany characters. The master of reaction shots, Grodin knew how to wring laughs out of being the “put upon wet blanket.” His career features many other great performances, including The Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run, Heaven Can Wait, The Great Muppet Caper, Dave and Ishtar. In all of the many obituaries that have recently been written about him, few have mentioned his role as Buddy in The Woman in Red ...and with good reason. The movie may have won an Oscar (Best Original Song for Steve Wonder's "I Just Called To Say I Love You"), but it has little cultural footprint today.

The misogynistic film is best left undiscovered. However, Grodin’s Buddy has an interesting distinction of being one of the earliest out, sympathetic gay best friends in a popular, male-centric comedy…

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