Thread by @intothemelwoods

Woke up to Billy Eichner’s comments that “straight people didn’t show up” and thats why #Bros underperformed at the box office.

It's more complicated, and I think this is such an interesting case study of a film trying to be everything for everyone (🧵)
xtramagazine.com/culture/bros-r…

The elevator pitch makes tons of sense: imagine a straight rom-com, but with gays! 50 First Dates, but gay should work, right?

But in actuality Bros is more that+history lesson+apologizing+telling us how monumental it is.

It’s a lot that those movies don’t have to deal with.

Like many critics, I mostly enjoyed the film and found it very funny. But it also felt breathless, and like it was trying to do SO MUCH. Somewhere in there is an interesting portrait of the central relationship, but its overcrowded by so much ~ stuff ~.

xtramagazine.com/culture/bros-r…

All of these expectations (to be the first, to represent the LGBTQ2S+ acronym, to teach the straights about us) are not things straight rom-coms deal with, but they're also no things smaller indie flicks deal with.

Something like Fire Island, for example, just tells its story.

And the marketing added to this. Who are these posters for? Those ever present asses in subway stations and on billboards and literally everywhere. What do they say about the movie? It’s obviously trying to court the straight com-com lovers, and a certain kind of gay.

For the rest of us, who maybe aren't the core groups of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fans and cis white queer hunks, the pitch for Bros was one of guilt.

This movie is IMPORTANT
Go see it because it's IMPORTANT

Which like, maybe isn't the best sell for a fun and flirty flick?

After I got back from TIFF, many of my queer friends asked me if a) the movie was good, and b) if they're going to "have to" see Bros.

It's the kind of obligatory sigh we get talking about Drag Race these days. Queer obligation.

Again, maybe not best sell for ostensibly the core audience of your fun and flirty flick!

It shouldn't feel like a chore going to watch a queer rom-com, but so much of Bros' marketing trying to court straight audiences ended up alienating queer ones.

Circling back to these comments: it makes sense to blame straight people, because the success of the film, if you look at the marketing, was largely staked on straight people watching it and liking it.

https://twitter.com/billyeichner/status/1576685773402755072?s=20&t=zSyoMQVkhncdn7uV5svQwQ

And like again, Bros as a movie was fine to good. It's very very funny (the queer trauma coaster! "we had AIDS, they had Glee") and does some interesting things with rom-com tropes like casting Guy Branum as the gay best friend.

xtramagazine.com/culture/guy-br…

But Bros was sort of doomed from the start by its own marketing.

It tried to thread the needle of straight folks who don't usually watch queer films and my generation of progressive queers.

The result is a muddy middle.

TLDR: Like many rom-coms before it, I think Bros will have a healthy future on cable TV and streaming, especially once the weight of expectations is gone and we can enjoy it for what it is: a flirty little imperfect movie that's great to watch drunk with your friends. 🍸

But I do think a lot of Bros' marketing, or even its ambitions to loudly break barriers, were misjudged and came at the expense of both the film itself and its box office performance.

Sometimes you can be the first thing without shouting it at everyone all the time.

And further! As I note in my review, it's a "first" in such an asterisky way (first from a major studio, like, what does that even mean to a normal person?) that its' really easy to be put off by that declaration and read it as dismissing the pioneering romcoms that came before.

Couple that with a release time that's ALSO trying to be everything (get in on the festival and awards buzz).

Imagine if this movie came out in like February and not against the big players (Don't Worry Darling) and horror films. I think its performance would be better.

In summary: sure, not enough straight people saw Bros. But it also wasn't timed great, missed its core queer audience, and tried to be everything for everyone.

It's complicated. But now here's hoping it paves the way for studios making more tighter films by and for queer folks.