celeb news Billy blames flop movie on straight people

[Beyonnaise]

The GLEE some people have about a gay movie flopping

 

I don't really have interest in seeing this movie, might watch it if it's on streaming someday, but wow. Some of you sound miserable. And then the deflection to "white twinks" even though the movie supposedly discusses discriminatory treatment in the community. Just admit it: you clearly just don't like a gay male comedian like Billy having a highly-promoted movie, you don't have to try and cloak it in some social justice reasoning.

 

If pressed to analyze the movie not doing well objectively, I would say it's because it was marketed as a "mainstream" comedy. Brokeback Mountain was always understood as a serious drama film directed by Ang Lee. Call Me By Your Name, similarly, was pitched as an art house drama film. Comedy movies are usually marketed towards audiences that don't care about something being "low brow", and a lot of that group just won't go out of their way to see a gay movie. So you're down to just gays being left to go see it, but you have a community already primed to being judgemental (gays) and a movie made by a comedian (I've noticed a lot of gays truly hate comedians, especially other gay comedians) and it just didn't land.

[mxoonlight]

The sheer amount of thinkpieces and infighting over a Billy Eichner vanity project is really sending me  it’s really not on anyone but him and the studio y’all

 

 

[Vin]

2 things.

 

 

1. Blaming "homophobia" for "Bros" flopping reminds me of when people blamed "sexism" for "Ghostbusters (2016)" flopping.

 

 

 

2. Is there any gay movie that ATRL likes? ATRL hates "Bros". ATRL hates "Call Me By Your Name." ATRL hates gay movies with flamboyant homosexuals. ATRL hates movies with "straight-acting" homosexuals. ATRL even hates Lil Nas X and Sam Smith. Very strange.  Does ATRL at least like Bubblegum Princess and Marceline? Or does ATRL only hate gay men.

 

...Vin

[ArtForFreedom]

He's not an actor much less than a leading actor 

[MadonnasBoyfriend]

9 minutes ago, Beyonnaise said:

The GLEE some people have about a gay movie flopping

 

I don't really have interest in seeing this movie, might watch it if it's on streaming someday, but wow. Some of you sound miserable. And then the deflection to "white twinks" even though the movie supposedly discusses discriminatory treatment in the community. Just admit it: you clearly just don't like a gay male comedian like Billy having a highly-promoted movie, you don't have to try and cloak it in some social justice reasoning.

 

If pressed to analyze the movie not doing well objectively, I would say it's because it was marketed as a "mainstream" comedy. Brokeback Mountain was always understood as a serious drama film directed by Ang Lee. Call Me By Your Name, similarly, was pitched as an art house drama film. Comedy movies are usually marketed towards audiences that don't care about something being "low brow", and a lot of that group just won't go out of their way to see a gay movie. So you're down to just gays being left to go see it, but you have a community already primed to being judgemental (gays) and a movie made by a comedian (I've noticed a lot of gays truly hate comedians, especially other gay comedians) and it just didn't land.

I don't understand the think piece and analysis when you ALSO don't have an interest in seeing the movie. We just like you baby 

[Beyonnaise]

Just now, Vin said:

Or does ATRL only hate gay men.

"No I don't hate other gays or the idea of a gay movie by a comedian. I just hate Billy because he's cringe and annoying. And I also hated Fire Island and its entire cast, and everyone on Queer Eye, and Trixie & Katya, and Bowen Yang, and Benny Drama. But like, they're all extra and terrible."

 

Like  Do they not see the pattern or are they just pretending not to? Nobody would care if you just admitted you hate gay male celebrities especially those who make a living telling jokes, it's quite a popular opinion.

[anti-bitch]

47 minutes ago, Mikeymoonshine said:

I do think gay movies have the hurdle of there being a probably still large amount of people who won't see it because it's a gay movie. Though as we have seen there is an audience for gay movies. I think maybe the fact that it's a romcom and wasn't marketed that well are the bigger issues here. It doesn't have like a cult following atm either maybe in future it will if it's really good enough. 

 

I think gay romances tend to do better when they appeal to women as well tbh. Like Brokeback Mountain, CMBYN and Love Simon all have broader appeal than this would. Even something like Fire Island has a cult following because it was a pride and prejudice adaptation and was made by someone who already had a following. 

I think the generations difference matters there. I feel like gen-z/youngest millennials don't go to theaters as much as older people do, but deffo have netflix and HBO, so this could do a lot better in streaming imo

[Beyonnaise]

4 minutes ago, MadonnasBoyfriend said:

I don't understand the think piece and analysis when you ALSO don't have an interest in seeing the movie. We just like you baby 

You when tasked with reading a post longer than two sentences: "thinkpiece!!"

[PoisonPill]

Did a discomfort or lack of interest in a romantic comedy about gay men keep many theater-goers away? Yes, of course. But it's not the only thing at play. In the post-pandemic streaming era, people just aren't going to theaters for original screenplay rom-coms.

[Bloo]

I'm not sure why people are denying the reality that homophobia is a very realistic explanation for the underperformance of this movie. So many awful provocative romcoms with R-ratings have been made and make decent money but they are catered towards straight people (e.g., American Reunion). To pretend homophobia had nothing to do with the movie's underperformance when anti-gay laws are more prominent than they've been in a long time is weird.

[Bloo]

12 hours ago, Communion said:

Opening weekend:

$11.8M - Love, Simon

$547,425 - Brokeback Mountain
$404,874 - Call Me By Your Name
$402,072 - Moonlight

 

?

 

Bros opening weekend will have a larger box office than even the box office total Moonlight got *the week after its Oscar wins*. And I say this as someone unconvinced by the marketing push for Bros.

 

Highlighting very different films that did not succeed largely at the box office kind of emphasizes that there's challenges to how successful gay films can be as box office smashes, even if the marketing for the film itself misjudged how to appeal to its target audience (straight women).

 

Highlighting how a gay film is more likely to find some success if it veers instead for critical acclaim by showcasing some level of gay suffering and trauma as the main subject is a discussion in itself to eventually have about what that means for LGBT creatives in film.

 

The most successful movie on that list is still a movie led by a straight cast, largely produced and made by straight people, and despite depicting an immeasurably depressing and sad look into gay life, saw critics at the time debating that the two characters' sexualities were "ambiguous" and that there was no evidence that either Ennis and Jack were gay.

I genuinely think this is a good point. The fact that gay media has been able to find some marginal commercial success and relatively significant critical success by focusing on gay trauma is not... ideal. I understand that there can be valid criticisms directed towards Bro's marketing strategy (I haven't seen the film yet, so I cannot comment on that). But, I just find it really silly that the gays in the stan world are just pretending that homophobia has been solved and it isn't at all a variable for how this movie has been received. Did it fail to market itself for straight women to find commercial success? Sure. But the fact that our representation needs to be predicated on how straight women will receive it is really unfortunate and unhelpful. I remember very clearly the criticisms in 2018 and since then towards Love, Simon (which is conveniently now being praised in this thread) for being too generous in how sanitized it was to cater to straight women and cishet people as a whole. While I enjoy Love, Simon, I don't think people pointing out its relative success as a benchmark for gay media are doing us a service because we should aspire to have a society where our representation can tell authentic stories without needing to be spoonfed for people outside of our community.

 

Anyway, rant over. Gonna leave it at that.

[GraceRandolph]

13 minutes ago, Bloo said:

I'm not sure why people are denying the reality that homophobia is a very realistic explanation for the underperformance of this movie. So many awful provocative romcoms with R-ratings have been made and make decent money but they are catered towards straight people (e.g., American Reunion). To pretend homophobia had nothing to do with the movie's underperformance when anti-gay laws are more prominent than they've been in a long time is weird.

American Reunion came out before every company had a streaming platform and Covid wrecked movie theaters though. Romcoms have been a tough sell for awhile now.

[truthteller]

i need to watch it before i make judgement but that trailer is not selling at all and i am only annoyed by the loud voice of his dialogue delivery  

[Scotland]

1 hour ago, Vin said:

2 things.

 

 

1. Blaming "homophobia" for "Bros" flopping reminds me of when people blamed "sexism" for "Ghostbusters (2016)" flopping.

 

 

 

2. Is there any gay movie that ATRL likes? ATRL hates "Bros". ATRL hates "Call Me By Your Name." ATRL hates gay movies with flamboyant homosexuals. ATRL hates movies with "straight-acting" homosexuals. ATRL even hates Lil Nas X and Sam Smith. Very strange.  Does ATRL at least like Bubblegum Princess and Marceline? Or does ATRL only hate gay men.

 

...Vin

Yes. We hate gay people.

 

Our duty as gays is to stan iconic women. Not men!

 

[est. in 90s]

 

[Scandalous]

the trailer made it look cringey and unfunny, I mean it is sad but what kind of audience did they expect to turn out for a movie like this? the basic vanilla humor in the trailer is made for straight girls to drag their GBFs to the theater

 

if Fire Island was released in theaters it would’ve bombed too but it was a surprisingly good and funny film and word of mouth made it a bit of a cult hit over the summer. Bros would’ve worked better on netflix probably

Edited October 3, 2022 by Scandalous

[Bloodflowers.]

The coping mechanism  just take the massive L with grace and dignity and stop using your mediocre movie bombing at the box office on homophobia when not even gay people were impressed with what was seen and presented. Try making better movies with good storyline and plots next time and not just rely on "I'm gay, so come and support me because gay" laziness and 1st world problems levels of "bigotry"

[MrMojoRisin]

 

[Erotic]

 

the long days of cookie cutter white gay fairytales are over 

 

[princedonte]

His Elisabeth Banks moment.

[Click Clack]

 

 

let me go watch the academy award winning moonlight 

[Stepfon]

1 minute ago, Click Clack said:

 

 

let me go watch the academy award winning moonlight 

TASTE.

[Click Clack]

16 hours ago, KKW said:

He really thinks another movie about gay white men is groundbreaking

   

[EdgeofTeeth]

He did make some points, but his annoying and overbearing demeanor and the way he framed this release in a way that basically negated the impact/significance of earlier movies like Brokeback/Moonlight/CMBYN leaves a bad taste

[Psylocke]

His whole attitude while promoting this film has been such a mess  The movie is basically for a niche within' a niche, it's not surprising that it's flopping. Not even straight romantic comedies do well on theaters these days.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Psylocke