Jennifer Danny | Stay in Your Lane, ‘Bros’

Jennifer Danny
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Recently I was hanging out on a Saturday afternoon, watching mindless television, channel surfing and happy that I didn’t have to be somewhere. During a commercial break a movie trailer came on and it said from the makers of “Bridesmaids,” “Trainwreck” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” comes a new movie: “Bros.” 

And I was watching and thought, well I liked “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Bridesmaids,” I wonder what this new movie is about. As the trailer continued it was obvious that it was a gay romantic comedy. One of the actors, who has sworn off romantic relationships, finds himself drawn to a guy named Aaron, played by Luke MacFarlane 

As the trailer continued it showed Bobby Lieber, the character played by Billy Eichner, and his narrative of how he’s content to be on Tinder looking for dates and how he doesn’t want a serious relationship, and then it showed him sitting at a kid’s table in a kid’s chair, in a child’s room at his friend Tina’s house with her husband, Edgar, and he’s busy lamenting about how this guy has gotten into his head, and Edgar says, “Maybe it’s because you’re both bottoms.” And then Tina says, “Bottom dance.” And the kids get up and they all start doing the bottom dance, with Edgar pumping his hips back and forth.  

I looked around and thought did I just enter the Twilight Zone? How can one explain that this is OK, for two young children, regardless that they are acting in a movie, to do this “bottom dance”?  

I cannot even imagine either of these two kids having any inkling of what the “bottom dance” is and what was said by Edgar, but I do know it is never OK to sexualize children. 

If you’re thinking Jennifer, get off your soapbox, I’ll clarify, what was the point to have that scene? What was the point in having children as a part of that dialogue? 

The movie apparently is being labeled as a box-office failure and Billy Eichner is blaming it on homophobia and on straight people. Yes, you read that correctly. And while I respect that there are many movies that wouldn’t even interest me, I know I have the option of choosing not to see them. I can honestly say I have no interest in watching men having sex. It simply isn’t what I care to see in a movie. 

The following weekend I was watching PBS and it had a documentary about what it was like to be gay in Los Angeles and Hollywood back in the 1930s and 1940s. Those who were featured had so much they had overcome with the perceived rules back in the day. Obviously, there was the hush-hush, keep-to-yourself mentality, and at the same time it wasn’t forced in your face like the media does today. Nowadays, regardless of your sexual preference, you must participate in the “our voices will be heard” and you will agree with every agenda whether you like it or not. 

Over 28 years ago, an extended family member related by marriage decided she didn’t want to be married to her husband of over 22 years any longer. They had raised their blended family of children from his first marriage and her first marriage. She wanted to come out as a lesbian, and while it was one of the hardest things to see the husband go through, he ended up with his current wife and they’ve been together for over 26 years, and his former wife ended up marrying her girlfriend and they too have been together for a long time. Our family had to maneuver through something we had never anticipated and I’m happy to say it worked out. 

So, I’ll gladly stand on my soapbox, especially if is a way for me to pontificate and view what I see, and hope is a better path for all of us. I simply cannot in my heart or head find the “normal” in two child actors doing the “bottom dance.” And while I will always be the person who champions the underdog, there are ways to do that in a positive fashion. And it is ridiculous to simply blame those who are heterosexual for the failure of a movie being called a rom-com about two men. And for the sake of the argument, why is everything abbreviated instead of calling it a romantic comedy, it’s now rom-com?

Oh, where art thou Roget and Funk and Wagnalls? Ah, I think I know, you’re rolling in your collective graves as you wonder why, why, why the hyphenated version of everything…. oops my bad, let me get this right: Y Y Y? 

Jennifer Danny is a Santa Clarita resident.

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