The Gay Best Friend
The gay best friend comes up a lot in romance films. It’s the one character that has no life outside of the protagonist, and specifically his or her love life. Oftentimes, especially when the protagonist is female, this is an effeminate male character assumed to be gay. This trope also comes up in other movies with the wise black man, who, once again, has no life outside of the protagonist’s troubles, but is full of helpful advice to overcome those troubles. They amount to the same thing: a minority with an infinite fountain of advice and/or wisdom for the main character.
Why does this happen? Overcompensation. I wrote a few weeks ago about the dangers of carelessly writing “the other”. If one isn’t careful, the only representation of that minority group is further marginalized. To avoid this, many writers will elevate that minority to unreachable standards. They are wise beyond their years and selfless beyond all reason. But that’s not helpful either. Not only is it a bad idea to have a character who doesn’t exist outside of the plot, when writers do this over and over again, it ends up squeezing a minority group into a specific role. It’s bad storytelling, and it’s harmful to people already struggling to show that there’s more to them than a bunch of stereotypes.
An example of this being done poorly is the movie Dear Santa. In it, a wealthy socialite is told she has to get married otherwise her parents will cut her off, so when she finds a girl’s letter to Santa asking for a new mom for Christmas, she decides she’s going to become the girl’s new mom and marry her dad. The role of gay best friend is played by her new friend Pete, a chef who wears a pink uniform and lip gloss and tells her that what she’s doing is fine and that the dad’s devoted fiancé is just an obstacle she has to overcome. That’s all there is to him. He has no life outside of her stalking this man’s family. Even if the intent was making a likable minority character, he ends up as a two-dimensional stereotype.
So how can this be avoided? Give them a life outside of the plot. Give them hopes and dreams. Like I said in last week’s post, don’t think of them as black, gay, or whatever minority they’re supposed to represent. The main character isn’t the only one allowed to make mistakes, so long as the side characters don’t steal the show. A good example of this being done well is Shepherd Book from Firefly. At first, he seems like the wise black man there to give advice to the main characters, but as they frequently point out, he knows an awful lot about crime for a preacher. He becomes one of the most interesting characters because of this intimate knowledge and the mysteries surrounding him. He says, “I wasn’t always a preacher”, making the audience wonder what he was before all this.
The best way to avoid this is to have more than one character representing a specific minority. If that’s not easily done – say you only have a handful of characters and you want more diversity – then at least make them all three-dimensional, with lives outside of the plot. Remember, this is for your writing; it’s worth the effort.
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