The movie GBF is about a high school boy named Tanner who is outed when the school's GSA is searching for the latest fashion craze, a gay best friend. Pretty soon, Tanner is pulled in 3 different directions by the school's 3 main clique leaders.
This movie addresses the stereotype of gay boys being a social accessory, which essentially is objectification. The 3 clique leaders essentially use him as a chess piece, trying to gain dominance over the other two cliques. Tanner pretty much reluctantly plays along with it until the end, where he addresses that he's not an accessory.
In real life, I highly doubt that a GBF is such an important factor in someone's popularity, but I still think that gay boys, and I'm sure even some gay girls have experienced being objectified as an accessory.
When I came out to my friends in high school, some of them joked about having a gay best friend, and it wasn't entirely false; I was gay, and I was very close with them. They never boasted around about it, and for the most part they treated me as a person rather than a thing to improve their social standing, so I wasn't really objectified, but the title still kind of irked me.
In my opinion, I think this objectification can be a kind of false acceptance, it's like, "Oh I don't care that you're gay, that's totally cool, but I'm going to stereotype you and treat you like I would treat my clothes or handbag." It's still a type of oppression, and I'm glad this movie addresses this because it shows people that this isn't a good thing, and that people should be treated like people and not handbags.
-Casey Coulter
I love the satire of this movie. I really dislike when people objectify the image of the "gay best friend" and assume that because of stereotypes they will have a "new shopping buddy" or something like that. I think that a major problem with this title is that people use this title as a way to make them "an ally" and use it as an excuse to weasel out of other types of homophobia, thinking that it's okay for them because they have a GBF.
ReplyDelete~Alex Duncan
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I am so happy you didn't get treated like an accessory by your friends (they're real friends). Secondly, I really do have to say that the GBF thing can be a really big factor in a person's life. I personally know three people who can say that they feel really uncomfortable and used by people who hang with them simply because they're new, and interesting. I had one gay friend of mine tell me that he feels used by girls who treat him as if he's some social accessory that will make her cooler, simply because gay is cool to them. He says he feels as though it's hard for him to find real friends, because they only know this stereotype of a gay guy, and never take the time to get to know him.
ReplyDeleteThe same story can apply to gay female as well. My lesbian friend tells me she feels abandoned by all her guy friends because they always make porn jokes and think she's super tough and hot, but that she doesn't have any feelings, etc. Basically, she feels judged by her label as well.
I just thought that I'd share. And, thank you for sharing. I have yet another movie added on to my to-watch list :)
--Josephine Hicks