Gay 'Bros' Co-Producer Comes to Billy Eichner's Defense
"Bros" co-producer Guy Branum took to Twitter to defend Billy Eichner in the wake of the gay rom-com's failure at the box office, noting the historic importance of a film with an almost all-LGBTQ+ cast.
Branum, an out gay comedian in his own right, pushed back in a lengthy thread on the social media narrative that Eichner had been too aggressive in promoting the film. He also took exception to criticisms that the movie's casting, despite being almost exclusively LGBTQ+, was too narrow in focus, with its leading men — Eichner, who co-wrote the film, and Luke Macfarlane, who plays the love interest of Eichner's main character — both being white and cisgender.
"In talking about how cruelly @billyeichner, white, cis, rich, hot- or not-hot-enough-to-be-a-movie-star (depending on who's tweeting) demanded the queer community support his movie, a thing that is rarely mentioned is the rest of the cast," Branum declared in an Oct. 4 tweet.
Branum went on to note how Eichner had made a potentially risky — but artistically important — gamble in insisting that the film's cast be nearly all members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Referencing the film's co-writer Nicholas Stoller and producer Judd Apatow, Branum tweeted, "When @nicholasstoller and @JuddApatow gave Billy the chance to write and star in a film, they were working from an established game plan Judd had used to help build the careers of @amyschumer @kumailn @Sethrogen and others."
"In making films like 'Trainwreck' or 'The Big Sick'... newer comic voices were surrounded by established famous movie stars like Holly Hunter, Marissa Tomei, and Tilda Swinton," Branum continued in his lengthy thread. "But Billy asked for his movie to not surround him with famous movie stars, but with out LGBTQ+ performers."
This was not just a historic move in and of itself, but went against the grain of stocking high-profile Hollywood projects with stars in order to increase a film's appeal to a mass audience, Branum noted.
"Because of discrimination, there aren't many LGBTQ+ actors with box office draw," Branum's thread continued. "In casting the romantic lead of the movie, he could have asked @ChrisEvans, but instead he went with a guy who came out in 2008 and got stuck making Hallmark movies for 20 years" — namely, Macfarlane — "and yes, Luke is white and masc and cis and hot, but the gay male community has spent so much time fetishizing these things that half of @Queerty's articles are just lists of torsos."
"Billy knew he had to draw attention to make $, and Luke is a gifted actor who draws attention," Branum added.
After offering plaudits for others in the cast, Branum called out social media users all over again, posting, "when you pat yourself on the back for resisting the tokenizing, condescending marketing for the film... Also acknowledge that @billyeichner held the door open for a lot of other, diverse queer people, and this movie doing poorly at the box office limits the opportunities which will be in our future."
Branum wrapped up his thread with a renewed call for moviegoers to revive the film's flagging performance by going to see it, pointing out that "until we can show Hollywood that stories by us, about us are a way of directly generating money, we will not have the opportunities, or control over our own stories that straight cis people have always enjoyed."
At the end of his appeal, Branum deployed perhaps his most persuasive argument to coax skeptics to buy tickets: "Go because @EveLindley is the funniest fucking person in America."
As previously reported, Branum recently commented to Page Six on one of his behind-the-scenes roles for the film, saying that he "was there [on set] every day for some of the sex scenes," and explaining that he felt a need to supervise the movie's erotic moments because "Our director is straight and I was like, 'Someone needs to tell you [if it's] hot or not.'"