Movie Mondays: Billy is Befuddled

Welcome to The Modern Day Renaissance Man newsletter. I, Trey Layton, write about the things that interest me, often covering topics such as startups, sports, and entertainment. If you'd like to receive these newsletters directly in your email a few times a week, go ahead and subscribe to never miss an email!

Happy Monday, folks.

Let’s have a quick chat about Mario. The upcoming movie’s social team dropped the first trailer for the project based on the beloved video game franchise, and it was… interesting. Chris Pratt is voicing the titular character (Pratt… Why does it always have to be Pratt?), and fans were alarmed that their favorite overalls-wearing, Italian plumber sounds less like every Bostonian that grew up in the North End and more like the finance bros that flock to Seaport and the financial district.

After a recent run of bad video game to movie adaptations, many are concerned about the critical outcome we might see when the movie hits theaters, something that could leave diehard fans angry over wasting such adored source material. More generally speaking, we're also seeing more animated movies and shows shelling out on well-known actors rather than traditional voice actors. Not only does hiring Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson (at what point does hiring both just become contractually obligated?) require a much higher budget and thus higher box office profit targets, but choosing this route is actually hurting reviews. Apparently, critics prefer to see movies with The Rock when he has trunks for biceps and no hair? As for Mario, if only there were a more qualified voice actor to play the video game character… like maybe the actual voice actor who plays him in the games? Idk just spitballing here🤷

The LGBTQ film sector has dominated headlines lately. The first in a flurry of characters coming out occurred in the latest installment in the Scooby-Doo franchise. The new movie, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, featured TikTok’s favorite character, Velma, as lesbian. After a bit of internet controversy, many past Scooby directors and writers came to the new film’s defense and argued that she has always been hinted at as being queer, but studios have blocked explicitly portraying her as such to avoid backlash. This group fo defenders includes James Gunn, director of the first two live action movies in the early 2000s, who claimed that the studio completely changed his initial idea of giving her a woman love interest to having no sugar at all, and then eventually even setting the brainiac up with a man.

Side note? Gunn also claimed that he would be open to returning for a third live action installment if given more creative control, even claiming that he might push the boundary into an R rating. Forget lesbian Velma… we might finally get the stoner Shaggy we’ve always wanted!

In addition to the Velma news, new Romcom Bros flopped in its opening weekend, only earning $12 million domestically on a production and marketing budget of over $50 M. The bust prompted the movie’s star and one of the internet’s least comedic comedians, Billy Eichner, to claim that the disappointing financial performance was due to “straight people… just not showing up.” However, many in the queer community informed Billy that gay people didn’t show up, either, but yes, Billy, you have a point. People not showing up does tend to hurt the number of tickets a movie sells.

Fans (or I guess the opposite of) were quick to point out that Billy has built his reputation on being an ingratiating street comedian who has built much of his following by approaching random people on the streets of New York and screaming questions at them, a schtick which doesn’t exactly translate to the leading role of a romantic comedy. In addition, the film lacked other bankable names, and trailers did little to make audiences excited apart from just marketing itself as the first gay Romcom.

The movie actually did receive great critical reviews, though, and I’d argue that Billy really does speak to a salient point in that we are still in a stage in the industry in which representative content is struggling to find its audience. For Bros, the movie leaned too heavily into gay being its primary component, and it genuinely is hard to get straight people to pay money to go see that type of movie and not only because of the part of the population which does boycott wOkE cUlTuRe.

Representative content is still finding its legs, attempting to balance creative achievement with financial viability. Given the still recent “acceptance” of LGBTQ norms in broader society, cinematic portrayal of the topic is still a frontier as a commercial landscape, and in attempting to fill the void in representation which has neglected for so many decades, directors really do seem to be shoving it down audiences’ throats.

Like most trends, queer cinematic portrayal resembles a pendulum. Before, representation was nonexistent, and apart from a few exceptions such as Moonlight achieving critical success, the idea of LGBTQ inclusion in film and TV was too taboo for producers to touch. Much of the appeal of these very rare projects was that they were pioneers in portraying queer experiences in meaningful ways before doing so was socially accepted.

However, the pendulum has continued to swing to the other end of its ROM, and now every new movie and show acts as if they are required to have a character representing every shape of sexuality and for these preferences to be explicitly stated to the audience without adding any creative value to the final product. It comes off as overbearing and inauthentic, and it achieves nothing but to distract the viewer from the narrative. We've yet to reach a point in which having gay content in movies and shows is not the entire identity of that movie or show (Bros) but also not forced in (any show that has come out in the past year).

This means that shows can have queer main and side characters even if the entire story does not revolve around these characters' sexual preferences. It also means that movies can either be narratively focused on characters' identities or have no reference to preferences at all. To achieve successful commercial and representative success in Hollywood, normal and realistic portrayals are what is required.

Bros was a case of a series of poor decisions but also a film environment which didn't allow it to succeed. The industry hasn’t figured it out yet, and this means that the few good releases that have gay characters are going to be penalized because every other release has fumbled representation. Eventually, we might reach a balance where it is both no longer taboo but also not unique to have LGBTQ characters, but it is also no longer forced into every movie or show. While certainly a more inclusive (and preferable) scenario than the former, the latter climate in which we now find ourselves is devaluing the power of meaningful entries in the space and making it much harder for queer representation to succeed commercially and push genre boundaries.

Billy has a point. Straight people didn’t show up for Bros. However, nobody else did either, and nobody will until queer representation in Hollywood manages to become more normal. I’m confident that eventually, this will happen.

I guess it could have been worse. I actually saw little backlash from the MAGA crowd over the fact that little Timmy had to see gay men in movie trailers. The movie also managed to avoid an emerging Karen tactic that is review bombing. Other shows haven't been so lucky... Want to learn more about how attacks of 1 star reviews is affecting movies and shows across the industry? Well, you’re just gonna have to wait until next week😉

This past week's box office numbers:

Smile is a happy camper after a strong second week box office performance. This one is likely to go down as one of the biggest surprise successes of the year. The same can't be said for the Dream Team ensemble making up Amsterdam. Reviews said it sucked, and audiences chose to believe them rather than pay $30 for stale popcorn.

Weak week of releases, but a couple that I’m minority interested in:

• The Winchesters (10/10 via CW; prequel to the popular Supernatural series but if you’ve seen any CW show, you’ve seen them all…)

• Halloween Ends (10/14 via theaters; the conclusion to decades of Michael Myers terror… at least for another year or two)

• Rosaline (10/14 via Hulu; Shakespeare told us all about Romeo and Juliet, but get ready for this new movie about Romeo’s old side piece set in modern times)

Cheers to another day,

Trey