What the world needs now is love, sweet love, right? And not just for some, but for everyone? The world could certainly use more love, particularly the kind outlined in Jackie DeShannon’s classic jam, but even the romantic comedy had to learn to be more inclusive. To be, as the song goes, for everyone.
But, as it so happens, it took the genre some time to catch up with LGBTQ-centric stories, and while there have been more of them in recent years (looking at you, “Bros”!), these films about love continue to occupy their own spaces in the big rom-com tent. And yet, there are always historical high marks and ambitious offerings to reflect upon, with many of them named in Esther Zuckerman’s new book, “Falling in Love at the Movies, Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today.”
In the following excerpt, exclusive to IndieWire, Zuckerman considers some early offerings of the sub-genre, and how their impact is still felt today. Zuckerman’s book goes on sale Tuesday, December 3.
Excerpted from “FALLING IN LOVE AT THE MOVIES: Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today” by Esther Zuckerman. Copyright © 2024. Available from Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
“Because I just went gay all of a sudden,” Cary Grant says in “Bringing Up Baby” (1938), wearing a frilly nightgown. The line of dialogue was famously improvised by Grant, playing a mild-mannered paleontologist driven to near insanity by Katharine Hepburn’s heiress Susan, who has made off with his clothing, thus forcing him to wear the fur-accented sleepwear. Asked why he is dressed in the feminine attire by Susan’s Aunt Elizabeth (May Robson), who is befuddled by his presence in her home, he blurts out that exclamation.
“I just went gay all of a sudden” may have been the first time gay was used to mean homosexual in film history, but the rom-com remained decidedly straight for much of its existence.
There wasn’t a gay rom-com from a major Hollywood movie studio until 2022, when the brash comedy “Bros” was released. But “Bros” also wasn’t the first-ever rom-com with an LGBTQ+ couple at its center. While straight couples were falling in love on-screen at multiplexes, you had to go to an art house to find queer love stories.
Do or should queer rom-coms fit into the same format as straight ones? That’s a question that many gay rom-coms ask. The answer tends to be: yes and no. For as frequently as gay rom-coms subvert the expectations that come along with the genre, the romantic beats don’t change. Nor do the meet-cutes.
More rom-coms with LGBTQ+ themes started to emerge in the 1990s and 2000s, around the same time the genre was having its heyday. But while Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks just had to worry about the gentrification of the Upper West Side, there were bigger concerns at play in various corners of the gay community.
“Jeffrey” (1995) is an exuberant movie with asides to the camera and absurdist scenarios, including Nathan Lane as a gay Catholic priest who starts belting out show tunes after propositioning the eponymous hero. But “Jeffrey,” written by Paul Rudnick, based on his own play and directed by Christopher Ashley, is also a movie about the AIDS crisis. The protagonist, Jeffrey (Steven Weber), decides in the opening moments of the film that he’s going to abstain from having sex because he’s tired of the fear associated with getting AIDS. But just after making that decision, he meets the attractive Steve (Michael T. Weiss) at the gym. They are immediately attracted to each other, but Jeffrey had made up his mind regarding his celibacy. He starts having doubts about his decision when mutual friends coincidentally set him up with Steve, but then he learns that Steve is HIV-positive and doubles down on his choice to avoid sex.
“Jeffrey” is often tragic, as any movie about the AIDS crisis should be. During the climax, Jeffrey’s dear friend Darius (Bryan Batt), the boyfriend of Sterling (Patrick Stewart), dies. Sterling is inconsolable and angry at Jeffrey for his fear of living. In a vision, Darius appears to Jeffrey—he’s wearing a costume from “Cats” because he was a dancer— and tells him: “Hate AIDS, Jeffrey, not life.” It’s the motivation Jeffrey needs to reach out to Steve and finally embark on a romance.
In an interview in 2021, Rudnick explained that, when the film was initially getting produced, stars were afraid to sign on because of the subject matter, and many only joined once he enlisted Sigourney Weaver, cameoing as a motivational speaker. But as touchy as the subject matter was, Rudnick knew from “Jeffrey”’s theater run that people loved just how romantic it was. And “Jeffrey” is romantic. It ends with a kiss and a shot of a balloon flying up over the New York skyline.
Five years later, Jamie Babbit’s 2000 debut feature “But I’m a Cheerleader” faced a more critical reception for not being serious enough in the wake of the AIDS crisis. The pink-saturated satire follows a cheerleader named Megan, played by Natasha Lyonne, who is sent to a conversion camp after her parents suspect that she is gay, even though she’s not so sure about her own sexuality. Any feelings of uncertainty, however, clear up when she arrives at the facility and meets a bunch of other queer kids and finds her place. She also comes into contact with the captivating Graham, played by Clea DuVall, who seduces her through little touches and brings her to her first gay bar.
Excerpted from “FALLING IN LOVE AT THE MOVIES: Rom-Coms from the Screwball Era to Today” by Esther Zuckerman. Copyright © 2024. Available from Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
