5: Sassy Gay Friend

And its sub-trope, the Queer Coded Villain.

Problematic Toxic Masculinity Tropes #5

Sassy Gay Friend

Brian Gallivan’s series of sketches called Sassy Gay Friend retells several classic stories under the premise of: what if _insert straight female character from literature here_ had a sassy gay friend? Countless calamities of the catastrophic type have been nipped in the bud by our good friend the Sassy Gay Friend (I highly recommend the Eve one, though the Hamlet one is great too). What Gallivan is doing as a writer is taking an old stereotype trope character and showing how the stereotypical traits of the SGF could actually be good things in certain scenarios. What the series does, too, is to make us question the inherent misogyny (not to mention homophobia) of many pop culture classics, inviting us to think as we laugh.

What are you doing? What what what are you doing?!

Sassy Gay Friend is a pretty well known trope already (even TV Tropes has it on their roster, aka Pet Homosexual), and it’s 5th on my list of Problematic Toxic Masculinity Tropes. It’s another version of a sub-male, akin to PTMT #4, but with one big difference. 

You’ll notice (if you’ve read my previous PTMT article) that the NERD! trope is part of a reaction problem to the fallacy of domination that pervades toxic masculine stereotypes. NERD! characters, however, get to sometimes be protagonists (even if they are still considered jokes), and, though often feminized, are still examples of hypermasculinity, the performative toxic masculine behavior that these characters exhibit in an attempt to live up to the hegemonic masculine ideal. Sassy Gay Friend is toxic not because of the behavior of the characters themselves (beyond the fact that damaging stereotypes are toxic by their nature), but in others’ reactions to them. In other words, the SGF characters aren’t usually themselves engaging in hypermasculinity, but they are being ridiculed, bullied, and relegated to broad jokes by the patriarchal hierarchy around them. 

The Sassy Gay Friend trope is stereotypically swishy, high voiced, sibilant, thin & willowy, limp-wristed, campy, wears pink, is into fashion, musicals, etc. More importantly: he cries openly, dramatically expresses emotion, gossips, bitches with his girlfriends, etc.—all of which is behavior typically thought of as feminine. The “girlyness” of this character trope is presented as comic relief, and never shown as anything but something the ‘actual’ (hegemonic, heteronormative) heroes roll their eyes at and let the audience laugh at their expense. By pop culture relegating the ‘feminine’ behavior of the SGF to jokey sidekick status, the real life complexity of actual femme people is subverted into traits worthy of ridicule at best, violent bullying at worst. 

Here’s the bottom line: the Sassy Gay Friend is never the protagonist or hero—he’s not a real man, so he’s relegated to sidekick or token status (“look how woke we are: we have a gay character”). The SGF is there to pump up/defer to/contrast with the heterosexual thing (which is the only real thing). In other words: hegemonic masculinity is the norm. Any male character that doesn’t live up to this (or at least attempt to, by exhibiting hypermasculinity) isn’t worthy of being a well rounded character, much less the protagonist/hero. There are some exceptions, in relatively smaller movies that aren’t nearly as inculcated into our pop culture the way hegemonic masculine types are (flicks like My Beautiful Laundrette, or My Own Private Idaho). And there has been some little effort from mainstream pop culture since the Duckies and Hollywoods of the ‘80s to improve the stereotype at least, if not allowing the characters to be the center of their stories. But these are still not the rule; they remain exceptions—unusual refreshing differences as opposed to the socially accepted norm.

Sassy Bad Guy

A sub-trope of the Sassy Gay Friend (which is especially prevalent in geek culture) is something TV Tropes calls the Sissy Villain. The queer-coded villain is a similar stereotypical feminizing, done in order to contrast with the manly man who is the hero. The hero represents hegemonic masculinity, and the villain needs to be the opposite. Think Thor/Loki, McClane/Gruber, Robin Hood/Sheriff (or Prince John, depending on the storyteller), so many Disney villains…the list goes on. The reason these two closely related tropes can be considered toxic is that they ignore any other way of being a male hero other than the unrealistic and damaging hegemonic masculinity ideal. This can turn young men who are looking up to certain characters as heroes to emulate, into bullies, or into self-harm if they see any of the Sassy GF ‘girly’ traits in themselves. Pop culture teaches us that gay guys are either funny or threatening, but not real men, and certainly not good men or heroes. 

I mean to be fair, if I were going to be a bad guy, I’d certainly want to be a fabulous one. But still.

This of course isn’t true in real life, and that’s where the toxicity of Trope #5 comes in. For these and more harmful LGBTQ+ stereotypes (beyond the toxic masculinity tropes that I’m covering) that unfortunately still proliferate in current pop culture, see this lovely listicle by Gilchrist & Reynolds.

Both the Sassy Gay Friend trope and Sissy Villain sub-trope are problematic / toxic because they feminize*, denigrate, and/or monster-ize gay male characters. They’re not allowed to be heroes, only the hegemonic (heteronormative) manly man gets to be in that exalted position. #5 trope characters are there as contrasts to the real man, who is the hero. This trope is further damaging because it stigmatizes gayness—being gay means not living up to the hegemonic masculine ideal, and therefore all gay men are ‘other.’ Stereotypical gays (SGFs in particular) aren’t engaged in hypermasculinity, and can never therefore be men. And woe betide the straight man who exhibits SGF behaviors—why do we have the term ‘metrosexual?’ Because the feminine traits of fashion sense, ‘man’scaping, even basic hygiene, are all feminized, and therefore stigmatized. Just look at the ad campaigns for the Dr. Squatch brand of soaps to see a real-life Pappy Jack’s attempt to market good hygiene and healthy skin to heterosexual men.

*and why is femininity bad? Yup, you guessed it—misogyny.

The Sassy Gay Friend trope is damaging to all men, not just gay men: it’s a sign of underlying systemic misogyny—as we heard from the Pappy Jack’s protag from PTMT #2: why are men forced into such fear of being treated like a woman, or of being seen as a woman (thought of as feminine)? It’s a societal problem that we’re still talking about today, and we still have a long way to go to make a change in that area.

As a fun conclusion, please enjoy this comedic PSA from CollegeHumor. Here’s why I want you to watch this: They take the Sassy Gay Friend trope, embrace it, and turn it right back around as a threat to mock the hegemonic masculine in this ad for equal marriage rights: ”We will marry your girlfriends.” And, as we know from the nationwide legality of gay marriage soon after this came out, they were on the right side of history. Now if only our pop culture would catch up…