Gay best friend
A gay best friend (GBF) is a homosexual man who has a close platonic relationship with a heterosexual woman. The term most often applies to a trope involving gay characters in fiction.[1]
The gay best friend is a recurring theme in media, particularly from the 1990s and 2000s. He is usually flamboyant, fashionable, and white; he serves as a sidekick to the heterosexual woman.[1][2][3] These portrayals became a common theme in Western cinema at the end of the 20th century, with notable examples such as the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friend's Wedding and the 1998 romantic drama Get Real.[4]
A July 2010 article in Teen Vogue called the gay best friend a "must-have item" for fashionable young women. Some research has been undertaken regarding heterosexual women who befriend homosexual men;[1] these women have been referred to by the derogatory term fag hag.[5][6]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Hoffman, Russell (21 November 2011). "Friendship Trouble: An Examination of the Gay Best Friend Identity in American Consumer Culture". Gnovis Journal. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
- ↑ Lodge, Guy (2 June 2023). "Gay best friend: a history of Hollywood's favourite queer character". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
- ↑ Staples, Louis (7 August 2021). "The 'gay best friend': has TV's laziest cliche finally fallen out of fashion?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
- ↑ Hummel, Kathryn (2017). "The unruly woman as straight man: The function of female film characters in gay best friendship". Outskirts: Feminisms along the Edge. 36: 1–22. Retrieved 4 December 2025 – via ProQuest.
- ↑ Maitland, Sara (June 1991). "Fag-hags: a field guide". Critical Quarterly. 33 (2): 19–24. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8705.1991.tb00939.x.
- ↑ Moon, Dawne (December 1995). "Insult and Inclusion: The Term Fag Hag and Gay Male Community". Social Forces. 74 (2): 487–510. doi:10.2307/2580489.
Further reading
- Giese, Rachel (23 June 2017). "It's been 20 years since My Best Friend's Wedding — and the rise of the 'Gay Best Friend' trope". Chatelaine. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
- Khamis, Susie; Lambert, Anthony (2015). "Effeminacy and Expertise, Excess and Equality: Gay Best Friends as Consumers and Commodities in Contemporary Television". In Hulme, Alison. Consumerism on TV: Popular Media from the 1950s to the Present. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 109–126. ISBN 978-1-4724-4756-2. Search this book on
- "Missing the Gay Best Friend". The New York Times. 11 March 2024. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
External links
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