 Comedian Billy Eichner has a new film out called Bros, and even though it's sitting at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, apparently the film didn't do too hot at the box office. As Candice Ortiz of Mediaite explains, Bros, written and starring Eichner, was the first gay rom-com ever produced by a major studio. It follows the story of a podcast host, Bobby, portrayed by Eichner, falling in love with a lawyer, Aaron, played by Luke McFarlane. But this weekend, it flopped at the box office with a $4.8 million debut. Now needless to say, he's pretty upset about his film flopping, and he has some thoughts, dare I say, hot takes, about why the film flopped. Now first and foremost, let me just point out that that synopsis sounds terrible. I have no interest in immediately watching a film about, I'm assuming, this cynical podcast host who never thinks that he's gonna find love, finding love, I don't know, that sounds bad to me. I'm not a fan of love stories or rom-coms, so I guess that I'm part of the problem here. But you know, to be fair, looking at trailers, it looks fine, I think it looks pretty funny based on things that I've seen and heard. But he's really upset, and he's blaming the straights for this movie's failure. He tweeted out, Rolling Stone already has Bros on the list of the best comedies of the 21st century. What's also true is that at one point a theater chain called Universal said they were pulling the trailer because of the gay content, uni convinced them not to. That's just the world we live in, unfortunately. Even with glowing reviews, great rod tomato scores, and a cinema score, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn't show up for Bros, and that's disappointing, but it is what it is. Everyone who isn't a homophobic weirdo should go see Bros tonight. You will have a blast, and it is special and uniquely powerful to see this particular story on a big screen, especially for queer folks who don't get this opportunity often. I love this movie so much, go Bros. So he's heavily implying that straight people essentially let him down, let the movie down, and if you're not homophobic, there's no reason why you shouldn't rush out to go see this movie. Not buying it. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Overall, I have a really huge level of distrust for all comedians because to me they all seem like really sensitive, fragile, egotistical maniacs. I mean it's not just Billy Eichner, but he's part of the problem too, when they get criticism for one of their comedy specials, when they make the same jokes, the trans attack helicopter one comes to mind, and they constantly go after woke and political correctness, and they don't have any refreshing content, and then they blame the audiences. That irritates me to no end and it just leads me to believe that they should maybe come up with better content, and so this is Billy Eichner here kind of doing the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, to be fair to him. But first of all, there's a number of things working against this movie. You released it in October. This is when people want to watch scary movies. I for one really like watching scary movies in October. Second of all, it's a love story. I do not like love stories gay or straight. So I'm not going to see this in theaters. I'll watch it when it's on Netflix or maybe I'll even rent it. But I'm not going to watch a love story in theaters because that genre isn't my cup of tea. Another problem is that believe it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over. So there are thousands, dare I say, millions of Americans who still don't want to see movies in theaters. And it's just not my preferred way of watching. If Billy Eichner were a true gay, he'd know that gays want to cuddle up with their dogs on their couches to watch movies. But look, I have a real issue with him implying that straight people are somehow bad allies if they don't see his movie. I don't like him saying that because it's not true. And I think that watching a movie is not inherently a political act. I get what he's trying to say. Like he's made this point before about how you should see this movie to tell the movie studio that you want more gay movies and there's money behind it. I understand that. I think that representation does indeed matter a lot. But at the same time, to try to portray the film as something that you need to see in order to boost gay cinema, rather than trying to tout the film primarily on its merits of just being funny in and of itself, I think that's more important. Now maybe he's doing that. But I don't like this trying to ascribe more value to the movie specifically because it's gay. It seems kind of insidious and a little bit cynical to me. And it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Now it also reminds me of Ridley Scott when he released a movie, The Last Duel, last year and it didn't do very well. It also flopped and he, rather than looking within, chose to blame millennials. Remember he said this, quote, I think what it boils down to what we've got today are the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones. The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you are told it on the cell phone, Scott continued. This is a broad stroke, but I think we're dealing with it right now with Facebook. There is a misdirection that has happened where it's given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think. Now for me, as a millennial, I saw that article about him bad mouthing millennials before I even saw a single trailer of the movie. So maybe you're just not marketing it to areas on the internet where millennials are visiting. I mean, do you really see that much millennials on Facebook these days? I mean, sure, they're there, but is it the best place to market because he brings up Facebook here? And the same thing is true with, you know, Rose, I don't necessarily know if marketing failed. Perhaps the studio didn't put as much money behind it. And I'm not saying that homophobia didn't play a role. It's going to play a role in every single movie that features predominantly gay characters, of course, but other movies have been successful despite them being gay. Moonlight is an example and also the biggest example pointed out by Nando on Twitter here is Brokeback Mountain, which made $178 million at the box office in 2005. Now in response to Nando, people were saying, yeah, but those were two A-less celebrities and they were also straight. So maybe audiences feel better about seeing homosexuality if it comes from straight guys. Listen, I don't think that people are really thinking about it that deeply. I don't think that most people are over analyzing movies like this. If you're a homophobe, you're not going to see this movie. If you don't feel like you're in the mood to watch a rom-com that doesn't inherently make you a bad ally to the LGBTQ plus community. I think it's cool that this movie has a mostly LGBTQ plus cast. I think that that's great. I like that there's more representation. I like that we've come far enough to where we can have a major release of a gay rom-com. But with that being said, though, I don't think that homophobia is the only factor here and I don't think it is appropriate to blame straight people for letting you down considering the many gay people who didn't see it, myself included because sorry, not going to go to a movie theater to see a rom-com when that's not really my favorite genre. But again, maybe the movie's really good. Is it worth seeing it in theaters? Perhaps. But I'll certainly watch it when I'm streaming. But Billy Eichner, honestly, speaking about the movie this way, you know, trying to cope this hard, it kind of makes me a little bit more cynical about the movie itself. Because again, this is what you have to do if you really want to sell the movie based on how funny it is. You sell it for being funny, right? I get that you're angry, but don't try to make it like, oh, stray people. You better get your fucking asses out, otherwise you hate gay people. If you're not homophobic, well, why haven't you seen this movie? Perhaps you're not as good of an ally as you said you were. I don't like that. I really don't like that at all. It's like me saying, okay, well, you know what? Out of all the leftists in independent media, I get less views. It must be because of homophobia. No, it's probably not that. Maybe I just need to produce better content. Maybe other people want to hear what other political commentators say. I think that there are other factors and not every single thing has to be reduced down to homophobia. Again, I get that homophobia will play a role because this is a movie about a gay love story, but for him to go that hard and claim that straights have let the gays down, total nonsense, total bullshit, either way, I'll check out the movie when it's streaming. Maybe I'll rent it when it's cheap, but don't try to make this a bigger thing than it is, just chill.