Bobby isn’t interested in romance. His life is too hectic, too full as it is. He runs a popular podcast. He’s trying to launch his dream venture, the LGBTQ+ Museum, in New York City. He has friends to see and parties to go to and sex to have. Romance? Please. He gets enough of that on the Hallheart Channel, thanks.
But then, across a crowded room filled with shirtless, gyrating men, he spies him. And boy, is he something.
They stand next to each other and begin to chat as they drink their drinks. Aaron, the something guy, admits to liking Garth Brooks—and Bobby wonders whether that alone calls Aaron’s homosexuality into question. They agree that gay men pretend to be smart, even though they’re often not. Aaron points to a dancer on the floor, pretending to be a baseball player—and makes an extremely crude sexual comment about the guy and his husband and their plans for a threesome later on.
Soon, Bobby begins to wonder whether Aaron might be the guy for him. Whether romance is so dead after all.
At one point, Aaron compliments Bobby on his confidence.
“Confidence is just a choice you make,” Bobby says. “A decision like any other.”
We hear some references to how Bobby has been mistreated by those who don’t agree with—or are outright antagonistic to–his lifestyle. Those moments in the film could serve as a reminder to always be mindful of how we treat people. We can still be respectful and kind, I believe, toward those whose choices we disagree with.
Bobby and his museum coworkers debate whether to include an exhibit of Abraham Lincoln, with Bobby insisting that Honest Abe was the United States’ first gay president. When an associate points out that Lincoln was married and had four children, Bobby snaps, “Jesus was married, and He was gay.”
Part of the movie takes place during Christmas, and we see loads of nods to the holiday (Christmas trees, holiday TV specials, etc.). We also see a couple of guys carry a giant menorah, as well. Bobby promises to give Aaron’s visiting parents a grand, festive tour of New York over Christmas as “only a good Jewish New Yorker can.” There’s a reference to Judaism’s high holy days.
A potential donor to Bobby’s museum insists, as a condition, that the museum contain a “haunted house of gay trauma” that features at least one former president as one of its monsters.
As the movie opens, we’re treated to a flashback of Bobby talking with a movie executive who wants Bobby to write a gay romance for film, under the premise that gay and straight relationships are essentially the same.
Bobby rejects that notion—calling it a myth that the LGBT community created. In reality, he says, “Our relationships are different! Our sex is different!”
If Bros reflects typical gay relations, then yes, Bobby is right.
The first time we see Bobby have sex, it’s with someone he met minutes before on a gay dating site—though it’s possible that neither even know each other’s name. The relatively explicit encounter (nudity is avoided but it’s clear what’s happening) is over in a matter of minutes. (It’s suggested that this is wildly common.)
He and Aaron are part of two awkward foursomes. We see a great deal of skin during both scenes (though no critical body parts are shown), and one clearly involves oral sex. After one such encounter, Bobby admits that while he’s no fan of monogamy, he’d ideally like for he and Aaron to be exclusive. They do indeed share sexually intimate moments without other people, too, and we hear some frank and sometimes near pornographic dialogue involving positional preferences and the act itself.
Bobby has a very descriptive conversation about his sexual activity preferences with a straight friend while her kids are in the room. The kids make up a chant employing some of the words and descriptions Bobby has just used. He then grouses, “Gay sex was more fun when straight people were uncomfortable with it.”
That said, he’d like for schoolkids to be more comfortable with both sex and sexuality. He argues with Aaron’s mother—a second-grade teacher—when she tells him that she doesn’t teach her class about LGBT history because (she believes) they’re too young. Bobby tells her that he appreciates how his own parents raised him and relates a story about how they took him to a play featuring a number of naked gay men making out.
Other visual and verbal references to homosexual activity and relationships fill the film, including scads of shirtless guys and one partly exposed rear.
Aaron injects his thigh with testosterone. (When Bobby expresses concern that it might not be healthy for him, Aaron tells him that he doesn’t seem to care when Bobby’s looking at his body.) Another affectionate encounter includes wrestling and roughhousing that gets pretty physical.
The cast of Bros pulls from the gamut of the LGBT community, so we see plenty of trans actors. We see loads of movie spoofs based on the Hallmark Channel’s holiday specials and its recent move into more LGBT-themed fare. The most memorable: Holly Poly Christmas.
There’s more that could be detailed here, but let’s go on.
Someone playing a violent video game asks, “How do you decapitate?”
About 60 f-words and half as many s-words. We also hear “a–,” “d–m,” “h—” and “f-ggot.” God’s name is misused 20 times (once with the word “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused three times.
Aaron and Bobby seem to inhale something during their first sexual encounter, presumably designed to enhance their experience. Bobby injects himself with steroids to improve his physique. An older, muscled gay man is called “Dumbledore on steroids.” People drink wine and beer.
The movie suggests that many well-known historical figures were gay—some of which suggestions feel rather debatable.
On some level, my Bros movie review probably doesn’t need this conclusion. If you look at the content sections, most of you know all you need to cast judgment on the movie. (A few of you know all you need to cast judgment on Plugged In.)
But I’d like to take the review a step further. Because really, a lot of what we see in Bros is symptomatic of a broader issue: a culture increasingly unwilling to deny itself anything.
Bobby is a passionate advocate for those he’d call members of “his tribe,” and he’s passionate about telling the stories of LGBT people who were for so long shunted to history’s back corners. He tells us how he was shunned, too: People tried to change what he said and how he said it, who he was and how he acted. And when Aaron asks Bobby to throttle his angry, exuberant personality back while his parents are visiting, it becomes the greatest crisis in their relationship. Bobby’s not willing to compromise an electron of who he is for anyone. Even his lover.
Throughout the movie, we see that unwillingness to bend, both to society’s conventions and each other. It’s most obvious in the film’s sexual promiscuity: The idea of restraining oneself to one sexual partner is fine if that’s what you wanna do, for instance; but polyamory floats your boat, well that’s just peachy, too.
But we can even see that fierce individualistic stubbornness in the humorous clashes among Bobby’s fellow museum creators—sometimes furious that they can’t have their own way. The movie even jokes how selfish the gay community can be. How very often, fleeting relationships are simply two people using each other for their own self-satisfaction—be it sexual or emotional or something else.
The LGBT community isn’t unique in that sense, of course. We all have a tendency to selfishness. It’s a human problem. And our culture—so enveloped in accepting ourselves and treating ourselves and gratifying ourselves—feeds those tendencies with every car commercial, every exhortation to buy or do or experience something, because we deserve it. Thus, other people often become tools for our own ends.
Bros understands, on some level, how shallow its fleeting hookups can be. But it refuses to reject them. On one hand it admits the need for compromise, while on the other it tells us to never, ever do so. And even when characters are said to “fall in love,” they refuse to commit. They keep options open should they get bored or tired or something better comes along.
The film rejects the idea that you should deny yourself anything—and falls into a state of denial itself. Because denial and sacrifice are part of every relationship worth anything.
As parents we deny ourselves the freedoms we once enjoyed to raise our children. As children, we’re taught the importance of denying ourselves of things, be it three slices of chocolate cake or seven hours of TV time. We sacrifice for our friends, knowing they’d do the same for us. And we sometimes check our words or modify our actions to make the people around us more comfortable. We don’t say everything we want to say. We don’t do everything we want to do.
Our relationship with God has its own sacrifices in play. God sacrificed His Son for us. And we, ideally, sacrifice our own selfishness at God’s altar—becoming living vessels for His will and wishes.
Sacrifice isn’t sexy. Denial isn’t cool. But God-honoring lives are built on such things, and relationships are, too—something that Bros (despite its sharp, funny writing) is unwilling or unable to accept.
Love largely isn’t about sex. Love certainly isn’t about self.
Love, in the end, is about sacrifice.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
