Chuck & Buck: The Most Homophobic Movie since Cruising

Some movies you go into expecting homophobia -- any comedy about young adult slackers, anything directed by Ron Howard, anything starring Will Smith. But sometimes the director or actors are gay, or the reviews suggest that the movie is gay-positive, and the homophobia hits you out of nowhere, like a slap in the face.

I heard that The Phone Call (1989), with Michael Sarrazin, was the most homophobic movie of all time, but it has to be Chuck & Buck (2000), just because the homophobia is so unexpected.

Mike White is the son of gay Christian advocate Mel White, author of Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America.  One would not expect him to be homophobic.

Chuck & Buck was actually advertised in gay publications!  Sort of like advertising Birth of a Nation in Ebony.

The premise: Chuck (Chris Weitz) and Buck (Mike White) were gay boyfriends when they were kids.

Years have passed, and Chuck has grown up: he has a a house, a job, and a fiancee. And of course, he's now heterosexual  But Buck hasn't grown up. He's living with his mother, he still likes childish things.  And he's still gay.

When his mother dies, Buck remembers his lost boyfriend, and begins stalking him.  Humorous complications ensue.  Chuck is up for a "bit of fun," one last homoerotic fling, but he finally convinces Buck that he's got to move on.  Being gay is fine for kids, but eventually you have to grow up, get a house, job, and wife, accept your heterosexual destiny.

But it's not merely a matter of acquiescing to the heterosexist mandate.  When you grow up, you literally turn heterosexual.

What about adults who are gay?  Well, they are, in the words of Mike White, "retards."  They've experienced arrested development.  They're terrified of adulthood, with its responsibilities and its ladies, so they get stuck in childhood.

 Freud thought that, too: you're gay because you stopped at the oral stage of psychosexual development, and have yet to experience real, mature, heterosexual desire.

And Mr. Falwell -- um, I mean Mr. White -- expected gay people to eagerly accept this theory?  Did he think he was writing for Will and Grace?

This is easily the most homophobic movie made in the U.S. since Cruising (1980).  I would say "the world," but Poland's Floating Skyscrapers is a little worse.

Two years later, Mike White wrote the script for Orange County (2002), which has two gay characters ( played by Kyle Howard and RJ Knoll), but they actually are adolescents, so I can't tell if they have "arrested development" or not.

And director Miguel Arteta?  The New Normal (2012).

By the way, the top photo is of Eric Nies, who has no connection to this movie, and has probably never even seen it.

Arlo and Chad: Orange County Gay Couple

Orange County (2002), a comedy starring Colin Hanks as a high school senior torn between buddies at home and and a distant college, features an explicit same-sex romance.

I assumed that buff slacker buddies Arlo (Kyle Howard) and Chad (RJ Knoll) were standard movie buddies with a unstated homoerotic attraction, like Dave and Chainsaw in Summer School -- especially when they were shown trying to pick up girls.  But then they make an announcement:

Chad: Last night we’re at this party, little Arlo here decides to profess his undying love for me. Didn’t I tell you he was a fruitcake?

Arlo: That’s not true, Bro. Here’s what really happened. Chad crashed at my house, right, and I woke up in the night, he was fondling my. . . .

Chad: Dude, I lost my keys. I was looking for ‘em.

Very clear, isn't it: they have had sex, and they are in love. They are sitting in their car in a position of quiet intimacy, at peace with each other. They are delighted that there is no longer any doubt about whether they are lovers. Their friends respond with approving grins, not with surprise, since they were aware that the two were a couple all along.

Oddly, the screenplay was written by Mike White, who also wrote and starred in the execrable Chuck & Buck (2000).

But most fan reviews of Orange County on Amazon.com and the Internet Movie Database seem utterly confused: “What the heck does that scene mean?”; “Weird scene”; “It’s a joke, right?”; “Are they supposed to be gay, or what?”

Why are reviewers baffled?  Because they believe that no fictional characters can be gay unless they are Wearing a Sign.  Arlo and Chad have never explicitly stated "We are gay," so they must be taken as heterosexual. Why would they profess their "undying love" and have sex?  It must be a joke.