Los Angeles Times entertainment and arts deputy editor Matt Brennan scolded “Bros” writer and actor Billy Eichner for the angry “post-bomb tweet spiral” he committed after his movie failed at the box office.
Brennan did not have harsh words for the film, calling it “perfectly entertaining,” and did not want to criticize Eichner, either. However, he claimed that Eichner’s reaction to the film bombing on opening weekend, which reeked of “entitlement” and “self-importance,” “forced” his hand into slamming him.
He wrote, “I certainly didn’t want to attack the star of ‘Billy on the Street’ and ‘Difficult People,’ two of the most successful screen adaptations of the gay sensibility in recent memory. But Billy Eichner forced my hand.”
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Luke Macfarlane (left) and Billy Eichner (right), stars of the movie "Bros" attend the premiere of the film in Los Angeles, California.
(REUTERS/David Swanson)
Brennan added, “No one wants to support a movie at the point of a bayonet.”
As Fox News Digital reported earlier this week, Eichner was mocked online for “complaining that ‘straight people’ didn’t go see his film, while also warning ‘homophobes’ to skip it” after the movie only netted “$4.8 million its opening weekend.”
After the weekend performance, Eichner tweeted, “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, esp for queer folks who don’t get this opportunity often. I love this movie so much. GO BROS!!!”
The tweet has since been deleted by Eichner.
Brennan slammed Eichner’s claims, writing, “It’s not just straight people who failed to show up for Eichner’s rom-com ‘Bros’ on opening weekend who might be feeling the pinch. As Variety pointed out in its autopsy of the film’s box office flop, its dreadful $4.8-million take ‘means many LGBTQ viewers didn’t show up to see the comedy in theaters either.’”
Brennan, who is gay, asked, “Does that make us too the “homophobic weirdos” of Eichner’s confounding post-bomb tweet spiral or simply the silent Benedict Arnolds of his self-proclaimed march into the history books?”
Further describing how Eichner’s reaction was too far, he said, “Eichner could be forgiven for throwing a misplaced elbow or two in the aftermath of such a crushing disappointment. But the sense of self-importance and, yes, entitlement in his response dovetails with the film’s rollout.”
Billy Eichner arrives at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
(Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
He then knocked him for bragging about the movie before it came out, stating, “Before its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, he bragged that ‘Bros’ ‘is not an indie movie. This is not some streaming thing which feels disposable, or which is like one of a million Netflix shows. I needed to appreciate, ‘This is a historic moment, and somehow, you’re at the center of it. You helped create it.’”
The author continued: “Here were words to stick in one’s craw, to suggest that, as well-versed as Eichner may be in the traditions of the rom-com, his understanding of queer history on screen had momentarily escaped him.”
Defending the lower profile films that paved the way for LGBTQ representation, Brennan added, “It is precisely the indies, the ‘disposable’ experiments, the made-for-TV movies and forgotten genre entries, in which LGBTQ people established themselves in the American imagination before there was a name for us.”
He also said the film isn’t as revolutionary as Eichner thinks, writing, “In truth, ‘Bros’ is not nearly so radical as it claims, and that disjuncture between what it is — a perfectly entertaining, middlebrow rom-com — and what it understands itself to be — a landmark moment for LGBTQ people in popular culture — is inextricable from the hand-wringing around it.”
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CNN headline on Billy Eichner reaction to ‘Bros’ box-office failure. The actor slammed "straight people" and "homophobic weirdos" for the movie’s box office bomb.
(Fox News)
