Hairspray (2007)

This review contains mild spoilers.

G.B.F. is a 2013 feature film written by George Northy and directed by Darren Stein (Jawbreaker). G.B.F., which stands for “gay best friend”, tells the story of Tanner Daniels (Michael J. Willett), a closeted high school student who is “more than content to fly under the radar and leave the trailblazing to the others”. Tanner and his best friend Brent (who is also gay, played by Paul Iacono) struggle to gather the courage to come out to their parents and peers as the 'hottest new trend' reaches the radar of the popular crowd: the gay best friend. The film is rated R, though this should not dissuade teens from seeing this particular gay-themed comedy—a sort of Mean Girls for a new generation with an evolved social landscape.

The “gay best friend”, an age-old trope, has been done in countless films and television series. Ranging from one-note (Sex and the City's Stanford and Mario) to nuanced (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss), the gay best friend exists to support and advise the main protagonist, with their conflicts swept to the side. G.B.F. recognizes and disassembles this tired archetype by leading the narrative with two gay characters caught in the riptide of social comfort with queerness, somewhere between homophobia and fetishization (it is stated in the opening moments of the film that no one at this high school has ever come out of the closet). 

With hopes of winning the title of Prom Queen, the school’s three most popular girls, blonde bombshell Fawcett (Sasha Pieterse), drama queen Caprice (Xosha Roquemore), and “Mormon princess” ‘Shley (Andrea Bowen), each scheme to collect a gay best friend to improve their social status. These straight girls claim to want to “help” those who are closeted but very distinctly only care about themselves and their social statuses. After Tanner is accidentally outed, each of the girls jumps at the chance to befriend him.