Gay Best Friend: Simon (Greg Kinnear) in "As Good As It Gets" (1997)
Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 10:12AM a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
Turns out, gay best friends can get Oscar nominated too. They just have to get beat up first.
Happy Oscar Hangover Week! Now is a time to rejoice in the winners we love and lick our wounds from the snubs along the way. In honor of the Oscars, we thought we would look back at a nominated example of the “Gay Best Friend.” We don’t often see Gay Best Friends get Oscar nominations or wins. Since this caricature is used more as window dressing and less like a fully developed character, there often isn’t enough meat for an actor to get awards traction. Even if they are a scene stealer, they often will fall short. That is… unless trauma is involved.
Case and point: the 1997 Best Supporting Actor race. Our first entry in the column was about the formative work of Rupert Everett in the hit rom-com My Best Friend’s Wedding. His George still stands as one of the best examples of the “gay best friend,” as he elevated the trope and crafted a fan favorite character. Some pushed for him to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but there was only room for one gay character in the category. Instead, Greg Kinnear showed up in the Oscar lineup for his mincing performance as Simon in As Good As It Gets, a gay artist defined by his trauma. Dear Oscar, is that really as good as it gets for this category?
A tale as old as time - crotchety old man and his gay neighbor.
Melvin Udall: Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking. Or, if it's election night, and you're excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he's going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don't knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?
Melvin Udall: Okay then.
Simon Bishop: [clears his throat] Uhm, yes. It's not a... subtle point that you're making.
James L. Brooks’ Oscar winning dramedy centers around Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson), a sexist homophobic misanthrope suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. He spends his day making everyone around him miserable, including his gay artist neighbor, Simon (Greg Kinnear). One day, while doing a portrait of a local gay hustler he thinks is an actual model, Simon finds his home robbed by a bunch of his subject’s friends. Once he catches them in the act, Simon is brutally beaten nearly to death. This vicious gay-bashing is the inciding incident in Melvin’s journey to being a kinder person, as he is asked to take care of Simon’s dog, Verdell.
It’s a testament to Jack Nicholson that he can vary the way he hurls horrific insults at people and still maintain charm. I was not trying to be snarky about that either. His performance manages to be charismatic and interesting even as he is saddled with a broadly sketched portrait of OCD behavior that too often equates it with bigoted language. He never shies away from the character’s bad behavior, but somehow makes us believe that people may want to save him from himself. Still, there’s something incredibly gross about how the film uses Simon’s tragedy as the impetus for Melvin’s growth. Even before the assault on Simon, the movie asks us to laugh at him simply because he’s gay. We’re always seeing Simon and the rest of the cast through Melvin’s perspective in the beginning, rather on their own terms. To Melvin (and by extension the audience), Simon is a mincing fairy with a tiny dog, a vaguely defined art career and an inability to stand up for himself. Kinnear overplays Simon’s sincerity, making him appear not just weak, but also not dynamic or fully rounded as a character. It’s as if he was told to “play gay,” rather than “play a character.”
Simon Bishop: Is this fun for you? You lucky devil. It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it? I'm losing my apartment, Melvin. And Frank, he wants me to beg my parents, who haven't called me, for help. And I won't. And... I... I don't want to paint any more. So the life that I was trying for, is over. the life that I had is gone, and I'm feeling so damn sorry for myself that it's difficult to breathe.
The basic framework for As Good As It Gets involves watching characters’ plights get progressively worse until they learn to be happy in spite of their circumstances. This means each character must continually get put through the emotional wringer, wallowing in added layers of trauma. Melvin’s love interest, his favorite waitress Carol (Helen Hunt in her Oscar winning performance), continually struggles with “those HMO bastards” to help her sick son. For Simon, he recovers from his injuries only to have scars all over his face and lasting injuries to his arm and leg that prevent him from painting. With no way to earn money and pay off the $61,000 in hospital bills, he’s left with a terrible choice. He can either leave his apartment or beg his homophobic parents for money.
Simon’s entire existence in the film revolves around trauma. Perhaps this is why it was the gay character they chose to reward with an Oscar nomination. However, a person is not solely defined by their trauma. The mental scars from being beaten by one’s own Father would likely never go away. It makes sense that Simon would not have dealt with these feelings and feel haunted by them. Yet, this trip to Baltimore feels more like a plot device to further the A plot of the film, Melvin and Carol’s love story.
Contextually, the Oscars had rewarded such films as Philadelphia and Longtime Companion that dealt with the AIDS epidemic. Yet, films that were about gay joy, such as The Birdcage, did not see similar embraces from the Oscars. There’s much more to gay characters than past and current traumas. Simon represents a one dimensional creation, a character that can withstand hit after hit only to serve the protagonist’s emotional journey. You can beat the gay up all you want as long as it makes Melvin want to be a better man. Jack Nicholson gives a great performance because he’s allowed to explore the softer side of a bitter man. There’s a lot to play between these two poles, and he takes advantage of it. Meanwhile, Greg Kinnear minces and sulks in the side.
Who's third-wheeling who?
Simon Bishop: I have to draw you.
Carol Connelly: No, no no, absolutely not. I'm a lot more shy than people think. I give off the wrong impression.
Simon Bishop: I have to. I haven't sketched anything in weeks.
Carol Connelly: Stop staring. Do a vase.
Simon Bishop: But you're beautiful, Carol. Your skin, your long neck, the back, the line of you. You're why cavemen chiseled on walls.
Carol Connelly: [Smiles, and laughs slightly] All right, cut me a break.
[as Simon draws, she smiles, and lowers her towel, giving him a better view]
Carol Connelly: [after a brief cutaway to a different scene, returning to this one; now Carol is laying on a couch, nude, laughing, as Simon draws] I'm sorry, I don't care how you put this, we're being naughty here, pal.
Simon Bishop: No, no, this is, this is great.This is so great. I swear to God, my hand won't even keep up. Hold it. Hold it.
When Simon sees Carol in the bath, he compulsively starts drawing her. Soon, they are thrashing around the bed as he sketches faster than seems humanly possible. While this feels like a cathartic release, in many ways it's also a regression. He may be Melvin’s gay best friend, but he’s a stand-in for Carol’s son. When he sees her by the bath, he’s instantly transported to when he used to draw his Mom naked and it spurs him to create art again. Once one scratches the surface only slightly, they can see that this is a pretty unhealthy dynamic to get back into. Instead of moving forward, he just wants to re-enact what he used to do with his mother growing up.
The only time we’ve seen Simon happy so far is re-enacting the bond he had with his Mom. These memories are the only positive things we’ve heard about his life through this two hour and fifteen minute movie. He left his house at 18 and never came back, but his adulthood seems to not have shaped him or had any impact. Simon is only defined as “gay,” but within that there are so many subgroups. Is he a party gay going to clubs? Does he have a more close knit group of friends? What are his feelings around AIDS? Does he have any thoughts about the gay community or gay lifestyle? Hell, what type of guy is he even into? Simon is given no sex drive and no interests. He likes art, his dog, and the nude memories of his Mom. For these sins, he must be beaten almost to death, get into extraordinary debt, have his dog prefer the homophobe next door and be forced to drive to visit his homophobic parents to beg for money.
Simon Bishop: I love you.
Melvin Udall: I tell you, buddy... I'd be the luckiest guy alive if that did it for me.
Sketching Helen Hunt’s naked body gives Simon the strength to not beg his parents for money. The motley trio can head back to New York, with Simon none the richer. Melvin offers his empty room to Simon, which Simon readily accepts. If these two crazy cats can get along, can’t we all? Let’s be honest, what is Melvin going to do if Simon brings a guy home? The movie allows everyone to kiss and make up, but it doesn’t actually give Simon much in the way of character growth. He gets progressively sadder until he does a full 180 at a moment’s notice. This is all in service of doing the one thing all gay best friends do… give his friend a pep talk before the big declaration of love. Simon’s growth is just a means to an end of giving Melvin and Carol a happy ending.
Previously in Gay Best Friend
pre stonewall
- Plato (Sal Mineo) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
- Sebastian Venable in Suddenly Last Summer (1959)
- Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons) in Rachel Rachel (1968)
post stonewall
- Erich (Norbert Weisser) in Midnight Express (1978)
- Toddy (Robert Preston) & Squash (Alex Karras) in Victor/Victoria (1982)
- Dolly Peliker (Cher) in Silkwood (1983)
1990s and the 2000s
- Tim (Nathan Lane) in Frankie & Johnny (1991)
- Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) & Graham (Peter Friedman) in Single White Female (1992)
- Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) in Reality Bites (1994)
- Gareth (Simon Callow) and Matthew (John Hannah) in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) in Boys on the Side (1995)
- George Downs (Rupert Everett) in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)
- George Hanson (Paul Rudd) in The Object of My Affection (1998)
- Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) in The Opposite of Sex (1998)
- Robert (Rupert Everett) in The Next Best Thing (2000)
- Patti (Sandra Oh) in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
- Damian (Daniel Franzese) in Mean Girls (2004)
- Nigel (Stanley Tucci) in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
- Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)
the now
Reader Comments (27)
I was glad he got the nom over Rupert who I though at the time and still do was doing nothing that special in MBFW,nice analysis about what makes Simon tick.
i hated every single minute of this movie
When I was younger, I used to be ok with this film and still think Hunt, Nicholson and Kinnear do good or great job with material given but... hasn't this movie aged very poorly? I rewatched it recently and thought it was terrible. Kinnear deserved to be nominated with "Little Miss Sunshine" instead as I think it was his character's journey that made the movie so compelling, even if it wasn't obvious to viewers.
Big fan of the performances in this. Greg Kinnear is awesome.
Great read as usual.
This movie, and it's Oscar wins, are simply atrocious.
Helen Hunt's Oscar is as unbelievable as Gwyneth Paltrow's - especially if you think about the competition.
Hmm, I remember liking this movie well enough when it came out, but haven't seen it since and am not at all surprised it's aged poorly.
You make valid points about Kinnear's character and how tastelessly he's used. (Side note: it strikes me, for many of these, that the "gay best friend" has a lot of similarities to the trope of the "magical negro.") But I actually think he did a good job with a fairly thankless role - I don't think he comes across as "mincing" at all, nor weak. Just maybe a little too tolerant of Melvin's BS, as is pretty much everyone else in the movie.
thats a misreading of it. lots of gay ppl in the 90s weren't accepted in a homophobic society. it's an accurate mirror of what simon would have been faced an he does face genuine joy in bonding to carol and melvin. i don't buy the bury your gays trope is necessarily a homophobic or wrong trope in and of itself.
yes, his store is secondary to melvin (i'd say he's roughly equal to carol) but he is by definition a secondary character and they do well with him
As Good as It Gets, Jerry Maguire and Forrest Gump are examples of films that the studios produced / co-produced and The Academy devoured like delicacies and thanked by throwing golden statuettes at them. And the public crowded the cinemas like bees eager for honey to watch. Good times.
James L. Brooks wrote the film for Holly Hunter. God, she would’ve been amazing as Carol. However, they couldn’t agree on money. Instead, we get a discount Helen Hunt and dreams of what might have been.
@feline Well, at the very least, Oscar-winning films made good money back then. $148 million was the film's domestic gross, 6th highest for 1997.
That is pretty incredible
@lynn I think the magic negro trope is overly used to denigrate any film in which a black person is of use to a white person at all...to the point where it's becoming a risk to even have characters of different races bond and learn from one another. Spike Lee coined that term in response to Legend of Bagger Vance and other films around that time in a 2000 press tour for Bamboozled. Legend of Bagger Vance had a guy who existed for no reason than to help the protagonist. Few other parts are that extreme.
Love both the film and Kinnear's performance - he'd probs rank third for me in that Supporting Actor field, behind Forster and Reynolds.
I really liked "As Good As It Gets," but Greg Kinnear's performance didn't deserve a nomination. Everett would have been more deserving and, dare I say, Kevin Spacey from "LA Confidential."
Huge fan of the film (it just works for me, on every level) and I'm also a fan of the performance (it's sweet, and I think the character's core quality is that he's a sweet guy), both of which get way too much shit because of genre bias in regards to the film, and the performance being (unfairly?) compared to Everett's. Everett's performance is indeed great, but it's a limited role that I think people have managed to round out more because the character is being played by an out actor. I think it's also odd to discuss this character/performance without mentioning the character played by Cuba Gooding Jr. It's explicitly stated that he's gay, but I think the character is meant to provide a counterpoint to Simon.
Kinnear was FAN-TAS-TIC, and he was FAN-TAS-TIC again in Little Miss Sunshine. Why doesn't he get enough roles up to his obvious talent? Same with Aaron Eckhardt, by the way, just look at both The Dark Knight and Thank you for Smoking...
With apologies to the humans, Verdell is the best actor in this movie.
Greg Kinnear was "mincing"? I didn't get that at all. The film is somewhat dated (in fact, it was already when it came out) but it's more the case of James Brooks coming from tv and instinctively and habitually not wanting to risk the commercial potential by going too far and challenging audiences too much. In this case, it's the gay elements that suffer the most, but Greg Kinnear is excellent.
A bit repetitive piece of writing and slightly oversimplifying and misunderstanding the tricky tone the film carries. Good read regardless.
Multiple trifling hoes, can't I enjoy the afterglow of a decent Oscars. Sigh...
HUNT4EVA
Thank you, Christopher, for your expert analysis. I would like to add a few comments to this discussion. I've been an Oscar lover my whole life and began watching the show in 1976; I struggled with my gay identity early and finally came out in 1991; and I worked as a film reviewer for much of the 1990s. For younger readers who grew up in a more open atmosphere, it may be difficult to understand the mood in this country at that time regarding gay men, Hollywood's evolving portrayal of them and Oscar's response.
When James Coco was nominated for an Oscar for 1981's "Only When I Laugh," it was the first time for me as an adult (albeit teenager) seeing an openly gay man like that in a major Hollywood film. I know Coco's characterization does not hold up well and feels like a broad stereotype to say the least, but that was how gays were portrayed -- when they were, which was rare -- and I took note. I think Christopher could agree that Coco's character did suffer much like Greg Kinnear's did, even if the portrayals are very different. Still, the "suffering gay" theme didn't changed much between 1981 and 1997.
We did get "Kiss of the Spider Woman" in 1985, but I've never been keen on William Hurt's affected performance. However, he got to suffer and Oscar recognized Hurt's "brave" performance.
Then AIDS hit and the majors didn't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole. It took nearly a decade before the release of "Philadelphia" and Tom Hanks wins an Oscar. The movie's success ushered in a new kind of big-screen gay--the noble gay man dying of AIDS. Again, suffering.
Meanwhile, that same year, in "Six Degrees of Separation," Will Smith refused to kiss another man on screen and had someone else do it for him. When I saw it in the theater and the kissing scene came up, people were actually screaming out "Don't do it, Will!" Will later said Denzel Washington -- the costar of "Philadelphia," mind you -- advised him not to do the kiss because it could hurt his career. This was the mindset in 1993--and only four years before "As Good As It Gets."
So when "My Best Friend's Wedding" has a gay best friend who seems to have it together and enjoys life, it was something of a revelation, and Rupert Everett was perfect in the role. He was in the Oscar discussion until "As Good As It Gets" came out at the end of the year, and Christopher is right -- Simon's suffering was more in line with Hollywood's portrayal of gays at that time. I actually like Greg Kinnear in the movie, but that type of role was like catnip to the Academy when a nomination for Rupert would have been a refreshing change of pace. Odd to think today that Rupert's performance could be seen that way. But the country was dealing with the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and while people were slowly accepting of gays, it was not widespread. Trust me -- my partner and I were together then and you still tread lightly on who knew and who didn't.
As for movies, this period also saw the trend that gay men should be portrayed as drag queens with the releases of "Priscilla," "To Wong Foo" and "The Birdcage." Nothing wrong with these films but at the time, I kept thinking, "When will Hollywood see gay men as more than AIDS victims, drag queens, fussbudgets or people driven to self-loathing because they are gay?"
Hollywood was more accepting of lesbians -- Cher was terrific in "Silkwood" in 1983 and was recognized with an Oscar nomination. But for gay men, the road was much more difficult. Even this year with such a diverse slate of Oscar nominees, where were the gay and lesbian filmmakers or performances? They passed on the documentary "Welcome to Chechnya," which still bothers me.
Baffled Nicholson and Hunt won Oscars for this.
Still an overrated, overwrought, and overblown film and proof that James L. Brooks is overrated, overpraised, and over-appreciated as a filmmaker when he's best as a producer for other people's projects.
Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Greg Kinnear in As Good as It Gets any day of the week.
This movie was on constant rewatch for me in high school, really liked it back then. Saw it recently on cable, and its flaws were quite apparent:
- It's about 30 minutes too long, and you *feel* it. The trip to Baltimore and a lot of stuff with Helen Hunt and her mom (that weepy scene about never going on dates.. awful) could be excised without losing the basic premise.
- The sitcommiest parts of the movie really dilute the mood, especially the rants against HMOs and about a third of Nicholson's one-liners aimed at random passersby.
- The weirdly non-specific elements of Hunt's son's sickness that always bubble up at the most inconvenient times. Vomiting? Coughing? Asthma? He has it all! Them being poor and working-class would've been "punishment" enough.
That said, the acting across the board is aces, including Kinnear. And you really do grow to care about these characters by the end of the movie.
Kinnear was good but even back then the character is to much of a gay victim
I have hated this movie since I first saw it. I did like Kinner's performance but the role is terrible. His character mainly exists to help Melvin "grow as a person".
He was nominated because he played the tragic homo saved by the bigoted hetero. This insulting dreck didn't deserve a single nomination but it allowed Follywood and the straight movie going audience to applaud their tolerance for a certain kind of gay. Yuck.
“Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.” (Sarah Hagi)