Gay Best Friend: Oliver T'Sien in "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018)
Monday, March 22, 2021 at 12:45PM a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
Nico Santos does what every gay best friend does in a romantic comedy, stage a makeover montage.After a few retro episodes, we've made it back to modern examples of the Gay Best Friend trope. Crazy Rich Asians employs so many classic romantic comedy moments. When Nick Young (Henry Goulding) asks Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) to meet his family in Singapore, some nearby people overhear and set off a chain of texts that break the news to the entire Young family circle. Bright animated colors pop around the screen to demonstrate word spreading, recalling classic Doris Day title sequences of the 50s and 60s. This pastiche blends well with the grand opulence of the Young’s Singapore compound that feels in line with the worlds of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the recent Sex and the City movies.
Any love letter to the romantic comedy has to employ one of the character mainstays of the genre: the gay best friend. This comes in the form of Oliver (Nico Santos), the rainbow sheep of the family...