By Haoran Xia
Published on: NOWNESS China
April 19, 2021
More and more women today say they want a “gay best friend.”
This isn’t exactly a new trend. Over the past two or three decades, the word “bestie” has long outgrown its original meaning - once referring specifically to a young woman’s closest female companion before marriage. Now, anyone can have a “female bestie,” a “male bestie,” and, sitting neatly at the top of the social hierarchy, the ultimate upgrade: the gay best friend. Just how in demand are gay best friends? Open any friendship-seeking group on Douban, and posts titled “Looking for a gay bestie” appear again and again - most of them written by women. At the same time, in forums discussing how to approach women, threads like “How to pretend to be gay (because gay men seem easier to get close to)” have started gaining traction. After tote bags, Chelsea boots, and Yorkshire terriers, the gay best friend seems to have become yet another standard accessory of the modern urban woman.
Classic American TV shows like Sex and the City and Will & Grace were perhaps the original catalysts behind this fantasy. Stanford and Will - two almost insurmountable archetypes - established the template for the gay best friend as we know it today: emotionally perceptive, sharp-tongued and gossip-loving, impeccably stylish, loyal to a fault, decisive when it counts, and uninhibited when it comes to sex talk. They fit neatly into the public imagination of gay men - while also embodying every desirable quality of an intimate friend. In short, the perfect supporting character. A flawless green leaf. In Sex and the City, Stanford isn’t just Carrie’s emotional analyst or romantic consultant. He’s her daily companion - the one who explores New York with her. They try new restaurants, browse antique shops, attend the trendiest parties, wander the city together, and share the small pleasures of life. They are, quite simply, partners in joy.
On screen, this dynamic feels natural. In real life, it does too. No one dislikes stories like the long-standing friendship between Cai Kangyong and Xu Xidi - and over time, this admiration has slowly turned the “gay best friend” into a fixed trope, even a stereotype. The gay best friend appears exactly when the plot requires him - and quietly exits once the male lead returns, leaving behind only invisible merit. After decades of film and television, it seems no gay best friend has truly escaped the shadow of Stanford. Once the label “tool character” clicks shut, countless paper-thin portrayals are sealed inside.
As early as the 1930s, classic Hollywood films were already experimenting with male homosexual-coded characters. The formula was simple: make men less masculine: through speech patterns, mannerisms, and clothing. At the time, the U.S. was still recovering from the collective trauma of the Great Depression. These characters were found to bring audiences a sense of lightness and relief. Their “de-masculinization” naturally drew them closer to female characters - though, more often than not, this closeness still ultimately served the women’s stories, not their own.
In My Best Friend’s Wedding, George pretends to be the heroine Julianne’s fiancé, helping her stage a farce in hopes of winning back her former lover. In The Devil Wears Prada, Stanley Tucci’s fashion editor Nigel delivers iconic lines - “When your whole life goes to shit, that means your job is about to get really good” - and plays a crucial role in Andy’s transformation. In Crazy Rich Asians, Oliver appears the moment Rachel enters elite society: helping her choose dresses, teaching table manners, preparing her for the gauntlet of high-society dinners. Whether it’s Oliver or Nigel, their narrative function is strikingly similar. They are emotional wingmen or bridges to social mobility. Their traits are carefully preserved on screen: impeccable taste, enviable connections, sensitivity without threat.
Yet these traits eventually devour the characters themselves. When the film ends, what lingers isn’t who they were — but what they did for her. Audiences may enjoy the entertainment value and narrative efficiency of such characters, but they are rarely granted a coherent story of their own. What drives their unconditional generosity? Who are they beyond the heroine’s arc? Do they fall in love themselves? When they suffer heartbreak, who helps them? By ignoring these questions, gay best friend characters float outside the story’s emotional gravity. They descend like divine helpers, unattached to the narrative’s soil - forever secondary, forever functional.
Yet any genuine friendship is built on equality. Even in stories that are not explicitly queer, gay best friends should not exist solely to assist heterosexual romance. The popularity of the gay best friend rose alongside the global spread of American television. In recent years, however, film and TV have begun pushing back against this simplification. In many ways, the history of gay best friend portrayals is also a history of resisting being reduced to tools - a struggle that is far from over.
The first step is acknowledging their subjectivity. A supporting character is not a prop. Beyond being “needed by the plot,” they should possess a life with its own origin and destination. As Brandt says in G.B.F.: “I don’t want to be the gay prom king. I don’t want to be the gay best friend. I just want to go to prom and be a normal friend.” There is nothing wrong with writing a gay best friend. But through their interactions with the protagonist, the audience should at least glimpse an independent inner world - one that exists whether or not the main character needs help.
Even minor characters, when written well, can become the soul of a work. In American Horror Story: Hotel, many viewers remember not Lady Gaga’s Countess, but the hotel manager Liz Taylor. Liz is a transgender woman. In the first half of the season, she functions as a supporting force at key narrative moments. But the brilliance lies in the later episodes, where her past unfolds: her family life under an assigned gender, her son, the moment she chose to confront her identity, and her experience of loving a younger man as a woman.
No one exists solely to serve someone else’s storyline. Whether in art or in life, gay best friends’ stories cannot - and should not - be flattened into a single category. Once their right to a name is acknowledged, the next step is to dismantle the fixed relationship between gay best friend and female lead - removing the labels that once came pre-attached. With that freedom, relationships diversify. The old formula of “ditzy heroine + sassy gay bestie” no longer dominates.
A woman and a gay male friend are not automatically sealed into a biologically neutral, emotionally static bond. In the 1972 musical Cabaret, Michael York’s character confesses to Sally: “I’ve slept with several women, but it was always terrible so I think maybe I don’t really like girls.” After this confession, the two form a stable companionship, exploring identity, desire, and uncertainty together. Compared to rigid labels imposed by society, this kind of self-doubt and self-exploration is infinitely more compelling, and this was a film made fifty years ago.
Sometimes, sexuality itself becomes fluid within narrative structure. Sense8, created by the Wachowskis, offers a radical form of emotional and identity reconfiguration. One of its protagonists, Lito, is a closeted Mexican actor struggling with masculinity and visibility. With the encouragement of Daniela - a female character who becomes both ally and catalyst - Lito ultimately embraces himself, reunites with his lover, and forms an unconventional but harmonious emotional triad. In Chinese-language cinema, constrained by censorship, explorations of gay-best-friend dynamics often appear only on the margins. In Love Is Not Blind, the male lead Wang Xiaojian enters with sharp-tongued, gay-coded traits, though his sexuality is never confirmed and eventually transitions into a heterosexual romantic lead. In Why Women Kill, Simone (played by Liu Yuling) is deceived into marriage by her gay husband Karl. Yet over time, rage turns into mutual understanding. Their bond evolves into something deeper than romance - a redefinition of what “life partners” can mean.
Contemporary storytelling no longer needs endless repetition of outdated templates. In the end, a gay best friend is not extraordinary simply because of the word gay. They are, like anyone else, ordinary individuals whose lives contain complexity, contradiction, and desire. But like many groups historically reduced to symbols, the real question remains:
Who gets to tell their stories and how? This is ultimately a question of narrative ownership.
Whether we are speaking of better stories or a more expansive world, we remain far from that ideal destination. And perhaps it is precisely that distance that continues to push us forward .
作者：夏浩然
发表于：NOWNESS现在
二零二一 四月十九日
越来越多的女性，都希望能拥有一个“gay蜜”。
这不是一个新的风潮或现象。“闺蜜”这个词在近二三十年的发展过程里，早已超出了它原本指代的“女性未出阁前的亲密女性好友”概念，任何人都可以拥有“女闺蜜”“男闺蜜”、以及站在金字塔顶端的“gay蜜”。gay蜜到底有多抢手呢？打开豆瓣交友小组，“求一个gay蜜”在信息流里屡见不鲜，大部分情形下，信息发布者都是女性。相应地，在如何追求女生的讨论区里，“如何装gay（言下之意是gay相对容易接近女性）”也开始引起大量讨论。继tote手袋、切尔西靴与约克夏犬之后，gay蜜似乎也开始成为当代摩登女性的标配。
早年间的经典美剧《欲望都市》《威尔和格蕾丝》或许是刮起gay蜜风气的始祖。斯坦福与威尔，两座无法逾越的gay蜜人物高峰奠定了整个群体的标准画像：他们通常善解人意，毒舌八卦，时尚品味在线，仗义果断，且在性话题上奔放大胆。符合一般人对男性同性恋这个群体的想象，同时也具备亲密好友的所有优良品质。总而言之，是一片完美又标准的绿叶。 在《欲望都市》中，斯坦福作为女主角凯莉的gay蜜，不仅会帮助凯莉分析情感问题，提供更多情感资源，更是凯莉生活中的亲密搭档，他们一起去纽约新开的餐厅吃饭，去古玩店挑选古董，去最新潮的夜店参加派对，去探索纽约，享受生活，做彼此的开心小伙伴。
影视作品如此，现实中同样如此。没有人不爱看像蔡康永和小s那样的多年老友故事，以至于逐渐地，gay蜜形象也开始落入某种套路化与标签化的处境。gay蜜如此供不应求，gay蜜叙事则百试不爽：职场新人需要一个“贵人”，失恋被渣需要一个“助攻”，作为最好使的万金油， gay蜜们在剧情需要时适时出现在女主角身边，随着男主角的回归而适时消失，深藏功与名。影视发展几十年，好像再也没有能够逃出斯坦福原型的gay蜜角色了。“工具人”的盒子盖上，掩住了无数纸片人一般的gay蜜形象。
早在20世纪30年代，不少老牌好莱坞电影便尝试塑造男同一类的角色，其中的门道可以被概括成“令男性角色不那么男性化”，比如语音语调，行为方式，穿着打扮等。 那时的美国仍在缓解经济大萧条带来的社会性创伤，而电影中的这类形象被发现能够为处于低沉状态的美国人带来一丝放松和欢乐。“去男性化”这一特征与女性群体的靠近和融合则显得十分自然而然——虽然，这种靠近大多数时候仍然是服务于女性形象本身的。
在电影《我最好朋友的婚礼》中，女主角朱莉亚的gay蜜乔治选择装作朱莉亚的未婚夫，与她上演一场假戏以重新获得朱莉亚旧爱迈克尔的爱。经典电影《穿普拉达的女王》中，斯坦利·图齐饰演的时装编辑內吉尔不仅贡献了全片金句“等到你的生活一团糟，你的工作就成功了”，还在女主角安迪的时尚进阶中成为举足轻重的引路人角色。 在2018年大红的喜剧电影《摘金奇缘》里，女主角瑞秋也有一位名叫奥利弗的gay蜜。第一次见面，奥利弗就开始帮助瑞秋挑选衣服，教她用餐礼仪，帮她为豪门晚宴做好准备。 无论是奥利弗，还是內吉尔，冥冥中他们在女主角的故事线中承担了相似的功能：或是帮助女主角在情感上担任“最佳僚机”，或是成为女主角上升通道中的一介桥梁。他们的一系列特征或长处被固定在银幕上，比如独特又富有品味的审美，优质又数不胜数的社会资源，适时而不冒犯的善解人意……但，这些特点早就吞噬了角色本人，电影结束后，你能回想起的往往不是这个人，而是在女主角成长过程中，他所贡献的那份力量。
虽然观众对gay蜜角色在剧情推动中的重要性和娱乐性都很买账，但这类形象始终缺乏属于自身的连贯叙述，他们犹如天降神兵一般的利他行为背后的驱动力到底是什么？他们各自的人物性格与背景又是什么？除了帮助女主角谈恋爱，他们自己不谈恋爱吗？他们遇到恋爱烦恼时如何解决？
对这些问题的忽视往往使得gay蜜角色漂浮在整个主线情节之外，无法附着在编剧所讲述的那个故事本身上面，从而令他们永恒地成为陪衬与工具。既然任何友情的基础都是相互平等的沟通与相处，那么，即使不是专门的同性电影，gay蜜也不应该只有单方面助攻这一种形象。
Gay蜜的盛行借助于美剧的普及。近些年，美剧与其他影视作品也在不停尝试破除这一类型角色上的单一化标签。我们似乎可以说，整部gay蜜影视形象的发展史，都是他们试图打破“工具人”称号的奋斗史，而且这个过程还远远没有结束。
第一步，当然是正视gay蜜们的主体性存在——也就是认识到“配角不是工具人”，在“被主角/剧情需要”之外，他们完全可以拥有不输主角的丰满形象。就如电影《基友大过天》中主角布兰特所说的，“我不想成为gay毕业晚会的国王，也不想成为gay蜜，我只想去参加毕业晚会，做一个普通朋友。”换句话说，想要在剧本里写一个gay蜜配角，本身并无问题。他或许不是一个故事的叙事中心，但，通过他与主角的交互，至少得让观众们窥见他自己相对独立，有来处也有去处的个人世界。
哪怕只是龙套角色，一个处理得当的gay蜜形象，也会成为一部作品中的点睛之笔。有Lady Gaga加盟的《美国恐怖故事》第五季中，惊艳了大部分观众的角色或许并不是Lady Gaga扮演的伯爵夫人，而是酒店经理丽兹·泰勒。 丽兹是一位性格鲜明的跨性别女性，故事的前半程她尽职地担任绿叶，在一些重要的剧情关头成为推动者。编剧的高明之处则在于后半程对她本人生平的穿插讲述，她从前处在指派性别时的家庭生活、她的儿子、她如何下定决心面对自己的性别认知，以及如何作为女人爱上一个年轻男性。没有人是为了服务于别人的情节而存活的。不论是从作品打磨、还是从日常生活的角度，gay蜜们本人的故事都不能也不应该被简单归类。
承认gay蜜配角也能有自己的姓名之后，第二步则是打破gay蜜群体与故事主角的单一关系，拿走最初被直接绑定在gay蜜身上的那些标签。这样，以往只能附着在gay蜜身上的“功能性目的”自然就被打散了。有了这层自由之后，他们之间就能演变出各种不同的关系，不再只有“无脑小妞+知心gay蜜”的单一组合。 “一位女性和一位同性恋男性友人”，这样的两个人，关系并不是一上来就“生殖隔离”、板上钉钉的：在一部1972年的歌舞片《歌厅》里，男主角麦克尔·约克是一名老师，在他与女主角莎莉约会时，他坦白道，“我与好几个女生上过床，但每次都特别糟糕，所以我觉得我应该不太喜欢女孩。”坦白后的麦克尔与莎莉成为稳定的gay蜜，两人一起在未知与不确定下探索性别与性取向的可能。 相比于其他单一的被定义和社会固化标签，麦克尔式的自我怀疑和自我探索，自然比那些长期以来被主流社会提前设定的人设和写好的结局有意思得多——这还只是一部五十年前的电影。
有时候，性意识的流动与身份认同也不只是固定的，甚至可以与故事情节本身融合，发展出更复杂先锋的形态。前几年引发热议的沃卓斯基姐妹作品《超感猎杀》，就提供了一个“性转”叙事。拥有通感的8个主角之一Lito是一个生活在墨西哥的深柜男演员，在一个强调男性气质的文化环境中，他对自己的身份认同以及与同性恋人的关系处理始终存在暧昧。此时一个女性角色Daneilla出场，在她的主动引导与鼓励下，Lito逐渐正视了自我，找回了爱人，最后与她一起构建了一种奇妙和和谐的三人情感关系。 华语电影因为尺度限制，偶尔会有一些探讨gay蜜关系的“擦边球”作品出现。比如电影《失恋33天》，男主角王小贱出场就带着毒舌刻薄的gay蜜式标签（虽然并没有明确点出他的性取向），在后期的剧情推动下却逐渐与女主角靠近，两人最终成为情侣。 美剧《致命女人》里， 刘玉玲饰演的西蒙尼先是被身为同性恋的丈夫卡尔“骗婚”，在相处过程中却逐渐由最初的愤怒怨恨转为惺惺相惜，尽力为对方提供慰藉与帮助，重新诠释了“生活伴侣”的现实意味。
当下的故事不再需要过往刻板的无限重复，说到底，gay蜜并不因为有了“gay”这个字眼而变得非同寻常，作为一个个普通人，Gay蜜的故事包含所有故事的共性和个性，但是，正如其他总是首先被他者化和标签化的少数群体一样，Ta们能被谁、又能被用什么方式记录和呈现，这始终是一个“个人叙事的自主权”问题。 不论是更好的作品，还是更多样的世界，我们离那个理想化的终点依然遥远，而这或许会是我们不断努力、试图做出改变的动力之一。