The Importance Of Bromance

Friendship is one of the most foundational human experiences — so why is it often considered surprising for men to earnestly express affection for their friends? Rom-coms have long gotten us invested in the romantic relationship between two people. But in the early 2000s, there was a surge in stories about male friendships, producing a spinoff genre: the bromance. Even though the men at the center of these movies and TV shows might eventually find romantic love, their partners are ultimately less important than the friendships they build with each other—sending an important message to audiences. Here’s our take on the evolution of male friendships onscreen, and why it’s so valuable for men to feel secure in their bromances.

Male Affection On Screen

Depictions of male friends exhibiting genuine closeness and care exist all throughout history. In tv and film, depictions of tight male friendships date back at least back to the popular sitcom The Odd Couple. But the most important antecedent of today’s modern bromance films are almost certainly buddy cop movies, where two mismatched officers are forced together to complete a mission, developing a real connection in the process. Take one of the most iconic examples: Lethal Weapon, in which the reckless, trigger-happy Martin Riggs gets paired with the cautious, cranky Roger Murtaugh. Over the course of the movie, the two men not only solve a series of murders, they develop a deep bond of friendship—by Lethal Weapon 2, Riggs has become a close family friend of the Murtaughs. In these cases, the leading men form a bond by doing something stereotypically masculine: solving crimes and getting into shootouts.

Buddy cop movies fully came into their own in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but the bromance movie without the crutch of an action plot didn’t fully emerge until the 2000s, with movies like Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, I Love You Man, and Step Brothers. Today we see plenty of blockbusters with a strong thematic grounding in male friendships. One of the biggest recent films, Top Gun: Maverick, follows up the original story of the relationships between Tom Cruise’s Maverick and his wingmen Goose and Iceman with a tale focusing on the enmity-turned-friendship between Maverick and Miles Teller’s Rooster. Smash Bollywood hit RRR depicts the larger-than-life friendship between Indian revolutionaries Khomaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju – essentially conveying the message that any obstacle is surmountable with a close friend at your side. And virtually the entire Fast & Furious franchise focuses on male friendship, whether it’s between Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner or the unlikely pairing of government agent-turned-bounty hunter Luke Hobbs and MI6 agent-turned-assassin Deckard Shaw. This wave of male friendship movies represents a resurrection of the bromance genre, though with a modern Hollywood spin. So what happened to the raunchy, adult comedy bromances of the 2000s that came and went so quickly?

What These Stories Say About Self Expression

In part, this wave of male-relationship-focused media was a reaction to the prominence of gay panic jokes in the late 90s and early 2000s. As gay men became more and more visible, there grew a cultural anxiety about being “perceived as gay,” to the point where where any time two straight men expressed affection for each other they had to clarify in the strongest possible terms that they weren’t gay. In contrast, movies like I Love You Man and TV shows like How I Met Your Mother went out of their way to affirm that it was totally okay for men to be friends, and even to be emotionally honest with each other. Though even these movies and shows couldn’t always escape the ‘need to prove friendship isn’t gay’ trap. The Adam Sandler-Kevin James comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry literally has the main characters get married, but of course in the end they both end up with women.

Even in movies and TV shows where male characters had seemingly healthy, emotionally close friendships, they were still compelled to respond to gay panic tropes. But even with their faults, these movies and shows started helping men to become more accepting of things that had been historically “feminine coded,” everything from open and deep friendship bonds to the so-called “chick-flick.” Much of the current bromance trend can be traced back to the work of Judd Apatow specifically. Male friendship is a major theme in movies Apatow has written, directed, and produced, featuring sensitive male protagonists in movies like Superbad, Step Brothers, and Pineapple Express. These movies often follow men trying to find ways to express themselves in situations where they’ve been told honesty is unacceptable. Part of the reason we love on-screen bromances is that for such a long time it was accepted as truth that men weren’t ever supposed to be honest about their feelings. Men are constantly told not to express their emotions, so forming an earnest friendship can be uncomfortable. And while some earlier media shied away from the overlap of developing platonic friendships and finding love, I Love You Man allows us to laugh at how similar these experiences can be. Similarly, The 40-Year-Old Virgin follows a group of male friends that grows closer in order to help Andy finally lose his virginity. The awkwardness, excitement, drama, and deep connection that was once solely relegated to romance became central to the bromance on screen. So all this leads to the ultimate confession that these similarities can’t be ignored and that it’s perfectly fine to develop an intimate bond with a friend.

Today’s Top Bromance Films

So why has the on-screen bromance continued to endure? Partly it’s because, in real life, many men often still have trouble expressing their feelings or maintaining friendships. And this comes down to the long-standing tradition that men are supposed to remain gruff, unwilling to let anyone in or be vulnerable. In this framework for masculinity, the only acceptable emotions are often negative, whether that’s anger, frustration, or forced stoicism. Seeing characters who are comfortable being vulnerable with their male friends, even if those characters are otherwise the butt of the joke, creates the space for viewers to imagine that this kind of relationship is even possible.

Ironically, while bromance movies often posit their central relationships as a uniquely modern development, close male friendships are a long-standing part of society. While forms of homophobia have a long history, “gay panic” only truly came to dominate male friendships during the 20th century. In this framework, other men are competition rather than potential confidants, people to be dominated rather than befriended. That might explain why so many of the iconic bromances of the 20th century focus on men who start out as enemies or professional rivals—like pretty much all buddy cop movies. So it might make sense to see the updated spate of bromance movies as a turn in the cycle, a correction back toward emotional honesty after the cultural dominance of homophobia and isolation. A reminder that it’s okay to give in to the desire to find solace in your guy friend’s company.

This has led to the modern moment, where it isn’t just kind of dorky “funny guys” that are finding bromance on screen, all guys – from world-saving street racers to top naval aviators to, yes, everyday dudes – are making deep platonic connections and are no longer afraid to show it.

Conclusion

It’s clear why we love bromance movies—they give us a model for men to express their feelings in ways that are direct and honest. In the last few years, there have been even more depictions of stable, supportive male friendships, like Jake and Charles on Brooklyn 9-9. And in fact, like Top Gun: Maverick, there are plenty of recent sequels that return to male friendships after many years to reaffirm what made them so special in the first place. So what does it mean that recent movies about male friendships have branched out from the bro comedy to genres like heroic action movies crime movies dramas and even psychological thrillers? These movies might have slightly more complicated (and not wholly positive) things to say about the friendships at their core, but that’s actually a positive sign for the future. Now that we have many movies creating a strong foundation affirming the necessity of this kind of relationship, it’s finally possible to make more media that goes beyond the simple lesson that it’s important to have honest male friendships and to start to explore the ways in which they can be good, bad and everything in between.