Sophia Michaels
Billy Eichner revivedBilly on the Street for the first time in three years and enlisted the help of Paul Rudd to do whatever it takes to convince people to go see his new rom-com, Bros.
At the start of the segment, Eichner and Rudd roamed the streets of New York City together, confronting random people and asking them if they’ll go see Eichner’s upcoming flick. One guy said he was definitely in, so long as Rudd carried him to the theater. Rudd, mensch that he is, gamely obliged.
The rest of the segment found Eichner carrying on his mission to rope straight people into seeing Bros, sans Rudd, but later with the help of “a pack of wild lesbians.” Highlights include Eichner responding to one woman’s refusal to see the movie with an aggravated, “I’m sorry I’m not Florence Pugh!” And later, when two kids asked Eichner if there were any Playboi Carti songs in the movie — and if Eichner even knew any Playboi Carti songs — the comedian left in a huff, quipping, “I can’t name one song by him, name one song by Barbra Streisand, bitch.”
Eichner stars in Bros and co-wrote the film with director Nick Stoller. It’s a rare gay romantic comedy from a major film studio, and pretty much every role — save a couple of cameos — is played by an LGBTQ+ performer.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Eichner spoke about some of the meta elements of the movie, particularly a scene featured in the trailer that touches on the idea of making a gay movie that straight men would feel comfortable watching.
“We’re getting so much queer content, and all great and it’s a sign of progress,” he said. “But we’ve spent a lot of our time as queer people telling stories about ourselves while being concerned that we’re palatable to straight audiences. For me, and a lot of my friends, when we watch some of those shows, although there are gay characters, we don’t recognize those people. They’re a two-dimensional sitcom character, wearing cutesy little outfits, and it’s all done with this satirical veil. There’s an archness to so many of the gay male characters we get. And one of my goals with Bros was, I wanted to be as funny as I’ve been before, or funnier, but funny in a different way. I wanted to lose that archness. I wanted the characters to feel like fully fleshed-out, complicated, funny, sad, three-dimensional people.”
