Buddy film

Laurel and Hardy in the 1939 film The Flying Deuces. Laurel and Hardy were one of the first pairings, appearing in buddy films from the 1930s onward.

The buddy film is a film genre in which two (or on occasion, three) people of the same sex (historically men) are put together. The two often contrast in personality, which creates a different dynamic onscreen than a pairing of two people of the opposite sex. The contrast is sometimes accentuated by an ethnic difference between the two. The buddy film is commonplace in American cinema; unlike some other film genres, it endured through the 20th century with different pairings and different themes.

Male–male relationships

A buddy film portrays the pairing of two people of the same sex, historically men. A friendship between the two people is the key relationship in a buddy film. The two people often come from different backgrounds or have different personalities, and they tend to misunderstand one another. Through the events of the buddy film, they gain a stronger friendship and mutual respect. Buddy films often deal with crises of masculinity, especially related to class, race, and gender. American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia explains, "[Buddy films] offer male movie–going audiences an opportunity to indulge in a form of male bonding and behavior usually discouraged by social constraints." Ira Konigsberg writes in the The Complete Film Dictionary, "Such films extol the virtues of male comradeship and relegate male–female relationships to a subsidiary position."

The Los Angeles Times in 2001 called the genre "a necessary escapist fantasy", writing, "It's one of the few arenas where men can openly express their feelings for each other, even though men on screen today seem less comfortable with each other than ever before." In buddy films, the two men are markedly different, and their relationship with each other is challenged by events in the film. The two are often different enough that one is aggravated by the other. The interaction between two men also differs from the interaction between a man and a woman, which shapes a film's dynamics. Robert Kolker writes in A Cinema of Loneliness, "The buddy complex views sexuality as an obstacle to manly acts. But this denial of sexuality carries a covert admission of the possibilities of homosexuality, which, of course, is inadmissible." Kolker says the main characters typically have relationships with female secondary characters who are relegated to the background. In the 1962 Italian film Il sorpasso (English title: The Easy Life), the characters Roberto and Bruno spend time together and grow emotionally attached. Sergio Rigoletto writes, "Their statements of emotional proximity are... always quite oblique... in doing so they comply with the dominant social conventions according to which the love between two men cannot be clearly spoken in films." While the characters do not have sex with women in the film, they express desire for heterosexual adventures. Women in the film are secondary characters and possess traits that negatively contrast them with the male–male relationship.

A female buddy film is similar to a buddy film except that the main characters feature females, and it is centered on their situation. The cast may be mainly female depending on the plot. "The female buddy film is a recent trend in mainstream cinema. However, Thelma and Louise had a similar popular impact as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the early ‘90s, paving the way for onscreen female friendships like the one between Evelyn Couch and Ninny Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes, Waiting to Exhale and Walking and Talking."

Hybrid genres

Buddy films are often hybridized with other film genres, such as road movies, Westerns, comedies, and action films featuring cops. The "threats to [the] masculinity" of the male–male relationship depend on the genre: women in comedies, the law in films about outlaw buddies, and criminals in action films about cop buddies.

History

The buddy film is more common to cinema in the United States than cinema in other Western countries, which tend to focus on male–female romantic relationships or an individual male hero. Film historian David Thomson observes that buddy films are rare among British and French films, "You just wouldn't see three Englishmen behave the way American men do, who are truly happiest when they are together with other men." Portrayal of male bonding in the United States traces back to 19th-century author Mark Twain's characters Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as a "good boy-bad boy combo", as well as Huck Finn and the slave Jim in Twain's 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Vaudeville acts in early 20th century United States often featured male pairs.

1930s to 1960s: Comedy duos

From the 1930s to the 1960s in the United States, male comedy duos often appeared in buddy films. Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello were popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Laurel and Hardy starred in films like Sons of the Desert (1933), and Abbott and Costello starred in films like Buck Privates (1941). Another comedy duo was Wheeler & Woolsey, who starred in Half Shot at Sunrise (1930). Bing Crosby and Bob Hope starred together in the 1940 Paramount Pictures film Road to Singapore, which led to other 1940s buddy films that the Los Angeles Times described as "escapist wartime fantasies". Hope and Crosby starred together in a series of films that lasted to the 1960s. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis was a popular duo in the 1950s, and Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon were famous in the 1960s, starring in the hit 1969 film The Odd Couple.

A major departure from the more comic buddy films of the era was Akira Kurosawa's 1949 Japanese film Stray Dog, starring Toshirō Mifune and Takashi Shimura. It was a more serious police procedural film noir that served as a precursor to the buddy cop film genre.

1960s to 1970s: Responses to feminism and society

Richard Pryor (left, pictured in 1986) and Gene Wilder (right, pictured in 1984)

Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, the feminist movement and "a widespread questioning" of social institutions influenced buddy films. The films explored male friendships more dramatically and encouraged individualism—particularly to be free from women and society. Critics like Molly Haskell and Robin Wood saw the decades' films as "a backlash from the feminist movement." Philippa Gates wrote, "To punish women for their desire for equality, the buddy film pushes them out of the center of the narrative... By making both protagonists men, the central issue of the film becomes the growth and development of their friendship. Women as potential love interests are thus eliminated from the narrative space." The buddy films of these decades were also hybridized with road movies. The decades' buddy films included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Easy Rider (1969), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). The Los Angeles Times said films like Scarecrow (1973) and All the President's Men (1974) reflected the "paranoia and alienation" felt in the era. Beyond Hollywood, a notable buddy road movie of that era was the Bollywood "Curry Western" film Sholay (1975), which was the highest-grossing Indian film of all time.

Biracial buddy films emerged in the 1970s and 1980s; Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder initiated the movement with Silver Streak (1976) and Stir Crazy (1980). Eddie Murphy was a key actor in biracial buddy films, starring in 48 Hours (1982) with Nick Nolte and in Trading Places (1983) with Dan Aykroyd. Throughout the 1980s, the individual roles in biracial buddy films are reversed. The "racial other... is too civilized" while the white man "is equipped for survival in... the urban landscape".

1980s: Action films and biracial pairings

The 1980s was a popular decade for action films, and the genre that "blended masculinity, heroism, and patriotism into an idealized image" was hybridized with buddy films. Following the African-American Civil Rights Movement, black advancement was also reflected in more common biracial pairings. In this decade, the buddy cop film took the place of the buddy road movie. Action films with biracial pairings include the 1982 film 48 Hours starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte and the 1987 film Lethal Weapon starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. American Masculinities writes, "The African-American character is typically the sidekick to the white hero and isolated from the African-American community. He thus offers his skills and bravery for the preservation of mainstream (white) cultural values." Another combination of the action film and the buddy film in the 1980s and another biracial reversal was the 1988 film Die Hard in which Bruce Willis's heroic character John McClane is supported by the black cop Al (played by Reginald VelJohnson).

1990s: New approaches to the genre

In the early 1990s, the masculine figure in films became more sensitive, and some buddy films "contemplated a masculinity that required sensitive relations between men". Such films included The Fisher King (1991) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The decade also saw new approaches to the genre. The 1991 film Thelma & Louise featured a female pairing of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, and the 1993 film The Pelican Brief featured a male–female platonic pairing of Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. The 1998 film Rush Hour featured a nonwhite male pairing of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, which the Los Angeles Times said symbolized color blindness in American cinema.

Biracial buddy films continued in the 1990s and 2000s and were combined with different genres, such as Another 48 Hours (1990), White Men Can't Jump (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002), Miami Vice (2006) and Men in Black 3 (2012).

Also in the 1990s and 2000s, John Woo's Hollywood films imported the wuxia "themes of loyalty and trust" from his previous Hong Kong-produced films to create different takes on male bonding. Kin–Yan Szeto writes in The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diapora, "[In] his third Hollywood film, Face/Off... Woo manages to deploy and politicize themes of homosociality with the possibility of contesting hegemonic masculinity that consolidates kinship and family." Woo's 2001 World War II film Windtalkers depicted two buddy pairs, with each pair indicating inequality through ethnicity (white American soldiers protecting Navajo code talkers but ready to kill the talkers to protect the code). Szeto explains, "Woo uses the twin buddy pairs to explore the shifting meanings and multiple possibilities in interracial bonding, rather than simply recuperating and empowering dominant positions for white heterosexual men."

Filmography

Comedy

• The Flying Deuces

• I Love You Man

• Weekend at Bernie's

• 48 Hours

• Trading Places

• Planes, Trains & Automobiles

• Doghouse

• Wedding Crashers

• Mallrats

• Tommy Boy

• Dumb and Dumber

• Friday

• Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy

Action

• 2 Guns

• Point Break

• Cop Out

• Midnight Run

• Beverly Hills Cop

• Lethal Weapon

• Rush Hour

Animation

• Shrek series

• Toy Story series

• Valiant

• Up

• Animals United

• Monsters, Inc.

• The Emperor's New Groove

• All Dogs Go to Heaven

• The Lion King 1½

• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

• The Pebble and the Penguin

• Home

See also

• Bromance
• Bromantic comedy
• Buddy cop film
• Female buddy film
• Womance