Despite critical acclaim, many gay men, myself and others, were not only underwhelmed by the film, but found it to be, well, basically awful.

As scripted by Eichner and director Nicholas Stoller, the film posits an ideology that represents a very narrow section of the community, one that isn’t gay, but rather “LGBTQ+” or, more specifically, “queer.”

The story demonizes regular gay men and rewrites gay history in the process.

Let’s address that historical revisionism in the film.

[Even with all that aside, the target audience for mass-market rom-coms is women, not men. It would take an exceptional effort to make a crossover success in this genre. — Ed]