Think Like a Man: Straight People Are Weird, Could Use Some Queerness [Exit Musings For A Film]

There is a small, but palpable sense of disgust for gay men in Tim Story’s Think Like a Man, which is based on comedian/self-styled love expert Steve Harvey’s inane self-help book with a slightly longer title, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. The only explicitly homo dude we ever see is in a pink polo, swishing his shoulders as he attempts to fight women shoppers from grabbing the book he’s about to buy (“For me!” he says with several S’s). Gayness is otherwise relegated to the taboo: the group of six men the film follows routinely freak out when they are in the presence of a shirtless or under-dressed buddy (this mild gay panic ensues in kitchens and locker rooms). Sentiments like violin-playing proving that one’s son is gay and that one must qualify his Oprah-watching with, “No homo,” are expressed. A guy buying a book for his mother’s book club is deemed “kinda gay” by a female character, and after dazzling a pretty woman (played by Kelly Rowland) at a bar, Romany Malco’s character, Zeke, tells her confusingly, “I’m gonna walk away like a fairy now.” Um, bye. More »