Trick, a 1999 romp with Tori Spelling, Christian Campbell and John Paul Pitoc, is noteworthy because it broke this formula: the rom-com obstacle was simply the two guys finding a place to be alone together. Straight people’s falling-in-love was interrupted by careers or misunderstandings or an ex or whatever, but gay love was always “forbidden love.” The lead would meet a cute guy, but then they had to hide or abandon their love because nobody would ever accept it. “Okay, if there’s no dick in the movie, can I have as many butts as I want?”…īack in the 1990s, when gay cinema was starting to go mainstream, my friends and I would complain that what kept lovers apart in these films – the plot’s main engine – was always homophobia.
