The Comp Het Canon: Pineapple Express (No Homo)

By A. C. Howard

THE PRESSURE TO BE HETEROSEXUAL SATURATES OUR IMAGE BASED CULTURE

PARTICULARLY IN MOVIES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO BE “FUNNY” OR “ROMANTIC”

THE COMP HET CANON IS A SERIES UNPACKING DECISIONS MADE IN POPULAR FILM THAT FRAME HETEROSEXUALITY AS NORMAL, GOOD, AND RIGHTEOUS AND QUEERNESS AS QUIRKY, FREAKY, FUNNY, OR PHASE

IT PROBLEMATIZES WHAT OTHERS ENJOY

The only time I’ve ever seen Pineapple Express was like three months after I came out of the closet. 

I came out to myself and my community at the same time. I did not spend a thoughtful couple of months or years thinking about the best way to tell people, or tell a few trusted folks and then sit on it for a while. I didn’t realize how much more emotional work there would be to do. I had to learn how to process the weight of years of closetedness —the looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was talking about my behind my back, and the piles and piles of denial, and especially the pain of having so many homoerotic friendships. 

So I go to Boston to hang out with my sister and get a tattoo and she and her boyfriend say, “You haven’t seen Pineapple Express?!” And we all sit down to watch it together. By the end of the movie my chest is an iron cage and my mouth is papery dry. I take my sister aside and try to tell her that the movie was super homophobic, and made me really uncomfortable. She said that I was making a big deal out of nothing, and that she never would have seen the movie this way.

To the people reading this today: I would encourage you to think this way about Pineapple Express, a movie structured around a crush that somebody’s burnout, long-haired, white drug dealer has on them. A sweet crush, too. It’s like, really romantic. James Franco has heart eyes for Seth Rogan. He’s got feelings for him, and he also seems to be sexually attracted to him. He wants an opportunity to be close. That’s the joke. Haha! 

Pineapple Express came out during this weird period of media hype around “bromances,” which was really cemented by the arguably much sweeter and less queer-twinged I Love You Man. A bromance in this context was a strong emotional friendship that took place between two men. I vaguely remember segments about this concept being on Good Morning America, and other daytime TV that was on in my childhood home. 

The “male loneliness epidemic” has become a strangely ubiquitous talking point. But the movie bromance to me is a fun-house-mirror rhetorical and cultural response to the whole social concept. On the one hand, there was a slight influx of buddy movies that made some space for men to have meaningful friendships with each other. On the other hand, the formula of Hollywood comedies patterns all close relationships as “romantic,” making all of these movies kind of gay. They circle back to establish the hetero-safety of their protagonists by reminding you that to feel gay about someone is to be the butt of a joke. 

Pineapple Express is full of this kind of homophobia. During a pivotal argument between Rogan and his girlfriend, who is in high school, he throws a temper tantrum and starts yelling at her about how when she goes to college she’s going to become a lesbian. During the movie’s climax, three men sit around a table and awkwardly joke about how they could all become life partners together. This is something that everyone at the table wants legitimately, but they play it off as a joke. 

One of the fabrics of my closet was fear of being ridiculed. I was scared that people were talking about how gay I was behind my back, and I was in love with a few of my friends. I was scared to tell them that I had feelings for them because I was afraid of the repercussions of a homophobic culture. When I realized I was queer, I came out immediately because I thought being in the closet was something embarrassing. Movies like this proliferate the idea that being gay and closeted is such a laugh. 

My advice? Don’t hang out with straight people who make you feel like your yearning is a joke. The drug dealer in Pineapple Express has fallen for a guy who will never be able to show up for him. That’s his problem!