MovieChat Forums > The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (2005) Discussion > Pleasant gay romantic comedy, but not Et...

Pleasant gay romantic comedy, but not Ethan Green

posted 17 years ago by smeth
2 replies | jump to latest

When I first watched this, I was quite pleased with it. It's a smarter than usual gay romanitic comedy. The main character is gay. There are no straight guys that the main character falls in love with. It doesn't explain or apologize for contemporary gay culture in the US.

As time goes by, I'm less and less happy with the movie. Why? Well, if this had been called "Richard finds a Boyfriend" and the Hat Sisters had been called Laverne and Shirley, I would never have guessed the movie was based on Eric Orner's comic strip about Ethan Green. The comic strip was a humorous and satirical look at relationships, friendships, ex-boyfriends and gay culture. Ethan didn't alway have a boyfriend, and when he did, he was suspicious. Ethan was always over-analyzing the situation, and the strip had a wry look look at pop culture (capri cargo pants, funny haircuts). There were always moments of magical realism (dating Men from Mars, the Hat Sisters could fly, romance on the space station, a talking cat, affairs with celeb 60s tv robots). Lots of characters with real character: Leo, the iconic heart-breaker ex-boyfriend who is really sexy, but you KNOW you should run away from, Etienne, the scary french canadian chef, Jason Chaing, the evil Todd. And nothing about Ethan being jewish.

Even though "Adam and Steve" has different characters, "Adam and Steve" has more Ethan Green attitude than this movie. I guess, in order to appeal to people unfamiliar with the strip and to the gay "date movie" crowd, all the biting satire and catty comments about gay life got left behind. Now it's another gay romantic comedy.

[–] androphile 16 years ago

I agree that the spicy side of the comic strip is seldom seen in the movie. And some of the characters in the movie are pretty pallid alongside their counterparts in the strip. Of course, that might be due to the very uneven casting: some actors were very good in their roles, others . . . well, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume they were woefully miscast. And as for Ethan himself, though I thought Daniel Letterle was mostly good in the role, he was a LOT "hunkier" than I was expecting. For me it threw the storyline a bit askew. After all, one of the issues Eric Orner returns to repeatedly in the strip is the exaggerated importance of looks in the gay male community, and Ethan is not drawn to look even a little "hunky" in the comic. I guess I'd say, when the film is sticking to slapstick and farce, it's the most successful; when it attempts to get reflective or even serious, it's hard to go with it.

[–] leader (1682) 5 years ago

I didn't read the comics so it didn't bother me.