Like the rest of the internet, we love Second City’s Sassy Gay Friend video series. The idea of reenacting pivotal scenes from literature that involve a female making bad decisions only to have her gay friend intervene is inspired — and communicates what we’ve all been thinking while reading these scenes. To bide our time until the next video surfaces (they’ve only posted two so far), we’ve rounded up a list of the literary ladies most in need of a sassy gay. Peep the list after the jump.
1. Emma Bovary (Madame Bovary) Emma desperately needed a gay friend. He would have snapped her back to reality when she became too deluded and taught her how to comport herself at fancy dinner parties. With that kind of finesse, perhaps her social standing would have been elevated to the point where she wouldn’t have had to swallow arsenic due to financial ruin. And she could have had illicit affairs. Win-win.
2. Edna Pontellier (The Awakening) If only Edna had crashed with a gay friend when her husband took that trip to New York City and the kids were conveniently sent to their grandma’s house. We’re certain that he would have been able to convince her to go after Robert Lebrun instead of drowning herself. Not as poetic, but everyone likes a happy ending, right?
3. Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina) Had Anna had a gay best friend, her place in society would have been just fine. Sure, the affair with Vronsky would have still taken place, but a gay would have had the foresight to advise Anna to stay with Karenin so that she wouldn’t be shunned by her friends. Or become a paranoid morphine addict, for that matter. Romantic? No. But at least she wouldn’t have thrown herself under a train.
4. Sethe (Beloved) A wise gay friend would have quickly figured out who the “ghost” of Beloved actually was — we’re of the camp that thinks she was the girl who killed the man at Deer Creek — and would have told her to stop taking advantage of Sethe. Not only would this have saved Sethe a lot of mental anguish, but it would have eradicated all of Beloved’s awful hissy fit scenes.
5. Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair) Even though we think there are a lot of things that a gay man would love about Becky — her drive for success, her aggressiveness, her confidence in her sexuality — we think he would have been turned off by her lax parenting skills. That said, we’re imagining a great make-over scene when he discovers her in Germany as a sad alcoholic. He also could have helped patch up her friendship with Amelia.
6. Catherine Earnshaw (Wuthering Heights) A gay friend would have been able to help Catherine pick sides in the great Heathcliff vs. Edgar debate. He would have made a pro-con list, which Edgar would have won. And then he would have thrown it out, because they both know how she really feels about Heathcliff. Propriety be damned.
7. Mrs. Lisbon (The Virgin Suicides) We strongly believe that if Mrs. Lisbon had had a gay friend, she would have been a much cooler mother. She also would have realized that locking her daughters in the house after one of them committed suicide was a colossally stupid move.
8. Eponine (Les Miserables) We always preferred Eponine to Cosette despite Eponine’s weird desire to die with Marius instead of just stealing him away from Cosette. And this is why she needs a sassy gay friend — to explain to her that dressing like a boy and fighting in a war hoping to die alongside someone is possibly the dumbest idea ever and that she should just put on her best seduction dress. Under the tutelage of a gay man, we’re positive that Eponine would have won Marius’ affections in no time.
9. Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the d’Urbervilles) Although most of Tess’ issues were out of her control, we think that a gay confidant would have been tremendously helpful. If nothing else, he could have told her she was beautiful and fabulous, and definitely would have talked her out of becoming Alec’s mistress. Crisis averted.
10. Desdemona (Othello) Shakespeare had a thing for creating emotionally distraught women with terrible decision-making skills. However, Desdemona was actually not one of these women — she was pretty stable whereas Othello was not. We think that if Desdemona had a gay friend to talk about her marriage with, said gay would have been able to figure out what Iago was up to and confront him about his evil scheming. No messy dead bodies to deal with.
Who did we miss? Chime in with your suggestions in comments.