10 Literary Ladies in Desperate Need of a Gay Friend

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.

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What the hell is a 'seduction dress'? Surely you mean a freakum dress.

[...] of book characters who would have been better off if they had sassy gay friends. The first takes on literary ladies in need of a little relationship advice and include Edna Pontellier and Catherine Earnshaw. The [...]

Hester Prynne, of course. SGF would not have her waiting around on drama queen closet case Arthur Dimmesdale.

Instead, the two of them would whip up some fierce embroidery and tear Boston apart!

Brokeback Mountain. The wife of the character Heath Ledger played needed a gay friend to help her see that her hubby was his mates bum chum, and he wasn't just going to work. Then she might not have married him and be lumbered with his kids whilst he was away at work. He could've stayed with his lover forever if she had moved on.

Scarlett O'Hara, so the gay friend could bitch slap her away from Ashley. AND bitch slap some sense into her when Rhett was on his 'let's be upstanding societal members because I have a baby girl!", because by that point, Scarlett was a little off the meter, if you ask me.

another gay guy here. didn't find this offensive at all. frankly, anything that entertains the possibility of queers existing before disco did is fine with me. baby steps. flamboyant self-help queen is a drastic improvement on satanic child rapist, and unless you expect the mass media to start pumping postmarxist dialectical thought into every home in the deep south, I'm going to still enjoy the occasional stereotyped "gay best friend" who keeps me from being the only thing standing between my parents and fundamentalist insanity. there have been people who accepted me in this role at times when I literally had no other social role at all. I live in Arkansas. I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

satire laughs and loves... this be humor not 'gay ex machina'

and giddyup socialization

This is an amazing topic, well done! What else did they need...well I suppose a good dose of antidepressants would have helped a few of them.

The unnamed protagonist in Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)

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okay Sz, as a gay guy myself, i think you're getting a little too emotional about this. they are HILARIOUS. and even some of the most masculine gay guys i've known still have a sassy therapist somewhere deep down inside.

its not meant to be offensive...just funny as heck.

who else thinks doing some of the DIsney Princesses would be hilarious?!

GG - I laughed so hard at your comment I almost choked. Well played.

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence's Ellen Olenska certainly needs help. She's confident, independent, and modern. But she goes back to France because her society family wouldn't accept her, even though she has all the money she needs. A sassy gay friend wouldn't have let her go, and would have introduced her to all the fabulous friends she really craves in the Village.

Second choice is The House of Mirth by the same author. Lily Bart is her own worst enemy, sabatoging every chance for happiness A sassy gay friend would have helped her sort out her options and make a decision dammit! And if the decision means a so-so marriage to money and prestige, well, the sassy gay friend is there to help her enjoy life despite the fuddy-duddy husband. Heck, that's better than death any day.

I guess the Bennet sisters needed a gay cousin instead of that lameass of Mr. Collins.

Is it inappropriate that I find this to be kind of offensive? While the trope of "sassy gay friend" is popular, it seems that it might be more effective to just cut our losses with badly-written female characters who have little or poorly-conceived agency and at the same time avoid pigeonholing gay men as flamboyant powderpuff self-help queens in the process. Maybe you could publish an article contrasting these female leads with other female leads who kick major ass. And maybe an article for the same about men. Who knows? There are a thousand better ways to go.

Just a thought. I'm not quitting you guys, but I have to admit that I expected more enlightenment from a site that is usually so culturally savvy and aware.

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Miss Havisham. If she'd had a gay friend to help her see that the guy just wasn't worth it, she'd have gotten out of her wedding dress and out of seclusion.

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  2. [...] admiration for Flavorwire continues to grow. Two articles you can’t miss are “10 Literary Ladies in Desperate Need of a Gay Friend” and “Which Dystopian Future is Right for [...]

  3. [...] of book characters who would have been better off if they had sassy gay friends. The first takes on literary ladies in need of a little relationship advice and include Edna Pontellier and Catherine Earnshaw. The [...]