Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
Toys
|
|
|
Heterosexual Life Partners
|
Face it.
"It's Guy Love, That's all it is, Guy Love, He's mine, I'm his, There's nothing gay about it In our eyes..." - J.D. and Turk, Scrubs
Two extremely close friends or partners, both the same gender, who spend an 'excessive' amount of time together on and off the job. There's no evidence whatsoever that they're romantically linked, but that doesn't deter shippers from speculating. The weight of the resulting Fanwank will crush any reasoned observer.
For some reason, Heterosexual Life Partners are fairly common in anime. The most common examples on American TV come from the Buddy Cop Show, in which two characters who work together also spend their leisure time together. Bounty hunter teams often have a similar partnership. Odd Couples also tend to fall into this trope, as do Those Two Guys. And the title characters of any show with a title of the form X and Y. Don't expect them to be friendly to each other though, quite a few are Vitriolic Best Buds.
Compare The Straight Will And Grace, basically the same thing, except easier to ship without those pesky "sexual orientations" getting in the way. Pairing them is also appealing because they've already established a bond of trust and communication, unlike some pairings...
Regardless of romance, pairing of these two to anyone else is tricky, because any prospective romancer will have to deal with the fact that they are, at best, an additional Most Important Person. A skilled writer will figure out the dynamic as the Heterosexual Life Partner and the paramour have to share their Most Important Person's life. A less skilled writer will get rid of the competition, even if it's not romantic.
In adventure stories, they are often Blood Brothers.
See also Ho Yay.
Examples
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Cable and Deadpool in, well, Cable & Deadpool (although many fans percieve this as going straight into Ho Yay). They are extremely close despite Deadpool's personality being obnoxious even at the best of times, and Deadpool was the first person Cable pictured/made psychic contact with while trying to decide whether to blow himself up
- Worst offender for this is a storyarc called "Bosum Buddies", where at one point Deadpool's darkest fantasy is exposed, which to his dismay involves himself, Cable and suntan lotion. Ho Yay indeed. A few awkward follow-up jokes occur throughout the rest of the arc.
- Deadpool and Weasel, and later Deadpool and Bob of HYDRA, could also fall under this trope.
- Nah, Bob's more of a pet.
- Luke Cage and Danny Rand also of Marvel Comics, with Cage going so far as to name his daughter after him.
- Their close friends Misty Knight and Colleen Wing also are considered Heterosexual Life Partners, with Luke Cage going so far as to recommend the two get "gay married."
- Batman and Robin have to be the ones to receive it the most; some incarnations have them sharing the same bed.
- Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle (hereafter "Boostle") of Justice League International fame are probably the most prominent Heterosexual Life Partners in The DCU. The current storyline in Booster's comic involves Booster time-travelling to keep Beetle from being killed; when he is told this has the potential to destabilize the entire multiverse, he decides Beetle is worth the risk.
- Absolutely endemic in classic Franco-Belgian comics, whenever they followed the formula: a young, male hero, without any personality beyond some vague benevolence, going on adventures with an older, more emotional, sarcastic and morally flawed lifelong companion. The two would live in the same house; the young hero would never show or be shown any interest for/by the opposite sex, and, while the older one could sometime get involved in a romantic C-plot, the girl rarely reappeared in subsequent books and the romance would never go beyond a kiss on the cheek or the nose. The formula went out of fashion a while ago, and is now either lampshaded to death or exploited to its logical conclusion.
- Tintin, of course. The eponymous hero started his adventures alone, but was soon joined by the Captain Haddock, and it wasn't long before the two shacked together in Marlinspike Hall. The only romantic subplot was between La Castafiore and the captain, who mostly wanted to run away from her affections.
- Actually, Tintin never lived in Marlinspike Hall. He just went for weekend visits, during which most of the plot happened.
- Blake And Mortimer: together they fight pseudo-scientific crime... then go home to their house in London.
- Spirou And Fantasio, in which the two eponymous intrepid reporters live together in some incarnations of the series. Recently, one of the (many) writers went out of his way to mention that Fantasio was obviously gay and pinning for Spirou.
- Asterix came a few decades after the previous examples and subverts the character types, but not the dynamics.
- If you get away from the older/younger dynamic, "Tif & Tondu", "Johan & Peewit", "Quick & Flupke"...
- Even, if you stretch it a little, Lucky Luke (with Jolly Jumper).
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police - actually lampshaded in the adventure game Abe Lincoln Must Die!, where according to Sybil's "compatibility test", their soul mates are each other. In another game, Chariots of the Dogs, a woman develops a crush on Max, and when Sam objects (because the woman in question is Bosco's mother, and that would cause a Time Paradox), seems to assume he's gay, and "wants to keep [Max] all for himself".
- Note that "compatibility test" should be read with air quotes; it's clear during the episode that the "computer" she's putting their personality profiles into doesn't actually exist, and she's making up the match off the top of her head. Her motivation for doing so is probably to tease them, but there are also hints that the "dating service" in its entirety is just a scam to get her a date.
Film
- The trope name comes from Jay and "hetero-life-mate" Silent Bob of The View Askewniverse.
- Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes may be real-life versions of this trope, as Jason lived for quite a while with Kevin and his wife.
- This can apply to Dante and Randall from The View Askewniverse as well.
- Romy and Michele from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, if only for this scene:
Romy: Swear to God, sometimes I wish I was a lesbian.
Michele: Do you want to try, to see if we are?
Romy: What? Yeah, right, Michele. Just the idea of having sex with another woman creeps me out. But if we're still single at 30, ask me again.
Michele: Okay.
- Probably Pintel and Ragetti in Pirates Of The Caribbean, too (although they bicker like a married couple). Allegedly, they were uncle and nephew.
- Debatably, Jack Sparrow and Joshamee Gibbs, as Gibbs appears to be the only person who can stand Jack for more than three days without turning on him, and Jack seems quietly appreciative of it.
- Harpo and Chico Marx often played Heterosexual Life Partners. It helped that the actors were brothers.
- Not forgetting Laurel and Hardy.
- Simon Pegg's and Nick Frost's characters in both Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. And very much so in Real Life, and that friendship was simply translated onto the screen.
- Shaun and Ed in SOTD is a particularly interesting case, as the movie bills itself as a "romantic comedy with zombies", presumably the romance between Shaun and his girlfriend Liz. But it's really more about the friendship between Shaun and Ed as the movie ends with them, the idea being that not even being a zombie (and in a sense death) can prevent Ed from being with his best friend.
- In the Shaun Of The Dead commentary, Simon Pegg mentionned that Nick had actually lived on his couch for a while in Real Life exactly like Ed does in the movie. Art imitating life indeed!
- Again, in the Spaced tv series.
- One of the commentaries on the USA DVD release of Spaced actually has Simon getting permission from Kevin Smith to use the expression to refer to his relationship to Nick Frost.
- Of course, early drafts for Hot Fuzz had a female love interest for Pegg's character; in the end they cut her out and gave the lines to Nick Frost.
- Marwood and Withnail from Withnail And I. As Paul Mc Gann said on the commentary, 'it's like a marriage going wrong.'
- This troper still argues that the character's name is "& I". Coincidentally, that movie is also one of this troper's favourite films.
- Max and Jude from Across the Universe do this trope hardcore, though the heterosexuality is highly debatable.
- Tony Stark and Jim Rhodes from the Iron Man movie.
- Dan Cain and Herbert West in the first two Re-Animator movies. In the first, they start out mutually suspicious but grow closer as they work together; by the second, they are sharing a house and West is actively jealous of Dan's girlfriend.
- Detectives Hughes and Costanzo in Running Scared (1986).
- Two examples from Mean Girls: Janis and Regina are former Heterosexual Life Partners whose friendship ended very badly. Gretchen and Karen are still best friends and it is implied that Karen is Gretchen's only actual friend.
- Valentine and Earl in Tremors.
- Jesse and Chester in Dude, Where's My Car?. Though they have girlfriends in Wanda and Wilma, they live together and seem to be with each other more often.
- Bill and Ted.
- Han Solo and Chewbacca. At least to some degree...
- Chuck and Larry in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. After all, they did spend most of the movie pretending to be homosexual life partners.
- Dale, Saul and Red in Pineapple Express, making up a rare trio example. It is Lampshaded. Notably, the end of the film does not see Dale tearfully reunited with his (presumably still in hiding) girlfriend Angie, but hanging out with Saul and Red instead.
- Then again Dale pretty much broke it off with Angie over the phone.
- True (and he was right to do so), but it is still a pretty big subversion that we don't see them get back together at the end (with plenty of talk about they have gotten over their problems). It's actually almost unique there.
- Abbott and Costello
- Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series.
- The title characters in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who had been together for some time before the movie started.
- Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan from Ocean's Eleven
Literature
- Sherlock Holmes and Dr John H. Watson.
- The fact that Holmes is famously a Celibate Hero does nothing to discourage speculation, despite Watson being something of a ladies' man and marrying at least twice over the course of the series.
- The 1970 Billy Wilder film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes poked fun at this several times (turns out they both actually are straight - go figure).
- In Josepha Sherman's A Strange and Ancient Name, the main character (a half-elven (half-fairy?) prince) rescues Alliar, a wind spirit trapped in mortal flesh, and teaches the suicidal wind spirit to enjoy life in the flesh. They become very close friends, and the prince is about the only mortal Alliar can stand. When the prince's love interest almost writes him off - since he obviously loves Alliar and vice versa - Alliar explains to her that "flesh games" (sex) is so foreign to him, it's like trying to smell colors. And that's hardly the only place this is brought up. Kinda sad that our culture so identifies intimacy with sex that intimacy without sex must be made Anvilicious in order to even work.
- Gilgamesh and Enkidu (making this Older Than Dirt).
- Bertram Wilberforce Wooster and Jeeves.
- Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens, even though they should be (im)mortal enemies as they're angel and demon, respectively.
- Admittedly, it is because they both have one thing in common - a genuine love and fascination with humans, society, and the world in general - which isn't shared by their proper coworkers. The other angels and demons are mostly busy trying to snare a soul here or there, or ignore creation completely. They're just waiting for Armageddon. And humans, well, they're not around for as long, are they?
- Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad are probably an example of this, making it Older Than Dirt. Though ask a modern reader with a slashy bent whether it's a *heterosexual* life partnership, and you might get a different answer. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for one man to be longing for another man's... manhood. It meant something different. Back then. Yeah.
- The homosexual interpretation is a product of Values Dissonance. The Greeks had a very different outlook on homosexuality. In fact, it was expected that every man be paired with a significantly older man, and the nature of the pairing was expected to be sexual in nature. In order for a man to be considered a homosexual, he must have a penetratively sexual relationship with another man. Since the Ancient Greeks considered such relationships to be perverse, it seems unlikely that a paragon of masculinity like Achilles would engage in such activity. This different outlook makes the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, which is both sexual and heterosexual in nature, to appear homosexual to modern readers. In short, Achilles and Patroclus were definitely Heterosexual Life Partners.
- There was a "no penetration" rule, at least as between citizens, because taking it up the anything was considered undignified - that was something a gentleman did to his slaves - but kissing and frottage were perfectly OK. A more important rule was that pederasty (teenage boy, adult man) was the only socially acceptable pairing; homosexuality between adults was considered ridiculous. Pederasty was an actual recognized social institution, for educational purposes; the erastes (elder partner) was expected to be patron, mentor and role model to the eramenos. Its existence is not surprising, considering that Classical Greek citizen women were kept in purdah like women in some Muslim cultures today; if you were a Greek citizen boy the only women you would typically see in a day would be slaves, prostitutes, foreigners, and your own close relatives. Meanwhile you're expected to spend as much time as possible with the other guys in the palaestra, working out stark naked. Do the math.
- At least one line in the Iliad implies that Patroklos is much older than Akhilleus.
- Colon and Nobby from the Discworld Watch series.
- Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg managed to evolve into Heterosexual Life Partners, as well.
- The Artful Dodger and Charley Bates in Oliver Twist.
- Also, to a degree, Nancy and Bet. Though, in all fairness, Nancy's completely codependent on Bill Sykes, and Bet's got this thing with Toby Crackit.
- You could also look at Bill Sykes and Toby Crackit, then.
- Or, Bill and Fagin. Mind you, Bill kinda only is friends with Fagin when it suits him.
- Toby and Barney?
- Shakespeare's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in Hamlet).
- Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. You could probably throw Legolas and Gimli in there too.
- Kethry and Tarma, of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar story setting. Tarma's tribe is all but extinct, and Kethry is expected to restart it. Which she does. Fanfic is somewhat discouraged by the fact that Kethry is quite enthusiastically straight, and Tarma is asexual by divine directive. They're also sworn Blood Sisters, with that same divinity sealing the deal.
- Though that doesn't stop them from occasionally pretending to be lovers. And living alone together when Kethry's husband dies and all her children grow up. They do love one another, it's spelled out more than once - but they really aren't lovers.
- Bernard and Helmholtz in Brave New World. Bernard gets intensely jealous when John forms an instant bond with Helmholtz, and Helmholtz thinks to himself at one point that Bernard's self-centeredness distresses him because he likes Bernard. Not to mention that later on, Helmholtz manages to convince Bernard to agree to be exiled with him to a faraway island...off-page.
- In the ruining-your-childhood-one-trope-at-a-time category, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman, who, after Ozma takes over as Ruler of Oz, decide never to be parted and live together in the Winkie Country. (In different houses, mind you.)
- The Cowardly Lion and Hungry Tiger would fall under this category as well, as well as Dorothy and Ozma in later books
- Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the Aubrey-Maturin series.
- Kellanved and Dancer in Malazan Book Of The Fallen.
- Also Hedge and Fiddler.
- And Tehol and Bugg.
- David and Jonathan from The Bible. When Jonathan dies, David laments that he loved him more than any woman. Ho Yay ensures.
- Gafinilan and Mertil in Animorphs book #40. Also arguably Marco and Ax, briefly, after Marco fakes his death.
- H.P. Lovecraft did this a few times. In "The Hound," the two main characters retreat from the world to wallow in (chaste) decadence together. Poppy Z. Brite wrote a tribute to this in which the equivalent characters were gay.
- Another Lovecraft example: in "Herbert West - Reanimator," West and the narrator live and work together for many years; if memory serves, the narrator even joins the military to stay near West during World War One. (And see under Film, above.)
- Interestingly, following a failed marriage Lovecraft's considered the poster boy for abstinent asexuality.
- Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook. Natty is even a sort of second father-figure to Chingachgook's son.
- Jiaan and Fasal in Hilari Bell's Farsala trilogy.
- Tom and Carl from Young Wizards (very possibly a gay couple, but that's never been stated outright by canon, so I put them here too). If they aren't a couple, they're still two successful thirty-something men who live together.
- Rivera and Cavuto from Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story — sort of, as Cavuto actually is gay.
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms has Liu Bei somehow embody this trope with four different people — both of his fellow Peach Garden Oath Brothers (albeit their appearance combined with the brotherhood rules out Ho Yay), Zhao Yun in the novel and Zhuge Liang.
Live Action TV
- Crockett and Tubbs in Miami Vice.
- The title characters of Starsky And Hutch.
- Bodie and Doyle from The Professionals.
- Bert and Ernie, from Sesame Street, and many a joke has been made about this one.
- Lewis and Oswald, from The Drew Carey Show, and many a joke was made on the show about it.
Oswald: "So I was drinkin' the other night, and I got to throwin' up and I got to thinkin'..." (long, rambling exposition about him wanting to move back in follows)
Lewis: "Hey. You had me at 'throwin' up'."
- George and Jerry on Seinfeld.
- "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"
- J.D. and Turk on Scrubs: even after Turk gets married and J.D. moves out, Carla, Turk's wife, calls J.D. "Turk's boyfriend" and often jokes about it on the show. This culminated in a musical number that celebrated their "Guy Love". In some early episodes, however, Turk was paranoid they might be Mistaken For Gay.
- Heck, one of the series' oldest running gags is that the two are gay for each other.
- Ed and Larry on The West Wing.
- House and Wilson on House. In the second and third seasons, the writers make light of the shipping.
Stacy: What is wrong with you?
House: I'm gay. (Stacy glares at him) Well, it makes sense. No girlfriend, always with Wilson, obsession with sneakers...
- The fourth season goes well beyond "making light of," as House ends up demanding visitation rights from Wilson's new girlfriend.
- 5th season, Cuddy puts House and Wilson in "couples therapy" because Wilson doesn't want to be House's friend anymore.
- Well, House is based on Sherlock Holmes, and as you'll see below, this same trope applied there.
- Hiro and Ando from Heroes. In one episode, Ando even commented "That is how we roll." It helps that he has a thing for Hiro's sister.
- The titular characters from Drake And Josh.
- JT and Toby from Degrassi The Next Generation.
- Tigh and Adama from Battlestar Galactica.
- Steven Harper and Scott Guber from Boston Public.
- Denny Crane and Alan Shore from Boston Legal. They discuss their relationship, as well as social opinion of such relationships, frequently. Alan even discussed the English word "love", and how it's a shame that people use it lightly and a further shame that you can't be precise about your meaning, and then firmly applied it to Denny: "I love you." (Or so this editor recalls.) All in a non-sexual way, and yet these two are more intimate than a good number of television married couples.
- That editor recalls correctly. This one cried.
- Star Fleet Doctor Julian Bashir (played by Alexander Siddig, formerly Siddig El Fadil) and the Cardassian spy/assassin/tailor Elim Garak (played by Andrew Robinson) in the Science Fiction series Star Trek Deep Space Nine; it is interesting to note that both actors remarked during interviews that they had deliberately played up the homoerotic undertones of the characters' relationship, and Andrew Robinson later wrote a novel A Stitch in Time about Garak's life in which he clearly depicted the alien Garak as bisexual. Later, when Paramount script writers had abruptly put an end to the Bashir and Garak subplots, Doctor Bashir and Chief O'Brien spent so much time together on various projects and on hobby activities that O'Brien's wife Keiko complained about it. They have an argument over it while dying inside a virtual world of a dying man (don't ask), where Bashir says he's wildly in love with Ezri (female, now) but he "likes [O'Brien] more", and O'Brien doesn't feel the same.
- This troper felt the homoerotic emotions stronger between Julian and Miles, than Garak. (though they might be fitting there as well) Also Quark and Odo's relationshi might qualify.
- The Hero Rohan and The Lancer Angus from The Mystic Knights Of Tir Na Nog, "friends for life."
- Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg in The Sentinel; Blair actually moves in with Jim early in the series.
- Howard Moon and Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh. They work together, live together, go on adventures together, throw satsumas (tangerines) at each other in the snow while wearing only underwear together... Vince is also often mistaken for Howard's girlfriend or wife (since Dude Looks Like A Lady).
- Although Olaf Petersen only makes a handful of appearances in Red Dwarf, a strong impression is given that, before the accident, he and Lister were Heterosexual Life Partners. Lister apparently has a tattoo that says "I Love Petersen".
- Rimmer and Lister could be considered involuntary Heterosexual Life Partners; there's simply no-one else for them to talk to. They live (well, in Rimmer's case, exist) in a mile-long abandoned spaceship, but still sleep in the same room.
- Even when Rimmer does get someone else to talk to in Me Squared, it all goes wrong and he comes crawling back to Lister.
- Let's not even get started on Lister's Dream Sequence in Blue..
- Mark and Jeremy on Peep Show definitely fall under this trope, possibly because they're both so appalling no-one else will put up with them for long. As Jeremy thinks at the end of one episode "I'm his one!"
- Not to mention the last episode of season 5 where Sophie is pregnant and it might be either Mark's or Jeremy's. Mark comments on Sophie's increasingly erratic behavior and says that if she continues like that, they can just adopt the baby "like those gay dads"
- Dean and Sam Winchester of Supernatural. Not only are they heterosexual life partners as adults, but they've spent their entire lives together, except for two years when Sam was at college.
- Shawn and Gus from Psych
- Chandler and Joey from Friends
- Vorenus and Pullo from Rome.
- Ray and Fraser from Due South.
- Morecambe And Wise make this older than a LOT of people think, apparently. As do Flanders and Swann.
- Bam and Novak from Viva la Bam generally refer to each other as 'life partner' for the laughs, seeing as they were basically attached at the hip.
- Christian and Sean from Nip/Tuck
- From Keen Eddie, the professional friendship between Eddie Arlette and Monty Pippin is a prime example. Mark Valley: "You got to admit, whenever two guys have to spend an awful lot of time together, the question is going to come up. There's always that thing of, 'Oh my God, are we gay?' Like, not physically, but you're enjoying each other's company — you know what I mean? It could be read that way, and we joke about it, but they're just two regular guys hanging out, spending an awful lot of time together."
- The Naked Trucker and T-Bones, in both their live stage show and short-lived television show.
- Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper. After brief enmity and beating the crap out of each other, they settle into a friendship that leads them to walk into combat zones for each other after they each leave the army, and the exchange "Are you with me, Patrick?" "Yes, always." Not to mention the strong implication that when Sharpe is should-be-mortally wounded, he only lives because of Harper's determination that he will.
- Greys Anatomy has a Patient of the Week and her best friend, who are both runaways from a small religious group, and have basically pledged to be together "cradle to grave." Too bad one of 'em's dying.
- It also has, well, a good portion of the doctors. Yang and Meredith seem to fit this trope best, even though it's actually Izzie (and George, for that matter) that shares an apartment with Meredith.
- And just so nobody has to go looking for it elsewhere in the article... Tim and Mike in Spaced.
Theatre
- Brick and Skipper in the backstory of Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - that is, if you believe Brick when he vehemently denies they did "sodomy" together:
Brick: Why can't exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep friendship! between two men be respected as something clean and decent without being thought of as—
Big Daddy: It can, it is, for God's sake.
Brick: -Fairies...
- This dramaturg troper thinks that if you took Brick at his word, then the play loses a lot of its power, especially its condemnation of homophobia, particularly in the south - which Tennessee Williams was more than adequately familiar with. Troper also thinks a little ambiguity is good in staging, but being completely ignorant of the implications of believing Brick is telling the truth and nothing but the truth will not do.
- A Year With Frog And Toad: Frog and Toad were always good friends in the original kids' books, but The Musical elevates them comfortably to life partners at the very least. They even invade each others dreams to sing about how much they like each other. Twice. ("That's funny, you've been in all my dreams too...")
- Estragon and Vladimir from Waiting For Godot. They even have pet names for each other and put off killing themselves because of the slight possibility that one of them would live and be left alone.
Video Games
Web Comics
- Bumper and Stunt of Dominic Deegan - this has been noted by other characters in the series, often to tease Stunt, a staunch homophobe.
- Ben and Eric from Loserz sometimes come close.
- Arthur and Lancelot in Arthur King Of Time And Space. Which is... kind of awkward, in the circumstances.
- Elliot and Tedd in El Goonish Shive, driven home by the fact that, in an alternate universe where Elliot was born a girl, they're dating.
- MegaTokyo's Piro and Largo. Also, Kimiko and Erika. All are canonly strait, but the fact that each pair lives together, and have done so at least since college, doesn't help matters on the Ho Yay front.
- Pretty much any Two Gamers On A Couch, when they're not trying to murder each other.
- Ethan and Lucas in Ctrl Alt Delete.
- Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade, though several strips have shown that Gabe is only gay for Spiderman.
- This troper was shocked when he discovered Gabe has a wife and son, when he seems to live and spend most of his time with Tycho.
- Robin and Jason in The Wotch.
- Pee Jee and Davan in Something Positive. Pee Jee did once ask Davan to marry her, but she explained that she saw it as a way of clinching their friendship; Davan had a crush on Pee Jee once but says he's over it. Whether or not either of these is the unadorned truth is a subject of hot debate for the fandom.
Web Original
- Agents Five of Six and Tadkeeta Penguin in Protectors of the Plot Continuum.
Western Animation
- Lenny and Carl on The Simpsons. There have been a few jokes about this, of course.
- Makes a different sense since it was revealed that the two are really half-brothers.
- Recent seasons have done the same for Wiggum and Lou. Wiggum is usually the overly emotional wife/girlfriend.
Wiggum Lou, you can't leave the force! I can change!
Lou I just think there's more money in private security.
Wiggum What I'm hearing is I'm too fat! [Eats a sundae between sobs]
- Pinky And The Brain, though in all fairness, they live in a cage.
- Darkwing Duck and Launchpad McQuack. Darkwing called Launchpad his "sidekick", but the dynamic was different. There's even less explanation for his living in DW's civilian house, plus Launchpad didn't even bother with a Secret Identity.
- Andy and Jim in Mission Hill.
- Following the series return, Stewie in Family Guy seems to have abandoned his plans for world domination just to have more time to hang out with Brian, formerly his arch rival. The series has been known to play with their growing relationship:
Brian: [breaks the kiss] Come on, we gotta follow them. Stewie?
Stewie: Huh? Oh, oh, uh...
Brian: Everything all right?
Stewie: Uh, yeah, uh...hey, listen, freakin' shot in the dark: You wanna do something sometime?
- Mac and Bloo from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends. Never mind the fact that Bloo is a figment of Mac's imagination...
- Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King, particularly in their eponymous Recycled The Series.
- Flash and Green Lantern in Justice League.
- Probably a carryover from the comics, where the original Flash and the original Green Lantern were pretty much the same way, or at the very least Those Two Guys.
- Spongebob and Patrick of Spongebob Squarepants.
- Their friendship is so close that the religious right started a media campaign claiming that Spongebob is gay and is trying to convert kids to that lifestyle. No other ambiguous onscreen couple has done this before!
- Walter and Perry in Home Movies. They seem really intimate with each other; wearing matching clothes, holding hands, and just being inseparable. However, they weren't portrayed as homosexual. For instance, they both wanted to get an accidental peek at Fenton's naked mom.
- Jumba and Pleakley of Lilo And Stitch, especially in the sequel movies and series. The fact that Pleakley is a Wholesome Crossdresser doesn't help the Ho Yay any.
- Sully and Mike in Monsters INC. They even live in the same apartment! Though, Mike does have a girlfriend, lessening the Ho Yay somewhat. And then their theme song turns it right back around...
You and me together,
That's how it always should be,
One without the other
Don't mean nothin' to me...
- Miguel and Tulio, partners in crime and fortune-seeking in The Road to El Dorado.
- Despite the former feeling little more than contempt for the latter, Ren And Stimpy are a textbook example of the trope. In the ill-fated revival series that briefly ran on Spike TV, Ren and Stimpy were actually a gay couple.
- Stan and Kyle from South Park.
Stan: I don't wanna hang out in the kids' room. I won't know anybody.
Randy: Well, it would be good for you to make new friends. You can't just hang out with your buddy Kyle all the time. People will think you guys are, you know, funny.
- While not seen on the show much, anymore, Ned and Jimbo qualify.
- Terrance and Phillip, while we're at it. They were once Mistaken For Gay. By Phillip.
- And then there's Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo.
- Norbert and Daggett of The Angry Beavers. Being brothers helps.
Real Life
- Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.
- It has been argued that this form of relationship or "Romantic Friendship"
 was actually quite common until the beginning of the 20th century, when any expression of love contracted a sexual overtone.
- One biography states that The Beatles were closer to one another than each was to his respective girlfriend or wife during their career together (at least before things started falling apart).
- It's pretty much assumed by everyone now that that was the case at least for John and Paul.
- The other members of the band have pretty much all-but-admitted that when Yoko entered the scene, they felt threatened by John's intensely close relationship with her and by the fact that, unlike previous girlfriends, she was invading 'their' space (by coming along to studio recordings and such).
- Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are like the JD and Turk of the Real Life world.
- J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson.
- The "heterosexual" part is debatable for those two, though.
- Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
- No, I'm pretty sure he's f___ing Matt Damon.
- I'm F___ing Matt Damon.
- This troper is confused as to whether this was meant to imply "I am Matt Damon" or "Matt Damon and I are in a sexual relationship at this time." Either way, it's kind of hot.
- Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (as mentioned above) are indeed best friends in real life. It was through their friendship that Frost got his big break, as Pegg was somehow able to get him a supporting role in Spaced (which grew in importance as the series went on) despite him having no professional training or experience. The pair, while they are both developing seperate acting careers, still turn up together in plenty of TV shows and movies. The suggested Ho Yay is often acknowledged and played up by them in behind the scenes material (such as the Hot Fuzz video blogs) and even in the characters they play.
- This troper and her best friend - celebrating ten years!
- This troper has it going on with three different people, to the point that someone who knew two of us, but had never spoken to both of us at the same time pointed it out after three minutes talking to us. The worst part was, we hadn't seen each other in years, and yet Ho Yay had set in again so quickly.
- This troper has two friends who he gets shipped with by others, to the degree that both pairings have been mistaken for an actual gay couple at different times. The fact that this troper is bisexual only serves to confuse matters further for other people...
- Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, as mentioned above.
- Michael Cera and Clark Duke.
- The poet Dylan Thomas had this relationship with his friend Vernon Watkins. Somewhat of an unusual situation in that Thomas actually believed Watkins was gay and was surprised when he eventually married.
|
|
