YMMV / Bros

• Audience-Alienating Premise: The film was widely touted as the first mainstream gay romantic comedy, and while it was praised by critics, it performed poorly in the box office which many blamed on its marketing. The film was promoted heavily to general audiences, but the explicit, R-rated content made it an unlikely choice for a "date night" movie that led to the success of tamer rom-coms. Furthermore, it faced twin challenges: many straight audiences, even if not homophobic, thought the movie simply wasn't made for them, while many queer audiences criticized the marketing as pandering to straight audiences, leading to it underperforming with both bases. And then there were some who wouldn't see it simply because Billy Eichner was starring in it.
• Cliché Storm: The movie throws lots of common romcom beats like Meet Cute, Second Act Break Up and Grand Romantic Gesture in the climax with a dose of Be Yourself and Pursue the Dream Job aesops to boot. This is possibly intentional to drive the point that gay people can lead romantic movies.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bobby's ranting about queer culture/entertainment being pushed to the margins and sanitized for heterosexual consumption is giving a new meaning considering the film's underperformance at the box office.
• Queer Show Ghetto: The movie was heavily pushed and promoted to as wide and general of an audience as possible, but nevertheless alienated the straight demographic, due to their perspective that the movie simply wasn't for them, or being put off by Eichner's comments. As such, most of the audience ended up being from the queer demographic, even though many chose not to see the movie either because of criticism towards its marketing or simple disinterest. Some have posited that marketing it exclusively to queer audiences would have made it more successful, while others point to its outsized budget making it difficult to make a success, especially if it were aimed solely at a niche audience.
• Uncertain Audience: Anatomy of a Disaster suggests this as being one of the reasons for the film's failure. The film makes a huge deal out of the LGBT status of everyone involved with it, to the point of including a line suggests straight people were obsolete in its trailer, so most non-LGBT viewers would come away from the marketing thinking the film was actively rejecting them. At the same time, though, LGBT audiences came away from the same marketing wondering what the film had other than its representation.
• Watched It for the Representation: Eichner has hailed Bros as the "first gay rom-com ever to come from a major studio," so it's not surprising that the movie got some audience attention for that. Conversely, many critics pointed out that the film's importance was just about the only thing that its marketing was touting as a reason to see the film, which turned off those who found the tone of the marketing to be self-righteous.

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