Help?

[kerravonsen]

Please, someone explain to me what "bromance" means.

Comments

[evilawyer]

As I understand it from the contexts in which I have seen it used, it is a close, close, very close loving relationship with homoerotic overtones between two young men who are like brothers

Of course, I could be wrong about this.

[kerravonsen]

Well, apparently it has an entry on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromance

Apparently NOT homoerotic overtones, it's platonic (non-sexual).

[evilawyer]

Glad that's straightened up.  The platonic meaning makes most of the stuff I've seen make more sense, some of it less sense. Loose usage is so troublesome! 

[sahiya]

It means that the show is trying to attract viewers for having slashy subtext (because they've wised up enough to know that works now) without actually having to go out on a limb and have a gay relationship on the show. (In other words, "queer-baiting.")

/bitter

[kerravonsen]

Interesting; the various answers I've been given (see the LJ post) differ in only one regard: whether or not the deep intense friendship is platonic or has homoerotic subtext.

[sahiya]

Well, I think bromances are designed to be ambiguous that way. If you're queer and looking for representation in pop culture, you can read them as queer; if you're not inclined that way, you can read them as gen. My bitterness comes from the fact that this seems to be as far as most pop culture is willing to go these days, because it lets them have their cake and eat it, too (both their queer viewers and their homophobic ones, who wouldn't watch if the relationship was actually queer). But I'm pretty over their fence-sitting and queer-baiting.

[kalypso]

I've never heard it used with homoerotic subtext, and I would normally take it as specifically intended to exclude that (speaking as someone who likes subtext). It's not just a fannish thing; I've heard it used of at least one pair of England cricketers who spend a lot of time together off the field (but are also happily married).

[tptigger]

What kalypso said.
Or at least that's how I used it.
I always took it as the masculine version of "bff"

[kalypso]

There are certainly plenty of those male relationships being written at the moment, but I wouldn't call them bromances. (Actually I probably wouldn't use the word at all, but that's because it irritates me.) Life on Mars, for instance, I'd say was the opposite of bromance; too much antagonism between the couple.

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

Bromance. It is an intense, platonic (read non-sexual) relationship between two unrelated men. Women just have friendships; men get a "bromance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromance

[jedibuttercup]

Well, women still have romantic friendships, they just don't have a cutesy smushname for them. *shrug*

[dreamflower]

No, they use netspeak: BFFs.

[jedibuttercup]

BFF doesn't necessarily imply the romantic aspects, though. I've had plenty of BFFs. But only one of them would I have ever gladly yet non-sexually shared a bed with. YMMV.

[dreamflower]

LOL! I think the varying mileage is generational.

When I was a little girl, it was common for children to hold hands with their friends, or even walk with their arms around each other. And slumber parties? Usually two or even three in a bed. (I remember one night of four to a bed, and playing a game of shove the person on the end out--then she'd get back in on the other side and start it all over again with the next person. We laughed hysterically until my aunt came in and made us shut up.)

And there was no subtext to our intimacy because most of us were so clueless we did not even know homosexuality existed. I was a senior in high school when I first heard about it--and thought the person who was explaining it to me was joking. Even when I found out it was real, I figured it must be very rare.

Kids nowadays aren't nearly so innocent, and two little girls or little boys holding hands would probably be mocked.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I miss that, you know? I'm only in my 30s, but that's how I grew up, too--I have very fond memories of all our sleepovers. And while I'm glad our society has grown enough to acknowledge different styles of sexual relationships, the devaluing of non-sexual intimacy makes me sad. (I suppose bromance is a way of trying to bring that back, after a fashion.)

[kerravonsen]

Ah, so it's a synonym for "best mates" or "mateship".

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Yes, though a tad more forceful than that (though as I understand it, less intense than smarm :) basically, the friendship is platonic but still definitely the most important relationship either has in the story/canon/whatever....

[madeleone]

*Snerk* My 31 year old son was just talking to me about 'bromance' in sitcoms the other day, like Howard and Raj in The Big Bang Theory, or Chandler and Joey in Friends. Funny that the term should now show up on my flist! LOL!

[dreamflower]

Yep. It's what used to be called "being buddies". For some reason nowadays everyone wants to coin new words by mushing two words together. I find the term both mildly annoying and mildly amusing at the same time.

[feliciakw.livejournal.com]

It seems the first time I saw the term, it was describing the friendship between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. (Incidentally, I've also seen the break-up of such a friendship called a "dudevorce.") So as the wiki article notes, it doesn't just apply to fictitious characters. (Nor was it apparently coined by the entertainment/celebrity media. That I did not know.)

I think I've even seen David Tennant and Catherine Tate's friendship described as a "bromance." (It was a first for me to see it applied to a m/f friendship, but the quality of the friendship--very close without being sexual--seems to apply.)

Of course, in my current media interests, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki's bromance is very well-known. They've talked about how they hit it off immediately when they first met, they stood with each other in their weddings, their RL friends observe that they behave as brothers in RL. In a way, they've kind of grown up together on the show (inasmuch as a 26/27-year-old and a 22/23-year-old grow up) and been by each other for some major life changes.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

It really seems to have cropped up when Brokeback Mountain came out. Whether it was around before then, I don't know but it certainly hit the media awareness then. When stars were challenged in interviews with having a close relationship with their fellow co-stars the phrase cropped up then.