The sketch show’s latest parody of emotionally distant men had a surprising amount of heart.
In the pretaped commercial spoof “Straight Male Friend,” Bowen Yang played a gay man overwhelmed by the financial and emotional demands of his friendships with straight women. He touted the relief he’d discovered from being pals with a straight man, played with sincerity by Kelce. Yang praised this form of “low-effort, low-stakes relationship that requires no emotional commitment, no financial investment, and, other than the occasional video-game-related outburst, no drama.”
On the surface, the ad seemed to be yet another send-up of men—similar to recent sketches such as the infantilizing “Old Enough! Longterm Boyfriends!” and the acerbic “Big Penis Therapy.” But “Straight Male Friend,” which Yang co-wrote with Streeter Seidell and Alex English, captured the isolating norms that contribute to toxic masculinity with an earnestness that augmented its comedic beats.
