We all know that the Gay Best Friend is the one to turn to when life hands you emotional lemons, right? But who does the Gay Best Friend turn to when things are hard?
Saturday Night Live drafted NFL star Travis Kelce to answer that question in their faux prescription drug commercial, “Straight Male Friend.”
Kelce — who won his second Super Bowl ring last month while playing for the Kansas City Chiefs — is the latest bearer of a proud tradition of sports stars hosting SNL. He’s got a light, self-effacing manner that seems to make it easy for the writers to build sketches around him. Whether as a octogenarian’s boy toy or a creepy American Girl doll fan or a weirdly effective self-defense trainer, Kelce demonstrates surprising versatility for a first-time sketch comedian.
But his best work is playing it straight. Like, suuuuuuper straight. In the fake ad, Bowen Yang is a Gay Best Friend looking for a low-stress relationship to balance the high-stress one with His Girls (Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner). Enter Kelce as the broey-est bro who ever broed a bro.
Straight Male Friend is pitched as the perfect emotional respite from the deep intimacy of close women friendships: no crying or listening to each others’ problems or, well, anything but video games and chicken wings. He won’t burden you when a family member dies; in fact, he’ll apologize for even bringing it up. “Yo, sorry about being a p—y about my dad dying earlier” is probably the single greatest line in histor… sorry, Brostory.
There are fun disclaimers at the bottom of the screen like “he won’t even bother to learn your last name” or “Straight Male Friend may cause significant weight gain” while the friends are chowing down at Wing Pit. Basically, if you’re the kind of person that prefers cats to dogs because they’re low-maintenance, then you’ll get the allure.
Also, big bonus points for adding in every Straight Male Friend decorating motif: Funko Pops, a mountain bike, an XBox (far and away the straightest of the gaming platforms) and a framed Inception poster resting on the floor instead of hung. It’s like the writers know actual straight white guys!
Watch the video below, and then grade this week’s episode in our poll:
Introducing Straight Male Friend
(available everywhere except therapy) pic.twitter.com/F0VeJWzVtZ— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) March 5, 2023