The Big Gay Musical is a 2009... well, Gay Musical.
The main characters are Paul and Eddie, two gay actors preparing for the opening night of The Musical Adam and Steve: Just the way God made them. It has two intertwined storylines: Paul and Eddie, trying to figure out why being gay is so hard, and their characters Adam and Steve, trying to figure out why being gay is so hard.
The storyline with Paul and Eddie features examples of:
- All Gays Love Theater: Not only are the main characters and most of the supporting characters theatre actors, but also Paul's love interest is a theater aficionado, and the gay bar they hang out on is called Mostly Sondheim
- All Gays are Promiscuous: The actors playing the angels describe themselves as "professional sluts".
- The Cameo: Brent Corrigan, a gay porn superstar, playing the hustler Paul hires for cuddling.
- Cast Full of Gay: The only straight men in the cast are Straight Adam, Cain and Eddie's father, and all of them play fairly minor roles.
- Coming-Out Story: Eddie goes through the whole cycle in this movie, from lying to his parents about both his sexual orientation and where he performs, to having the conversation, and finally getting their acceptance. In the musical, his character Steve goes through a similar arch, starting as a religious, repressed gay dude being sent to a conversion-therapy camp, to breaking out from there and getting together with Adam.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The movie opens with a Small Straight Play scene that is deliberately presented as drab and boring, before jumping on a full-color Big Gay Musical.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Charles is seen buying tickets for a preview in the very first scene, but only becomes a significant character in the second half of the movie.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Bottoming for a bottom is treated as a massive source of embarrassment.
- Gayngst: Many varieties of this are shown, including coming out and safe sex for Eddie, and loneliness and searching for relationships for Paul.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: After having a Really Gets Around phase, Paul decides this is what he needs, the problem is that he doesn't really know how to get it.
- Malicious Slander: Near the beginning of the movie, someone falsely tells Paul's boyfriend that Paul is HIV positive, which causes them to break up and triggers Paul's entire arc.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Somehow the official trailer seems like it's a love story between Paul and Eddie when they are more like platonic life partners. At the end of the movie, Paul is dating Charles and Eddie is attempting to date a Mormon guy.
- Performance Artist: Both main characters and most of the supporting cast are theater actors working on an Off-Broadway show.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Paul is a lot more assured and comfortable with himself than Eddie, has fewer camp mannerisms, and is also taller and more muscular. This extends to their characters Adam and Steve, with God explicitly calling Steve "another man, a bit more sensitive".
The storyline about Adam and Steve features examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch:Steve: Are you here to take us to hell?Dorothy the Angel: Goodness me, no! I'm here to take you to New York City!
- Big "NO!": When Cain tells Eve that he killed Abel, she reacts in shock. But when he tells her that it was because he was singing a showtune, she drops to her knees shouting this and Chewing the Scenery.
- Camp Gay: Every gay character in the musical takes camp up to eleven, including the angels, God and the Cure Your Gays camp counselor.
- Cure Your Gays: Somewhat played for laughs. Steve's aunt sends him to a conversion therapy camp, where they unsuccessfully try to turn him straight, but then he meets Adam who was also at the camp and they escape together.
- Gay Aesop: Being gay is OK and we shouldn't hate on gays, no matter what the Bible says. Dropped with the subtlety of a hammer.
- Gay Euphemism: Played with. The angel God sends to rescue Adam and Steve is called Dorothy, making them "Friends of Dorothy", a common euphemism for gay men in the past.
- God in Human Form: God is a chubby dude wearing a white tunic with nothing extraordinary in his aspect.
- Godiva Hair: Eve wears this to cover her breasts, along with the fig leaves that Steve and the two Adams wear.
- Irony: Cain promising Eve that he will never, NEVER sing a showtune... while they are in the middle of a showtune.
- Jerkass: Eve writes the Bible just because she wants everybody to hate gays.
- Magical Queer: God gives Adam and Steve the gifts of fashion, art, music and creativity, which he never gave to Straight Adam and Eve.
- Modernized God: God is perfectly OK with gay people, doesn't think much of the Bible, and sings and dances with the angels. Also, New York is his favorite city.Straight Adam: I wonder if our sons are going to be cultured and stuff... or like us?
- Stripperiffic: There is plenty of shirtlessness, including Adam and Steve being almost naked in the garden of Eden and then being shirtless on Earth, also Straight Adam and the angels.
