ABSTRACT
The binaries of male/female, heterosexual/ homosexual and even essentialist/constructionist are intersected by the ‘safe erotic’ friendship of Nina and George in The Object of My Affectio n, by Victoria’s introduction to Toddy’s world of drag in Victor/Victoria , and by matching Jess’s gender nonconformity with Tony’s sexual nonconformity in Bend It Like Beckham. This chapter examines how each film establishes gay best friendship as a site for transgression and will go on to compare how the partnership of the heterosexual woman and the gay man transforms divisive constructions of power, promotes border mutability and allows the emergence of new identity politics. The positive endings of each film trace how gay best friendship critiques the seemingly ineluctable and oppressive identity presuppositions within the gender, race and class equation. Heteronormativity remains the system of social distinction common to each of these films, evoked by family and community members, romantic and sexual partners and the spectral presence of past experience.
