[2] Bromantic comedy films present expressions of male intimacy, while humorously poking fun of the characters' fears of being homosexual.
[10] Shakespeare's play, Love's Labour's Lost, provides, in its opening passage,[11] a comedic prototype for the idea of men agreeing to a "code" to sequester themselves and avoid romance with the opposite sex.
[19][20][21][22] In it, Paul Rudd stars as Peter Klaven, who is about to marry the love of his life, but he realizes that he doesn't have any male friends to serve as the best man at his wedding.
Then he meets Jason Segel's character, Sydney, who is friendly and a great complement to Peter, but their bromance starts to impact the groom's relationship with his bride-to-be.
[23] The genre has its critics who accuse it of political incorrectness and a variety of insensitivities,[6][24] but the films are satires, and in that sense, the exposing of social ills may be considered to have some potentially positive effect.
[26][27] However, social critic David Hartwell concludes that beneath a facade of progressive and liberating motivation, the bromantic comedy genre is ultimately guilty of "perpetuating the ideologies it is trying (or pretending) to critique.