Sometimes movies do more harm than good.

While LGBTQ+ representation in media is (slowly) getting better, it’s important to reminisce on the awful films that came before to remind ourselves what not to do when writing stories about people who exist along the sexual spectrum.

While television is much kinder when it comes to introducing new LGBTQ+ narratives, film can still have a difficult time portraying people from the community in an accurate way. Maybe that’s because so many of the people who write, direct, and produce queer movies with queer leads don’t fit into that demographic. (Though thankfully that is getting better!)

And these 8 flimsy attempts at visibility do more damage than if these movies were never made in the first place.

Another Gay Movie (2006)

Four gay teenagers run amok in Another Gay Movie. Andy, Nico, Jarod, and Griff have come up short in the dating department, so they make a pact to lose their anal virginity before the summer is over. The group looks for attractive men in different spaces. Andy wants to have sex with one of his teachers, Nico goes to the internet looking for a fuck buddy, Jarod has a crush on a rival baseball player, and Griff has the hots for Jarod. In this gay parody of American Pie, sexual hijinks ensue and you can expect a lot of comedy—or so you think.

Now it depends on what you consider comedy, because this isn't it. Another Gay Movie features every film trope in the book in a desperate grab for laughs that never materialize.  If you’re brave enough to sit through this nonsense, you’ll get to see a character using a vegetable as a dildo, an aggressive lesbian who seduces all the women she sees and doesn’t believe in boundaries, in addition to racist and ableist stereotypes. Showing gays and lesbians as selfish sexual deviants isn't even funny. My expectations for this movie were low, but holy crap is it shitty.

Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! (2008)

As if the first movie wasn’t bad enough, the team from Another Gay Movie got together again for Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! in 2008. Like the first movie, your taste in what humor is and isn’t plays a part in this film.

For this go-around, our fearsome foursome Andy, Nico, Jarod, and Griff head off to Spring Break to see who can score the most sexual partners. It certainly plays into stereotypes and reinforces some toxic stereotypes within the world of gay men while trying to present itself as entertainment. The ratings for the film say everything you need to know about whether to spend any time on it or not.

Adam and Steve (2005)

The premise of Adam and Steve is relatively cute: The two meet as young men who have an embarrassing one-night-stand. They meet up again two decades later, when they are each more established in their careers. They try out dating again, but only because they don’t remember meeting before, and things get awkward once they do.

While promising and relatively entertaining, a lot of things fall flat in this film and it ultimately doesn’t pan out as the rom-com it should have been. Although perhaps not the absolute worse film on the list, it’s definitely one I wish I skipped.

Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (2006)

Well, I mean, they tried. Eating Out 2 follows a young gay man joining up with his two gal pals while they’re on the hunt to figure out the sexual orientation of a male model. The majority of the film then centers around taking the model to a seminar about “going straight” to see his reaction.

Again, I mean, they tried. The whole Eating Out series tried, and although they brought us some nice eye candy here and there, none of these films were really worth much of anything else.

Girl (2018)

Lara Verhaeghen (Victor Polster) is a 15-year-old transgender girl who longs to become a professional ballerina. When she’s accepted to a prestigious Dutch ballet school, her family decides to move closer to the school. Lara has body dysmorphia and attends regular therapy sessions to alleviate her worries about transitioning. However, her symptoms are exacerbated when hormone replacement therapy treatments are not working fast enough for her. On top of that, she’s adjusting to a new school and encountering bullies who force her to show her genitalia. Upset with life, Lara resorts to bodily harm to correct what she feels is wrong with her.

From casting to content, Lukas Dhont's Girl has a host of issues. Cis actor Victor Polster is cast to play a trans woman. This adds to a long line of casting misnomers where otherwise cis-men are cast in films to play trans women—Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, and Matt Bomer in Anything are a few examples that come to mind. The character suffers from body dysmorphia and that trauma is on full display to horrify the audience. There are several shocking moments of body horror throughout the film. For pre-op trans women, tucking their genitals is sometimes a necessity, but in Girl, she violently rips tape from her genitals. In another scene, Lara results in self-castration because she can’t get the surgery. None of these gory moments are treated with empathy and are instead used for shock value. Girl is not about exploration or discovery, but an uneducated point of view on what transitioning might be.

Port Authority (2019)

Paul (Fionn Whitehead) arrives at the Port Authority in New York City and is homeless. On his way to wander the night, he sees Wye (Lena Bloom) voguing with her house siblings and is captivated by her beauty. He moves into a city shelter and finds a young man escaping the facility after curfew and follows him to an area where LGBTQ+ people are dancing, and he sees Wye again. Paul introduces himself to Wye and love blooms between the two. Embraced by her house siblings, Paul and learns about the LGBTQ subculture of voguing and houses—however, Paul doesn’t realize Wye is a trans woman until after they've fallen in love. When he finds out, he is forced to confront his feelings and decide if he can accept her as she is, or conform to what society thinks he should ascribe to.

In the wake of popular shows like Pose (the FX series that chronicles the New York City Ball scene in the '80s and '90s), Port Authority is a deceptive piece of art that fools the audience into believing this is a film about communities of color and trans culture. Instead, this is about a white, cis character using a marginalized community he’s unfamiliar with for his personal growth. Centering him, when the group of LGBTQ+ people he is interacting with is far more fascinating, makes it clear that writer/director Danielle Lessovitz doesn’t quite understand how queer communities of color connect with the outside world. Port Authority premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival to rave, glowing reviews, but if you look at the majority of people who have reviewed the movie, it will make sense why...

Stonewall (2015)

Stonewall is a coming-of-age drama that follows gay midwestern teen Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine). His conservative parents disapprove of his homosexuality and refuse to sign his scholarship application to Columbia University. Danny flees to New York City hoping to make it on his own. When he arrives, he discovers Christopher Street, an LGBTQ wonderland. What he didn't anticipate is the level of violence this community experiences at the hands of the police, so now he must navigate the scene while staying out of trouble. His interactions with his new family lead him straight into the fight of their lives at the Stonewall riots.

The story of the Stonewall riots belongs to trans women of color, sex workers, and dissenters, not people like Danny Winters. Director Roland Emmerich, along with writer Jon Robin Baitz, create revisionist history with young, white twinks throwing the first brick at cops while people of color are relegated to the background. LGBTQ+ visibility is one thing, but representation is another, and it isn’t enough to make a film about Stonewall. There is a responsibility to tell the history of the riots accurately, which Baitz didn’t care to do. You can’t whitewash the Stonewall riots. In addition to the cinematic inaccuracies, the film is poorly written, with the stalest acting ever executed on screen.

Gigli (2003)

Gigli (Ben Affleck) is a small-time thug with a heart of gold. He’s tasked with kidnapping the Brian (Justin Bartha), the brother of a powerful federal prosecutor to force him into throwing out the case against Gigli’s mob boss. Once Gigli executes the kidnapping, he and Brian isolate themselves in a one bedroom apartment. What once seemed like a simple assignment, is turning into more than Gigli can handle. Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), a beautiful lesbian gangster is sent to make sure Gigli doesn’t screw up the mission. Amid a bad situation, the two develop feelings for one another, and Gigli begins to change his mind about committing to the thug life. 

There are many films where lesbian characters proclaim their homosexuality proudly, to turn around and fuck men for no other reason than the because the script says so. Gigli, considered one of the worst movies of all time, is guilty of perpetuating this ridiculous trope in the name of comedy. It’s not just the trope itself but the way it’s written, that’s the most egregious. Ricki goes from talking about her girlfriend nonstop to her girlfriend becoming non-existent as she falls head-over-heels in love with Gigli. Sexuality is fluid, and people are free to change their minds about their preferences whenever they like. But what makes this example particularly harmful is directed toward the cis, straight, male gaze. All of this is a fantasy trip for any man that has thoughts about getting a lesbian to change her sexuality because she finally found the "right man."