“Every party has a pooper…”
FRANCK, FATHER OF THE BRIDE PART II (1995)
There’s eccentric, and then there’s Martin Short as Franck Eggelhoffer in the ’90s classics Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II. The performance, in my opinion, is one of the all-time greatest, an overlooked comedic role for the ages. Every year, when award nominations come out, I get upset about the iconic roles that get snubbed, sometimes because the movies themselves aren’t great, and other times because the actors don’t subscribe to the politics of award season. Either way, Martin Short’s on-screen presence will be remembered long after most of the dramatic recipients receive their gold statues. And so will Regina Hall’s performance in the Scary Movie franchise, Jennifer Elise Cox and Christine Taylor in the Brady Bunch movies, Anna Faris in everything, Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Joan Cusack in Addams Family Values, and so on. These roles may not be the most awarded, but they will all live on in memes and GIFs for an eternity, with gay men on the internet ensuring that they are never forgotten.
Franck is a personal favorite of mine for many reasons, first and foremost because those movies are comfort food in film form. Watching the Nancy Meyers/Charles Shyer flicks feels like wrapping yourself in a blanket of love on a cozy evening. When my anxiety is high, I simply need to turn on the Steve Martin movie for an instant boost of endorphins.
When I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot of gay representation in media. One of the reasons I think it took me so long to come out is because I didn’t see many examples of people living healthy and successful lives as out homosexuals within scripted media. When there were gay characters in film and TV, they often felt like stereotypes or the butt of the joke.
I did sketch comedy at a very popular theater in Los Angeles during my twenties, and I wrote a scene with a straight male. The two of us were playing coworkers at a company holiday party, and we couldn’t figure out a way to wrap up the scene. Someone suggested that the two characters kiss at the end of the sketch, not because they were in love, but because it felt like the easiest way to go out on a laugh. I didn’t want to do it, but I never spoke up and we eventually performed the lip-lock in front of a huge audience. The moment the straight actor kissed me on the lips, the crowd erupted in laughter. The sexuality became the punchline. And this was in the 2010s! They laughed because audiences have been trained to equate straight men kissing other men with comedy, whether it be on SNL when John Krasinski kissed Pete Davidson during his 2021 monologue or back in the ’90s when the movie In & Out had Kevin Kline and Tom Selleck smooch for giggles. It’s exhausting.
The Franck character is never officially revealed to be gay in Father of the Bride, which raises a different set of issues. Characters were frequently coded as gay because studios worried that making them outright homosexuals would be too much for viewers to handle, and many times these characterizations were written by straight people. Our community had to settle for scraps. Franck had no romantic subplot and although his assistant, played by B.D. Wong, feels like a boyfriend or partner to the audience, it’s never stated as such. Even so, I still read the character as homosexual, and in this film, all the qualities that I would normally cringe at in a gay character from the era, I loved. The nuance that Martin brought transcended all the stereotyped flamboyance and gave us the most memorable role in that movie. He was messy, dramatic, had an indistinguishable accent, and favored extravagance, but it was impossible to walk away from that film not adoring Franck.
Detour
There’s another F-R-A-N who has had a big impact on me…of course, I’m talking about Fran Drescher. The Nanny is everything to me: style guide, life guru, and a fictional character who can single-handedly save me from my own neuroses. Fran has also always been a wonderful LGBTQ+ ally. Aside from being a flawless role for Ms. Drescher, the theme song is…the greatest television theme song of all time. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules.
My appendix burst recently, and moments after arriving at the ER, a doctor told me I would need surgery to have it removed. I don’t love surgery, to put it lightly. As someone who is already anxious enough, the idea of cutting me open to remove an organ is…not great. Luckily, they have drugs for people like me. Before they brought me in for the anesthesia, they loaded me with morphine and some other concoction that can only be described as heavenly. Just as the meds were kicking in, my nurses were switching shifts. As high as I was, I was still scared about going into the operating room all alone. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go in solo, as one of the employees clocking in was a young woman named Fran, who swooped in and held my hand tight as I waited impatiently.
“Hi, I’m Fran, I’ll be your nurse for the rest of the night,” she said.
“Fran! I LOVE Fran!” I replied to a woman I’d never met. “Do you watch The Nanny?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
Fran the nurse wheeled me into the operating room, where she continued to hold my hand as I met the anesthesiologist. Everything from that point on is a blur, but when I came to after they removed my appendix, Fran told me I was an A-plus patient.
“Normally when we give patients anesthesia, we have them count down from ten until they pass out. You didn’t do any counting, but you did get halfway through The Nanny theme song—the part about style and flair—”
“She was there!” I shouted, still high as a kite.
I’m forever grateful to Fran the nurse, and all nurses, who work so tirelessly to make patients feel comfortable during those terrifying moments when we’re sick and fragile inside the hospital walls. Furthermore, I’m grateful to Fran Drescher for creating a character who is so comforting in times of need. In a full circle moment, I got a chance to tell Fran about my hospital story when she came on my show. Her warmth and humor heals.
All that’s to say I love Martin Short’s character and his energy. About twice a year, I rewatch the flicks and fall in love all over again. Last time I did, I walked around for about a week after shouting, “Hall-ooo!” in the cadence of my fave wedding planner, or “Motha and daughta are prognont togetha? Get out of town!” I’d do the impression for anyone who would listen, and turns out not everyone is amused by my character work.
I’m not sure if any of you have ever had pre-workout drink, a devil’s powder that I can only assume is filled with a mix of caffeine, Pixy Stix, and crack cocaine, designed to give consumers the energy to lift a car when they arrive at their local Planet Fitness. For months, I had been taking a couple scoops of pre-workout before going to a group fitness class held in a dark room where they played Dua Lipa remixes for an hour. I noticed the drink was not good for someone like me who suffers from anxiety, but I still wanted something to give me a jolt before the class. Enter pre-workout gummies. Nowadays they make everything in gummy form: vitamins, melatonin, weed. The gym I went to offered me a pack of these specific gummies for $6.99, but one day they had someone giving away free samples, so I threw them in my bag and saved them for when I needed them.
One Saturday morning, I had signed up for my class (nonrefundable) and had a little mini hangover from some bed wine the night before but otherwise was in a great mood. I wish I could say that I spent Friday getting wild with some friends, but the truth is, I put a face mask on for self-care (#FaceMaskFriday), opened the bed wine while the mask dried, and then accidentally fell asleep with the mask still on. Tale as old as time. Regardless, my mini hangover was enough to dissuade me from going to the class I signed up for, and coffee wasn’t doing it, so I grabbed my pre-workout energy gummies and shoved the entire pack in my mouth. I should’ve read the packaging. Turns out you’re supposed to take one to two gummies thirty to sixty minutes before the workout. I got the timing right, but I took the entire package, which was ten to twelve actual gummies. Whooooooo! I was…A LOT. The energy hit me hard and almost immediately.
My drive to the gym was INTENSE as I sang the Pussycat Dolls’ greatest hits and some ’90s rap at the tippy top of my lungs. My BPM was about 574, and I began sweating more than I ever have at an actual workout. Furthermore, I’m already a terrible driver, but a mouthful of energy gummies turned me into a dangerous presence on the road. The good news is that I was alert, the bad news is that my hands were shaking, and I wanted to drive as fast as humanly possible. I was also running late, so I was texting my friend to let him know I was running late and to reserve my spot.
NEVER TEXT AND DRIVE. It’s so incredibly dangerous, and I’m lucky nothing happened other than I eventually I ran a red light. It’s no excuse, but I had no control over anything by this point due to the devil’s candy. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. A cop saw me and turned on his lights, signaling for me to pull over.
I was scared, still shaking.
“You had your cell phone out,” the officer said right when I rolled down my window.
“I’m so sorry, I—”
“And your head was bouncing everywhere,” he added.
“I know, I’m sorry, I was doing some bad rapping. I’m embarrassed.”
He tilted his head, raised his brows out of the top of his aviator sunglasses, and looked me right in my twitching eyes.
“I haven’t done any bad wrapping since Christmas,” he said, just missing a bad um chhh sound effect.
I took this to believe that he and I now had a rapport. He made a little gift wrap joke, and although he didn’t smile after he said it, it was definitely a joke, right? It was enough for me to exhale for the first time since I saw his lights going off.
“Can I see your license and registration?” he asked.
I handed the man my license and searched my glove compartment for my registration. There were papers everywhere, a stack of things I shoved inside. My car is a hot mess, so he stood there, waiting for me to find the forms. After what felt like forty-five minutes, I finally found my registration, and because I thought we had a comedic relationship, I let out a very loud and aggressive, “Haallll-oooo!” a la Franck Eggelhoffer.
He gave me a familiar look, one that said, “What the F are you doing?”
“That’s my Franck,” I explained.
“Who?” he asked.
“From Father of the Bride. Franck.”
No response. He simply walked away and wrote up my ticket. Maybe I should’ve written him a ticket for not knowing Father of the Bride. I never made it to the workout class, instead deciding I already missed too much of it and my time would be better spent going home to watch a movie. As I looked at my collection, I noticed there were more options of flicks with LGBTQ+ characters than there were back when I first watched Martin Short as Mr. Eggelhoffer, characters who were allowed to be outright homosexuals and sometimes even the star of their own stories. Still, I wonder when there will be a big budget action movie with a gay lead, or an animated feature with lesbians who have more than one line of dialogue. I feel for all the minorities who have yet to see themselves as the heroes and villains and wedding planners and stylish nannies onscreen. I’ll continue to plead and fight for more robust representation, and in the meantime, I’ll celebrate the Francks and Frans we’ve loved along the way.