Drive Away Dolls (2024)

Quick quiz! What do the following films have in common?

• Friends With Benefits 

• No Strings Attached

• Drive Away Dolls

If your answer is they all came out in 2011, you are SO CLOSE. The real answer is that all of these movies serve as a notch on the belt of compulsory-monogomy-as-a-symptom-of-capitalism.

It came as no surprise in the first two films, which warned us in the trailer that it is scientifically impossible for human people to have sex without falling in love, that the hot protagonists who had sex (trigger warning: absolute shock) do end up falling in love.

But while watching the trailer for Drive Away Dolls, I had the audacity to hope. 

There is a plot, but as the silly goosey tones of the film indicate- it is entirely unimportant. What is important are our protagonists! Our hot, queer (not masterfully developed- but I don’t care because of the aforementioned monikers of “hot” & “queer”) protagonists who have been friendly-ly fucking for the entirety of the third act announce that they are heading to Massachusates to get gay married. Is there a term for queer baiting, but when the characters are, in fact, queer, but not AS QUEER as I want them to be? Well here we have it folks! I found myself to be the crestfallen victim of queer-er baiting. 

*If at this point you wonder whether I am getting paid by usage of the word “queer”...  

you are MISTAKEN because I am not getting paid at all! Take that, sucker!

I just want to live in a world or, by gawd, pay money to be transported for a tight eighty-four minutes to a world in which hot, queer friends can go on a zany road trip and share intimate moments of steamy sex because they just fucking feel like it and they are just friends who fuck! Is this too much to ask for?! 

I know what you are thinking. Yes! That is too much to ask for, you greedy bitch! Because Justin Timberlake taught me in 2011 that there is no such thing as “just sex”. 

Okay- but he was trying to do “just sex” with Natalie Mthfkn Portland, so that is not generalizable data. Also- they were straight and therefore unimaginative. Forgive me, heteros, I am sure you have rich innerlandscapes. My point is: I did not expect Justin and Natalie to be able to navigate the fluidity of a romantic friendship, but when both parties are queer and at least one is so utterly without a bra that she no longer nightmares about underwire pain- when THOSE BITCHES start friendly-ly fucking on a roadtip with a set end date and destination, uh…yeah, you can say I had high hopes.

Let me be entirely clear with y’all. I did not dislike this movie. I was along for the proverbial ride! The 2004 PowerPoint slide transitions between scenes? Loved ‘em! The arguably too long groovy acid flashback moments? Totally here for them. They could’ve been longer, I say!

We were rooting for you, Drive Away Dolls! We were all rooting for you!

It almost brings me back to the devastating moment I had to leave the theater while watching a movie I was so entirely prepared to unabashedly stan, Dear Evan Hansen. A queer movie review I will never be strong enough to write.

But I digress.

My point is: I am the ideal audience for this shit. I was so down, it was ridiculous. But, as my therapist told me, I need to stand up for myself. So I wrote this letter to tell you, Drive Away Dolls, that you hurt my gay little feelings. I don’t blame you. It is who you were made to be, but I will need to take some time.