What's so gay about "Bride Wars"?

Michael Arden and Kate Hudson prepare for battle (Pics courtesy 20th Century Fox) 

Any movie that's about two female BFFs (Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson) getting into a knock-out-drag-down battle royale over competing weddings has to have at least a drop of queer content, right?

Well, yes and no — find out all the spoiler-ish goods on Bride Wars, after the jump!

Bride Wars tells the story of lifelong chums Emma (Hathaway) and Liv (Hudson). All their lives, they've dreamed of getting married at the Plaza Hotel in June, but now that each has gotten engaged, they discover that the only June date available will put their nuptials in direct opposition. Their friendship goes out the window as each tries to destroy the other's wedding, in the hopes of getting her rival to move her big day to another day and venue.

So where's the gay in all this? Michael Arden co-stars as Kevin, Liv's can-do assistant. After she loses Emma's friendship — and because all of Emma and Liv's friends refuse to take sides — Kevin becomes Emma's "mister of honor," helping her plan her wedding (and sabotage Emma's) with ruthless efficiency. Basically, he's the type-A, hyper-organized male secretary who's been reading as vaguely gay in the movies since the 1930s.

At least Bride Wars brings things out in the open (and this is the spoiler-ish part, so stop reading now if you don't want to know). At the climactic reception, a drunk girl comes up to Kevin and asks, "Are you single?" When he says he is, she follows up with, "Are you straight?" When he responds, "I don't like labels," she lunges at him and kisses him passionately, sweeping him off-camera and off-screen for the rest of the movie.

If Arden looks familiar with a clipboard in his band and a Bluetooth in his ear, it's because he played a similar role as Parker Posey's assistant on Fox's short-lived The Return of Jezebel James. He's also played lots of queer roles on and off-Broadway, principally in Bare and Swimming in the Shallows, and he wrote a gay love duet, "N and R," for a Matthew Shepard Foundation benefit concert. You can learn more about the performer on his website, and West-coasters can check out Arden in the revival of Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum, running through mid-March.