The Useless Movie Boyfriend Era Is Upon Us

Have you noticed how many boyfriends and husbands in movies this year are kind of useless? Fictional men have officially entered a female-dominated field: the underwritten love interest. From random guys with nothing to do in Disclosure Day and The Devil Wears Prada 2 to the truly loser men in Obsession and The Drama, the movies are sending women one very clear message: DUMP HIM!

Initially, the dynamic between Margaret (Emily Blunt) and her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell), in Disclosure Day is amusing. Why is she with this guy? No clue! He seems random, sure, but random in a way that a lot of us secretly think some of our friends’ choices in partners are. They’re both drifting, career-wise. He’s a good everyman foil to the supernatural things happening to Margaret. As she comes more and more into her power, however, he reveals himself to be less and less capable of dealing.

Thankfully, Margaret ditches her useless boyfriend before he becomes a real problem in Disclosure Day. The same cannot be said about The Devil Wears Prada 2. Andy’s (Anne Hathaway) random real estate boyfriend, Peter (Patrick Brammall, who is technically innocent here), doesn’t end up persona non grata like Nate in the original movie. (Well, The Independent called him a villain. Why does this keep happening?!) But he contributed nothing and still ended up with her! Booooo!!

Some 2026 movies make random, useless boyfriends the whole point. Romantic comedies like You, Me & Tuscany and People We Meet on Vacation use useless boyfriends as a plot device to make the right person clear. Then again, all of Obsession could have been avoided with one iota of communication and emotional intelligence. There’s a bit more depth to Robert Pattinson’s character, Charlie, in The Drama, but at his lowest, he’s just kind of useless. Stand up for Zendaya!

This year even had a random, useless boyfriend husband plucked from classic literature. How good was Shazad Latif at playing the Wrong Guy in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights?! Edgar Linton personified the adage that money, while very nice and comfortable, can’t buy true happiness. He wasn’t cruel—or creepy—to Margot Robbie’s Cathy. In a movie full of vulgar images, he was only a little bit gross. (I won’t forget the skin-colored wallpaper.…) He was just not right for her or helpful and was ultimately just in the way.

And circling back to Zendaya, I just know that MJ is going to have a random, useless boyfriend in Spider-Man: Brand New Day before she inevitably gets back together with Peter Parker (Tom Holland). I literally have a spidey sense for it.

Is this…feminism? For years, the role of annoying, drippy significant other belonged almost exclusively to women. You don’t hear the phrase “nagging husband” that often. In fact, movies have often preferred making their heroines single rather than saddling them with a boyfriend who’s just there—this weekend’s Supergirl is no exception. Have movie boyfriends finally broken the wet blanket glass ceiling? Should it be a glass floor in this metaphor? Whatever! I’ll take equality where I can get it.