Does He Have a Brother?

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    "Tell me more, tell me more, could she get me a friend?"
    —Grease, "Summer Nights"

    One of the romantic Stock Phrases. Often spoken by a character to indicate that she finds someone attractive, but doesn't want to actually pursue him because he's already in a relationship, usually with one of the character's friends. Of course, this question assumes that the siblings are exactly the same. Can also be gender reversed, and if spoken by men about a woman, it's often Those Two Guys saying it. These days it's also likely to be spoken by the Camp Gay in reaction to a straight man he finds attractive.

    The ultimate outcome of this trope may be Settle for Sibling or Double In-Law Marriage, depending on the context.

    Examples of Does He Have a Brother? include:

    Advertising

    • Jared, a chain of jewelry stores runs commercials featuring two young women reading text/photo messages from a friend while she's on a date. Their reactions: "Aw, he bought her flowers." "They went to Chez Francois!", and the last one, following a photo of a piece of diamond jewelry, "He went to JARED!" The ad cuts to the couple in the restaurant with the woman showing her date a photo on her phone of the two friends with the message "Does he have brothers?"

    Comic Books

    Film

    Rayburn: Mariana!... Obey me, and I will love you.
    Creasy: So that's how it works, huh?
    Rayburn: That's how it works.
    [Mariana brings Rayburn his drink]
    Creasy: Does she have a sister?

    • Black Widow (1987). The female undercover agent discovers that Femme Fatale Catherine's next potential victim is handsome and incredibly rich.

    "Does he have a brother? Cousin? Young grandfather?"

    Councilwoman: Then WHO, Mr. Pleakly, do you recommend for Experiment 626's capture?!
    Pleakly: ...Does he have a brother? (Councilwoman rolls her eyes) Close grandmother, perhaps?

    • As Charlotte finds out, Prince Naveen actually does have a brother. He's six and a half.
    • In Revenge of the Nerds II, Poindexter is talking with a gorgeous woman by the pool. Two of his fellow nerds accost him on the way to get her a drink, and the gay one tells him to "find out if she's got a brother!" (Unfortunately, what none of them seem to have noticed is that the 'woman' in question is a cardboard cutout.)
    • Absurdly, this provides the solution to the tangled double-love triangle in The Palm Beach Story.

    Literature

    • Older Than Print: A cross-gender example in Tale of Genji occurs when Genji finds himself shot down by Utsusemi and more or less decides that her younger brother looks enough like her to... well, you can guess. Back then, this wasn't that rare with the nobles.
    • In Lois McMaster Bujold's Komarr, Miles Vorkosigan meets the married Ekaterin Vorsoisson, and falls for her; he tells himself to ask if she has a sister.
      • In the following A Civil Campaign, Miles's cousin Ivan asks the same of Ekaterin, who is now either in mourning for her late husband or involved with Miles, or both.
    • Talon Karrde keeps quipping about just how handsomely Han Solo was rewarded for showing his altruist side. When the subject comes to Han eventually marrying Leia as "his biggest reward" :

    Karrde: I don't suppose she has a sister?
    Solo: Not that I know of. Though with the Skywalker family you never know.

    Live Action Television

    • In Spin City, one of the ladies is talking about a guy she's dating. Apparently, he's charming, friendly, etc. Carter, the gay guy, asks:

    Carter: Does he have a gay brother?
    Woman: I don't think so. Why?
    Carter: Because I'm a gay brotha.

    Jack: Does he have a gay brother? Or even better, does he have a straight brother who drinks?

    JJ: Please don’t tell me you have a crush on a fictional character.
    Garcia: He’s not fictional. He’s the online alter-ego of a real person.
    JJ: Hmmm, you don’t even know anything about him, even if it is…him.
    Garcia: Look, we meet online at specified times that he is never late to. We spend hours adventuring and chatting during which time I have his undivided attention and he lavishes me with flattery. When was the last time you had a date go that well?
    JJ: See if he’s got a fictional brother.

    • In Friends, after Phoebe finds out that the gay man she's been attracted to for years is straight, but taken:

    Phoebe: So, your brother's straight, huh? ... No, seriously.

    • On How I Met Your Mother Barney and his brother exploit this to help each other pick up women/gay men respectively.
    • A Saturday Night Live skit is on the topic of why women find assholes so alluring, when an audience member bolts up and starts acting as the world's premiere assholes. The women on the panel swoon; Nora Dunn, playing a man-hating lesbian sociologist leans in and asks "Do you have a sister?"

    Theater

    • An interesting use of the line occurs in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing when Beatrice (who has a Will They or Won't They? relationship with Benedick) is flirting with Prince Don Pedro. After indirectly implying that she's interested in him, Beatrice adds, "Hath Your Grace ne'er a brother like you?" While this can be played as straight flirtation, the implication is generally along the lines of "I didn't mean you!"
      • It's actually rather sweet, when taken in context with everything else that gets said. What she tells him is that she wouldn't marry him unless she could have another husband "for working days - Your Grace is too costly to wear every day." In other words, she thinks he's too good for her. He understands that she's complimenting him with the whole thing, and takes it well, calling her "a pleasant-spirited lady."

    Video Games

    • In Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay, when Anemone talks about Winslow after repairing the mast of the Screaming Narwhal, s/he says, "Your man Mr. Winslow took care of the bill. Nice guy, that Reggie. Does he have a cousin?" This indicates the start of Anemone's relationship with Winslow, which later blossoms in Chapter 5.

    Western Animation

    • In Futurama, Leela says this about a dummy (as in a wire model) used by a romance corporation to test pickup lines. The line it used was "My two favorite things are commitment and changing myself."
    • In the Corpse Bride, after Victor is dragged down to the afterlife, one of the corpse women asks, "Does he have a dead brother?"
    • The House of Mouse episode in which The Three Caballeros are performing features this variation:

    Daisy Duck: Are you guys here for the Three Candelabras' show? In case you didn't know, I'm dating the Third Candelabra. You know it's Donald Duck, right?
    Lumiere: Does he have a sister?

    • In "Batman: The Animated Series," when Harvey Dent asks Bruce Wayne what he thinks of his girlfriend Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy), Bruce responds, "Does she have a sister?"
    • Parodied in The Critic. Jay Sherman and his best friends twin sister are in a planetarium, before Woody Allen interrupts them

    Woody Allen: Jay, she's fantastic. Does she have a daughter?


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