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Ted and John catch up over a few beers in ‘Ted 2’, Universal Pictures and Media Rights Capital’s follow-up to the highest-grossing original R-rated comedy of all time.

When it was released in 2012, Ted was an anomaly. Despite being a gross-out buddy comedy of epic proportions (masterminded, so to speak, by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane), the movie attempted – in its own offensive way – to redefine the meaning of male friendship.

Yes, it was sexist, homophobic, racist and anything else you could expect from two characters defined by their drug use, deadbeat lifestyles and inability to grow up. But despite being trapped in one of the worst movies to exist in recent memory, Ted and his human pal John (Mark Wahlberg) still had, well, heart.

This isn't easy to admit, especially since Ted 2 goes on to explore the complexities of male friendships with all the finesse of a drunken frat boy during pledge week. But where Ted celebrated male friendship by sprinkling moments of vulnerability among its digs at sex workers and the mentally ill, Ted 2 dials it back by prioritizing Ted's relationship with John.

In the new film, John needs to help prove that Ted is human and/or not property (ugh), so to do that successfully, we need to see them connect in a real way to believe it ourselves. That's why we witness Ted emotionally support John, post-divorce, and then see John go to great lengths to find Ted a sperm donor – all between real talk about love and what makes someone real. Although these moments take place in a terrible, upsetting, nonsensical movie, they still deliver the important message that male friendship is about more than just playing wingman. So, evidently, Ted is a reflection of our times.

When Ted came out three years ago, we were coming off an era of man caves and bromances. Movies such as Old School, Wedding Crashers and The Hangover series celebrated the hijinks of what happens when dudes are unleashed – ball-and-chain-free – on the town. It was the age of the "boys will be boys" approach to comedy, with growth of the characters and their relationships being eclipsed by one-liners hurled at the expense of women, non-participatory men or the idea of sensitivity in general.

But by 2013, the dynamic had begun to change. The release of The Hangover Part III was met more with a face palm than it was with applause, and that same year This Is the End focused on repairing the friendship between Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel's characters in the wake of the apocalypse. Even action films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, X Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier preached the importance of familial-like male friendship over snark or masculinity overdoses.

Yet we're now at risk of falling into yet another cinematic rut. This spring's Hot Tub Time Machine 2 earned dismal reviews following the original's warm reception back in 2010, while the big-screen version of Entourage seemed like an extended Saturday Night Live sketch in which we watched a posse of men race around Hollywood, unable to grow or emote. But Hollywood's intent to actively dismantle the myth of male masculinity and the romanticization of bro culture is real (who didn't sob at the end of Furious 7?), which is why Ted 2 has now tried to up its game, the only way it knows how.

Aside from the jokes about women, gay people, transgender people and people of colour (and this is off the top of my head), Ted and John's friendship is built on a type of vulnerability you wouldn't have seen in the late 2000s. Ted wants to have children, and John offers to donate his sperm. Ted isn't seen as a person, and John fights actively to prove otherwise. Even in the end, during a moment of peril, both openly shed tears, while waxing poetic about what the other friend means to them.

Does this mean Ted 2 is a good movie? Well, it's a movie that was made and now exists, that's for sure. But if even a writer and actor such as MacFarlane can give these two-dimensional, crude and unlikeable characters a friendship that's built on emotional expression and communication, the tide is arguably turning. This is a good thing: Male movie characters deserve more than just high fives, fist bumps and pickup-artist-like encouragement. They deserve to have real friendships.

Even though real friends don't bring real friends to see Ted 2.

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