I'm having a hard time defending this film and Armand and Albert's relationship as being anything other than a transfer of a heterosexual relationship.
Albert does a fantastic job at replicating many stereotypes of women in heterosexual relationships. From the beginning scene, he is complaining about being old, fat, and unlovable, and it only continues to go downhill from there. If anything, if he is trying to act out female, his representation is damaging to both gay men and all women by implying that the femme man in a gay relationship always acts like a female (and that one of the two in the relationship must be femme), and that by acting female, all women act this particular way and ascribes specific acts and characteristics to "female". He is obviously the lesser of the two in a relationship. He isn't as smart as Armand. He seems to be clueless or uncaring about many things, especially important issues. He's hysterical about everything. He's jealous and insecure. He whines frequently about almost everything. He pouts and throws tantrums and storms out of room in a sobbing huff. He is all around a weaker person than Armand.
The only positive thing I noted in the film was the sense of community and understanding between anyone who was queer in the film. And also, in terms of the director supporting gay marriage, I thought the film was a testament to real love that anti-gay activists like to say cannot exist in queer relationships. It showed that not only could they maintain a marriage, but they also raised a son (who I couldn't stand, btw) and rallied around him when he needed them.
Very harsh critique but I liked reading it. While I enjoyed the film, I have to agree with your points and the shortcomings of the movie. Albert's female stereotypes can be especially frustrating. Hopefully audiences saw it as the over-the-top spoof it was and did not assume all LGBT relationships are this way, where one man must always be overly feminine. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, if that's who the couple wants to be naturally, but I would hate to think non-queer audiences used that depiction to further their stereotypes. It probably didn't help, that's for sure.
Also great point about the strong sense of community - one of the reasons I'm most proud to be LGBT. I think one thing the film got right was its use of 'We Are Family.' Even though its use is very obvious and in your face, it gets across the point that due to discrimination and hardships, sometimes other members of the community are the only family some LGBT folks have, and we will always support one another.
I had forgotten about Albert complaining about how old and fat he is and I think that's a great and overlooked example of all the ways in which Nathan Lane exuded femme humor into his character. I disagree that this is offensive to women. I think that most women would actually find these self-deprecating jokes humorous, and most likely true of most women no matter how old or fat they are. A 19 year old girl that's anorexic and only weighs 100 pounds would still probably bitch about how old and fat she is... I think it's just a way for women to fish around for compliments lol at least that's what I do (on rare occasions :)I do agree for sure that the camaraderie between the queer people in the film was very heart-warming and it really seemed that they could count on each other for anything which I thought was really nice.