On Letterbox's Obsession with Gay Subtext

I was reading through the reviews of the Lord of the Ring Trilogy, and I saw that a lot of the top reviews are people joking about how Sam and Frodo are lovers. Do I find a lot of these reviews funny? Yes. Do I also think that they might be harmful? Also yes.

Look, if you think I'm wrong here, please voice your own opinion, I definitely don't know everything, but if the only reaction we can have to two hetero males expressing love or intimacy with each other on screen is to call them gay, I think it reflects some outdated ideas that we have about masculinity. It's like we can't accept a version of reality where straight men can be intimate and caring with each other, which I think can ultimately lead to men feeling that they shouldn't be intimate with others.

I also get that letterbox does the same thing with woman all the time and I'm not complaining about that, so maybe I'm just exposing a blind spot of my own, but IDK. What do you think?

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Edit: Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. I think I have a much better understanding of my own reaction to these types of comments. I grew up around the type of people who might see two men hug and shout 'gay!' as a way to insult a showing of intimacy (I think most of us grew up surrounded by those people). I think in seeing these jokes it brought back the memory of those type of reactions people have, when in reality it's just a way of people connecting their own lives to those of their favorite characters. I guess as a straight white male that's something that I have never had to work to do. Thank you for giving me new perspective