FOR YEARS NOW Bravo has been the drama department of cable channels with its high-tone movie fare and the precious celebrity-worship of “Inside the Actors Studio” hosted by the plodding, sycophantic James Lipton. It only seems logical that its programming should now have a major gay component, but while “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” gets all the attention (in this piece, too, for the most part), it may be Bravo’s other gay show, “Boy Meets Boy,” that truly leaves a notch on the bedpost of American masculinity. On this gaydar-challenge / dating show, one wholesome young gay man looking for monogamous commitment has to whittle his way through a group of prospective boyfriends, among whom are a handful of straights only pretending to be gay. Think about it: On national television right now, there are heterosexual males doing their solid best to appear homosexual as they pretend to sincerely court an actual gay man. Only at the end of their romantic candidacies as gay men will they appear for mere seconds in an interview where their sexual orientation is clarified before they return to their otherwise anonymous lives. A few years ago, it seemed remarkable that there were gay men willing to go on television and out themselves. Now there are straight men coming out of a closet they never occupied. And every time the subject of their little TV experience comes up, someone will say, “So, you’re not a gay man, but you play one on TV.”
Only “Boy Meets Boy”–despite the impressive ratings it’s garnered as the warm-up act for “Queer Eye”–is a dopey fantasy show that, for all its incidental significance, doesn’t, um, arouse much interest. “Queer Eye,” on the other hand, is pretty grabbing as it parlays catty humor and au courant sexual politics into a bubbly adaptation of the always-popular makeover specials from daytime talk shows. (In case you’ve missed the hubbub, the show is about five gay men, each an expert in one of the gay arts–grooming, cooking, fashion, culture, and interior design. Every week they assist a different, desperate straight guy.) Also, its ratings have impressed NBC enough to run the full hour-long show in the coveted “ER” slot tonight at 10 p.m. (previously the network ran a half-hour, abridged version). But will life on earth be different because of the show’s not-yet-wild success?
Will gay men be more beloved in our culture and, as a result, will gay marriage more likely become the law of the land? A conservative friend of mine loves the show and will happily quote his favorite lines from each episode. “The show’s going to make opposing gay marriage impossible,” he says. Needless to say, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas is the more significant event, but popular culture has a way of affirming or undercutting such fiats from our robed masters. In which case, a wildly successful “Queer Eye” probably would help affirm legal recognition for sexual liberty as an elementary right.
Gay men may be more beloved in our culture because of the show, by the miniature degrees of such phenomena, but only in the form of the show’s stereotype. Of course some complain (or hope) that because of the stereotype, the show is bad for gays. Which seems to me wrong. In television and other forms of pop culture, the coming and overcoming of stereotypes is the classic arc of recognition and acceptance for racial and ethnic groups. And being treated like an ethnicity is a huge step up for gays. Even if the gay stock character is theatrical and frivolous, he is also stylish, at home in the world, and knowledgeable about romantic issues.
Best of all, he is expressive: The verbal and physical comedy of “Queer Eye” are what make it entertaining, a sugary-sweet diversion. Not that the gay character can’t be mean or edgy–just the opposite. Reality shows count on him to be something of a bitch, like Simon (who insists that he’s straight) on “American Idol,” Richard on the first season of “Survivor,” and of course Carson on “Queer Eye.”
Most important, it’s the gay men on “Queer Eye” who deliver the punchlines. The straight men (so to speak) are the joke. Indeed, little concern has been shown for “Queer Eye”‘s stereotyping of heteros as ill-kempt and culturally-deprived–which is just as well, actually, since there is truth to the charge that many hetero men have no idea how to dress or decorate their homes or cook a decent meal and, besides, complaining about stereotypes is generally a wimpy–I did not say gay–thing to do.
So, the stock-in-trade of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” is stereotypes, but not in the way everyone seems to think. These are what might be called transactional stereotypes. They are consciously advanced by both straights and gays for the purpose of having a way of addressing each other. Surely there is some postmodern pop-culture professor somewhere investigating the discursive value of stereotypes as a way of peacefully transmitting and mitigating identity differences whose work I should have read before writing this piece, but since I haven’t, let me give an example from my life.
With certain people I know, I am simply the guy who works at the conservative magazine who probably believes all sorts of crazy things about cutting taxes and picking on smaller countries and whatnot. With such people–they aren’t my closest friends–I am often happy to embrace this stereotype and, well, put in a good word for tax cuts or the invasion of Iraq, both of which I favor anyway. These relationships are necessarily shallow, but they can also be pleasant and interesting in their own way as sociable encounters between otherwise opposing temperaments.
Such is the true sociological dynamic at work on “Queer Eye”: The gays make themselves out to be queens of fashion and heteros helpfully play along as their benighted charity-cases. Now, this dynamic can be interesting, but not new. This is how gays and straights, among other opposing temperaments, have talked to each other for quite a while.
Also worth noting is that the gays and straights work together to pursue romantic success for the straights. Although in many ways the gays have the upper hand, their role here is that of the classic lady-in-waiting, helping her princess (the hetero male) look beautiful, prepare her abode for her knight (wife, girlfriend, etc.), and cultivate her charms.
Sure a particularly persecution-minded observer might say, “Oh, yeah, the gays are the servants and the straights are their masters. Aha!” No, actually the only thing the show suggests about straight-gay relations is that everyone can get along and progress will be made, “one manicure at a time,” as the grooming expert told us on this week’s episode. Which is not a terrible message, just a false one.
Far from being socially important, the lesson taught by “Queer Eye” is a wee bit of fantasy plucked from the same television morality that has given us years of sentimental pap and easy bright lessons that mean absolutely nothing–or about as much as “Diff’rent Strokes” meant to race relations.
David Skinner is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
Correction appended, 8/14/03: The article originally included Simon Cowell in the list of gay reality series men. In published reports he insists that he’s straight.
