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.”
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