The Fab Fifteen

[Will]

Last night's think-I'll-watch-TV-for-a-while turned out to be a historic moment in popular culture for me. At one and the same moment, "Boy Meets Boy" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" were running simultaneously on two different channels. I couldn't believe I was sitting there, switching back and forth between two shows that focus on gay men. It was sort of reality-bending, in fact.

 

Because of our discussion the other day about "Queer Eye," I watched it more closely than I had before. The object of the Fab Five's gaze this time was a self-styled Virginia cowboy (there is no such animal) so good-looking, so sweet, and so naively vain that he could have convinced me he was gay. The first thing I noticed is an age difference. The Fab Five are, for the most part, into their thirties, some of them quite far along. The Straight Guy was in his twenties; as in the other two episodes I'd seen, the gay guys were helping the straight guy impress his girlfriend. In other words, the five gay men were sort of substitutes for the woman. In that way, they vicariously put themselves in the position of teaching the straight man how to please them. What's more, I think that not all of the Fab 5 are so stereotypical as we thought. True, there aren't any butch queens, but two or three of those men are just plain guys.

 

"Boy Meets Boy," foolish and disgusting as its premise is, seemed to me no more foolish or disgusting than any of those other hook-up "reality" shows. (How many of us IN REALITY look like James, and get to pick one of fifteen eager contestants for a date?) There, the age group tends towards the younger set. Yes, James is 33; but most of his suitors are in their twenties. And gorgeous. And turned out to look as though they had been prepped by a stylist for a gay magazine.

 

Neither one of these shows represents gay life as I have actually known or experienced it myself. But I'm an old fart. What about you guys who are still in your twenties and thirties? Does either one of these shows seem to be a realistic glimpse into your or your friends' lives?

[TotallyOz]

Well, I did watch both. I also had about 4 twinks at my home during this time. (Big Brother night and we are all fans) They were mostly 19-21 years old. Not only did they watch the shows and giggle and laugh but they watched them again when they did the repeats later that night. I was shocked. I saw the Fab 5 do the makeover and said, "OK, this is cute." But, for me that was about it. The twinks on the other hand thought it was fun and enjoyable and can't wait to see it again.

 

I guess I am an old fart because after we watched them once, I tried to turn to a good old western, and got screams and yells from everyone. OK. OK. It is not for me, but there are others that seem to love it.

[HooBoy]

When I find where I put my Yellow Brick Roadmap, can I watch TV at your place, Oz?

 

[Doug69]

>In other words, the five gay men

>were sort of substitutes for the woman.

 

Awesome - glad this show is doing such great things for gay people - depicting us as "substitutes for the woman" and all.

 

Great things will start to happen once America realizes that what gay men are, and the function we serve, is to be "substitutes for the woman."

 

Straight men can turn to us for advice when dealing with women, because we identify with and understand women, because it's what we basically are. "Substitutes for the woman." Bless this show and its uplifting, enlightening impact.

[Guest Kenny021]

My take on the two shows:

 

The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a show about 5 "queens"...some are not that effeminate but NONE are very butch either. The show is pitched at straight people who are suppose to get a few laughs from the "carryings on" of the gays. A couple of them make Jack on Will and Grace look butch. The concept of completely making over a straight guy is funny for all of 5 minutes. I don't particularly enjoy queens carrying on and don't find anything entertaining about this show. I don't feel that I want to see any more episodes of this show.

 

Boy Meets Boy fared somewhat better but again, pitched at straight people. It follows the concept of the straight reality shows like "The Bachelor", "Bachelorette", or any of the other similar shows. The guy who is doing the "picking" is cute and appears to be a nice guy but there aren't 30 seconds on the whole hour that he isn't flashing those teeth and SMILING. The contentants for the most part are all attractive, some more than others. One of the better looking hunks (the blond actor)immediately states that he has a boyfriend but that "they are in an open relationship"...that ought to get him far.

The "girlfriend", in my opinion, is something we can do without.All in all, it's an ok show that provides marginal entertainment but one can't help but feel that the whole thing is so staged that there isn't one spontaneous moment when they don't know they are on camera.

 

This, from someone of my generation...an old fart.

[TotallyOz]

Hoo, you are always welcome. There is a wicked witch as a doorperson during the day, but nights are normally safe.

[jackhammer91406]

Leave reality at the door

 

Well, for what it's worth, (the value will be less to some than others), I think the two shows break ground in television. The most important thing about a "gay night" on a channel that is more available than HBO or SHOWTIME, is that it begins what I hope will be an opening up of gay television on a wider scale. If all you can say is " tired sterotypes" and "queeny gay men", then you miss the point. How do the characters on WILL & GRACE, or QUEER AS FOLK differ, please tell me. They are stereo types of course. NO DIFFERENCE, and in the case of QAF, despite the eye candy, the types are much more damaging.

The more producers experiment with shows that skew towards gay men and women, or even try to depict a safe interaction between str8 and gay, the better it is for all of us. After all, sooner or later , they will move into more realistic characters in drama, comedy etc. hopefully. I think the backlash reaction by some may be accurate in it's specifics, but may, in the long run, hurt the development of gay themed programming. give it a rest and give it a chance.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

According To My Stalker, Donnie

 

>This, from someone of my generation...an old fart.

 

I am already an old fart or at least an old fart in serious training.

 

I have seen episodes of Queer Eye with MY twinks, albeit only 2 and only one of them is under 21. They did enjoy the portions of the three episodes we watched (we have yet to watch one from beginning to end) but my take on that is simple: I am harder to please and want more wit and charm in my entertainment whereas when you see what passes for sitcoms and sketch comedy on television, it is in my eyes very predictable and uninteresting. Personally, we have all gotten more interested in the make over of the apartment than the make over of the straight man.

 

I caught the last part of Boy Meets Boy. The girlfriend is unnecessary but probably makes the show more palatable to a straight audience as does the female host, whom I find more annoying. The fact that some of the date candidates are straight is my biggest problem. Speaking of which, straight men cannot have GAYDAR, that would be an oxymoron. Beyond that I would comment I do not watch these shows with straight people so why watch it just because the people are gay?

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Does either one of these shows seem to be a

>realistic glimpse into your or your friends' lives?

 

The new episode of 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' certainly was. I'm glad they were smart enough to tackle a different kind of challenge -- a straight guy who's already gorgeous, already has a pretty good sense of style and whose apartment already looked pretty good, if a bit Spartan. Because, at first glance, it didn't seem like there was all that much work to do, it made the final results all the more impressive. But more importantly it diversified the straight guy pool by presenting a straight man who already had a lot of hair care products and already had strong ideas about what to do about them. (I think it's great that next week they've got a burly black man who, at least judging from the glimpse in the previews, doesn't look like much of a slob either.)

 

I didn't see the Fab 5's role as that of replacing women at all, but rather serving as that of a sort of cultural go-between. It is not stereotyping at all, but rather a simple acknowledgement of a broad social phenomenon, to point out that many gay men have a bond with straight women and have insights into what they look for in men and how they think. However, since they themselves are men, they also have insights into how straight guys think, and are thus in a unique position to be able to help the sexes bridge their communication gaps. So much of what they're teaching, apart fromt the aesthetics, is about giving the guys insights into how to be a little more considerate as to how the women feel. It's not a rare thing in San Francisco for a straight guy -- especially one in his twenties -- to consult his gay friends about things like this, because they genuinely value the perspective and relate to it enough to accept and want to apply the new information. I do think images of this kind of supportive relationship between gays and straights are helpful at a time when a backlash is hitting and the country is dividing again on the subject of gay rights.

 

As for "Boy Meets Boy," I have to say it was a little too "Will and Grace" meets reality TV for my taste. I mean, having the straight girl best friend not only on the show, which would be fine, but practically the co-pilot of this little enterprise is just too much! It makes him look like he can't make his own decisions, though I will acknowledge that he did kick out the straight guy that she had given her lei to, so at least he's got some independence (VERY interesting that he's looking for monogamy but let the guy with the boyfriend stay). But he sounds like he's looking for someone to take care of him.

 

I watched this show with my ex-boyfriend, and we did sort of enjoy it, but the way you enjoy a show mostly by heckling it. It definitely stirred up our desire for mischief -- we want the suitors to start hooking up with each other, for example -- and while I'd hate to wish the lead guy failure in his quest for "love at first sight," I have to admit I do wish for choppy waters. That's just the effect this show has on me: it makes me want to see some drama.

[woodlawn]

RE: Leave reality at the door

 

>I think the two shows break ground in

>television.

 

More or less. But "Boy Meets Boy" is not the first dating show on advertiser-supported television to feature gay contestants. MTV had a dating show that occasionally featured gay contestants in the 90's, and the network currently has another dating show called "Dismissed" that has included both gay and lesbian contestants.

 

 

>If all you can say is " tired sterotypes"

>and "queeny gay men", then you miss the point.

 

For some people that is the point. I agree with Kenneth Duberstein's remark (quoted in yesterday's Times) that the makeover show assigns gay men to the same stereotypical roles in which society traditionally places them. I suppose reasonable people can disagree on which alternative is better for the gay community -- not having gays depicted on television at all, or having them depicted in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes. African-Americans have been in the midst of the same disagreement for many years (this is the basic theme of the films "Hollywood Shuffle" and "Bamboozled").

 

>After all, sooner or later , they will move into more realistic

>characters in drama, comedy etc. hopefully.

 

Hopefully that is true. But I will point out that the television movie "An Early Frost" depicted gay men in a way that is both more realistic and more sympathetic than any drama I have seen on television since it was first broadcast in the 80's. It seems to be taking quite a long time.

[Guest jstlooknthx]

RE: According To My Stalker, Donnie

 

Thank you Jackhammer. I do believe people are missing the point here. It IS ground breaking television. I too am an old fart in training. 40's here. I remember being 12-13 yrs old in Indiana wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I was so naive I didn't even really know what gay was. I thought I was losing my mind. No Queer Eye. No Ellen. Rock Hudson was still just a straight movie star. I am lucky I survived that period of my life actually. It got ugly. If I had just had ONE role model. One gay person I could relate to on TV I believe things would have been different for me.

 

The point here is that there are still many areas of this country where shows like this really matter. Where they don't get to see a variety of gay people living their lives opening and prosperously. I think a lot of these posts just sound jaded and blasé as hell about something that is really quite wonderful. You can't represent the entire spectrum of gay life in one concept.

 

Also, to say the Queer Eye guys are representing women seems to an odd interpretation to me. They are helping these straight guys step up and pay some attention to how they look. They ARE straight so it is likely their motivation might be pleasing women. It doesn't necessarily follow that the QE guys represent women. They are a representation of how gay guys beautify our world. :+

[TotallyOz]

RE: According To My Stalker, Donnie

 

Well old fart, I may be dating myself a bit, but remember Soap? I was so thrilled to see Billy Crystal play a gay character. I know it was not great. But, I could relate.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

It just dawned on me that another thing I like about "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is that it reminds of the way my friends and I watch TV shows or rented movies together -- with lots of running commentary, lots of heckling, grabbing each other's hands during the dramatic moments. I would LOVE to see an episode of "Queer Eye" where it's just consists of them watching "Boy Meets Boy." I bet they'd rip it to shreds! }( :+

[Will]

RE: Leave reality at the door

 

Woodie reminds me of something important that, I'm embarrassed to say, I had totally forgotten. In the late '80s and early '90s there were a number of extremely well made television dramas about gay men. Yes, they mostly had to do with AIDS, and therefore the burden was far heavier than simple evening entertainment. On the other hand, the ones I'm thinking of were serious drama that treated gay men as human beings. There were all sorts and conditions of gay men, not just cute, boogey-butt twinks and think-I'll-blind-a-few-people-with-my-smile thirty-somethings. True, many of these films were made for the screen, but not all.

 

Now that I think back on those moments, some of which were truly moving, I may be shifting even further away from trying to find something admirable about "Queer Eye" and "Boy Meets Boy." The more I think about it, the more I think they may be genuinely exploitative and, in a roundabout way, even homophobic.

 

This is a good discussion for me. Thanks to everybody for it.

[bigguyinpasadena]

Doug,who took the twinkie out of your lunch box?Straight men(the ones who have some savoir faire)have long depended on gay men in this fashion.Is it a goal to which we should point to with pride?Welllllll,there is a power behind it that can open doors for some gay men,on the other hand,it does put us on a different level when dealing with our straight bretheren.Not all hetro men hate or fear us.

And I remember fondly blowing jocks whose "girlfriends"wouldn't put out!But that is anouther kind of dependantcy!

[+ Hoover42]

>In other words, the five gay men were sort of substitutes

>for the woman. In that way, they vicariously put

>themselves in the position of teaching the straight

>man how to please them.

 

That may be true for some of the episodes, but I don't think it's true in the latest episode. I think the straight guy would be much more appealing to gay men in his original persona. The fashion guy himself even says this when they meet at the beginning of the episode.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

RE: Leave reality at the door

 

>I will point out that the

>television movie "An Early Frost" depicted gay men in a way

>that is both more realistic and more sympathetic than any

>drama I have seen on television since it was first broadcast

>in the 80's. It seems to be taking quite a long time.

 

Here's an interesting insight as to why that might be:

 

"When broadcast, An Early Frost drew a thirty-three share of the viewing audience, winning its time slot for the evening's ratings, and thus suggested that the American public was ready to engage in a cultural discussion of the disease. Even so, the ratings success did not translate into economic profits for NBC. According to Perry Lafferty, the NBC vice-president who commissioned the project, the network lost $500,000 in advertising revenues because clients were afraid to have their commercials shown during the broadcast. Apparently, advertisers believed the subject matter was too controversial because of its homosexual theme and too depressing because of the terminal nature of AIDS as a disease.

 

These concerns inhibited further production of other made-for-television scripts about AIDS until 1988. Ironically, the production quality of An Early Frost became a hallmark by which members of the broadcasting industry measured any subsequent development of movie scripts about AIDS. Arthur Allan Seidelman, director of an NBC afternoon school-break special about AIDS titled An Enemy Among Us, has stated, "....there was some concern after An Early Frost was done that 'How many more things can you do about AIDS?'" Any new scripts had to live up to and move beyond the standard set by Cowen and Lipman's original made-for-television movie. Although providing the initial mainstream cultural space to examine AIDS, An Early Frost paradoxically hindered increased discussion of the disease in prime-time American broadcast programming precisely because it achieved its narrative and informational goals so well."

 

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/E/htmlE/earlyfrost/earlyfrost.htm

 

Although the article is focused on AIDS dramas rather than the broader category of gay dramas, I think it indirectly sheds some light on why the hot new gay-themed shows are reality shows: they're cheap and easy to produce, and judging from Orbitz's ad, at least, advertisers don't seem unduly skittish anymore. For a show to be the kind of breakthrough that can be built on, it doesn't just have to be a ratings hit for the network. It has to bring in the dollars.

[Rick Munroe]

>And I remember fondly blowing jocks whose

>"girlfriends"wouldn't put out!

 

You know just what to say to give Rick a raging boner (I hate the word "boner" but I used it in honor of the straight jocks you've blown). }(

[guyinsf]

A straight female friend of mine loved both shows. I already knew I found "Queer Eye" tedious and didn't even watch this week's new episode. (I am amazed at how many times Bravo reruns these shows, though; in my channel surfing this past weekend it seemed like "Queer Eye" was on every few hours!)

 

As to "Boy Meets Boy," when it was all over my first thought was, "Does anyone at Bravo have any taste?" I don't watch the equivalent straight dating shows, either, but I assume they are just as bad. In this case we probably are getting equal treatment. What bothered me most about BMB is how racist it is. A white guy chooses from a pool of 15 and only one of them is a person of color. (Oh, I forgot the token "island boys" who were servants at their "island themed" party.) Even though the person is color is supposedly identified as one of the more physically attractive by the choosers/eliminators, he is eliminated on the first show because he has only recently come out to his mother. Meanwhile the blond guy who is already in a relationship, something apparently quite at odds with what the chooser wants, remains in the pool of 12 to continue the courtship. I'm sure that the producers were not involved in the selection of who stayed and who went in the first episode, but they did select the entire cast.

 

The only positive gay characters on a regular TV show of late, as far as I am concerned, are those in Six Feet Under. It isn't that those characters are great role models or anything like that, but they come across as more complex, just like the other characters on that show. They aren't plastic bobble head dolls.

[Guest TwinkLoverr]

>Well, I did watch both. I also had about 4 twinks at my home

>during this time. (Big Brother night and we are all fans) They

>were mostly 19-21 years old.

 

I agree with Hoo, I wanna watch TV in the "land of Oz" too!! :9

[+ Charlie]

I watched this same episode of "Queer Eye", for my first time (I haven't seen "Boy Meets Boy", and I don't think I want to). What bothered me about "Queer Eye" was not the queer "types" but the fact that the guys are seen simply as facilitators for heterosexual romance. There is no information about any of them beyond their roles as advisors--where did they acquire this so-called expertise? If one is queeny, does that give one an automatic fashion sense? The guy who did the clothes seemed to have horrible taste for himself. How did they get involved in such an enterprise, and what are their relationships among themselves? Nothing is said about their lives, professional or personal, outside of this show, although we are told a good deal about the straight man and his girlfriend (both of whom, in this episode, were much more attractive than the guys). I thought the last part of the show, where the five are reduced to remote observers of the heterosexual drama--almost peeping toms--summarized the underlying message of the show, which is that they are living vicariously through this straight couple. I would much rather watch them make over a frumpy gay guy into a winner.

[woodlawn]

>I watched this same episode of "Queer Eye", for my first time

>(I haven't seen "Boy Meets Boy", and I don't think I want to).

>What bothered me about "Queer Eye" was not the queer "types"

>but the fact that the guys are seen simply as facilitators for

>heterosexual romance.

 

That is the whole premise of the show -- that straight guys need the help of gay guys to understand issues like fashion and decorating. And why would a straight guy care about fashion and decorating? It's something that the stereotypical straight man cares about only in relation to impressing women, of course.

 

>There is no information about any of

>them beyond their roles as advisors--where did they acquire

>this so-called expertise?

 

You will find brief bios of the Fab Five on the Bravo network's website.

 

> If one is queeny, does that give one

>an automatic fashion sense? The guy who did the clothes seemed

>to have horrible taste for himself.

 

That's probably because he used to work for Polo.

[Guest jstlooknthx]

Give me a break. What design/makeover show delves into the lives of the design crew? Take a look at the other hits in this genre. Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, etc. I suppose while we're at it Letterman and Leno should share more about there personal lives during their interviews also. Perhaps Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw could tell us a little about themselves before they go into the international news.

 

My point being, you would just have an unfocused mess if you got to know everyone equally. Not to mention it having nothing to do with the tasks of these shows. I thinks sometimes we want to call just about anything prejudice, just to squeeze it into our agenda.

[Will]

>What bothered me about "Queer Eye" was not the queer "types"

>but the fact that the guys are seen simply as facilitators for

>heterosexual romance.... I

>thought the last part of the show, where the five are reduced

>to remote observers of the heterosexual drama--almost peeping

>toms--summarized the underlying message of the show, which is

>that they are living vicariously through this straight couple.

 

That's what I meant in my initial post when I said that the gay men are sort of substitutes for straight women. Their job is to help the straight man get His Woman, not to help him get a job, or to make a speech, or -- God forbid -- just to make himself and his surroundings more civilized. The clear underlying message is that the gay men rush in, wrists flapping and tongues twittering, do a number on a straight man, and then scream and hold hands (as though they were 13-year-old girls watching the Miss America Pageant) while they observe via closed-circuit voyeurism how "their" straight man is doing.

 

>I would much rather watch them make over a frumpy gay guy into

>a winner.

 

Yes, exactly. The other make-over shows set like on like. In other words, men and women work together on behalf of men and women. The show about making over a female frump, which has a man and a woman doing the makeover, has the purpose of making the fump seem and feel herself to be more powerful. That includes being sexy, yes; but it's not as though the whole purpose for a makeover is to find a man or a woman.

 

People -- especially gay men -- who need makeovers have generally constructed images of themselves and of the world they live in that reveal what they think of themselves. It's a little reductive, I know, but it's true that if you change the way to look to yourself, you change the way you think about yourself. And if you change the way you think about yourself, other people will see you that way, too. Most people behave towards us the way we cue them to behave, although both sides of the exchange are largely unconscious of it.

[Guest pshaw]

forget the Fab 5 ....

 

I have just stumbled across "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" on TNN. It's like the the bastard child of "Iron Chef" and "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" Someone has taken old episodes of the sadistic Japanese game show "Takeshi's Castle" (hosted by a young Takeshi "Beat" Kitano) and inserted goofy, often sexually suggestive, dialogue. Some of the best lines occur during the "Riding the Pole" challenge.