Does the concept of the new “reality show” Queer Eye for the Straight Guy strike anybody else as just a tad offensively stereotypical of both gays and straights? As the owner/operator of two queer eyes, I pity any straight man who turned to me for fashion or decorating advice (my advice in both is “buy and use what you like and can afford- if you want to wear an Armani suit around the house or cutoffs and flip-flops to dinner, go for it- if you want to fill your walls with Basquiat lithographs or posters of Marilyn Monroe, it’s your place and it should look like you want it to”). I don’t know why I expected more class from BRAVO than this, but I did. I wonder what’s next… my guesses:
Four Jewboys and a Goyboy- four Jewish professionals (accountant, broker, lawyer, banker) take a poor fiscally inept Gentile and give him advice on investments, moneylending, and how to control the media.
Five Debs and a Homegirl- five graduates from an exclusive northeast prep-school take a poor inner city black girl and teach her how to dress, walk, talk, and think like they do so that she’ll seem more at ease when she applies for a job at their club.
Smack Habits- Five nuns take in a heroin addict and try to convert him into a zealous young priest.
Looking at things from the other side of the fence (straight guy) I can say that this also sounded a little weird to me. And the promos put me off even more. There’s one where they show a straight guy in his natural habitat. My apartment when I was single never looked that bad.
In another one, the gay guys dress the straight guy in some kind of purple suit that I wouldn’t be caught dead in.
I dunno what it says about me, but all the gay guys I’ve ever known knew just as much about fashion and how to live a “faaaabulous” lifestyle as any other guy.
“I dunno what it says about me, but all the gay guys I’ve ever known knew just as much about fashion and how to live a “faaaabulous” lifestyle as any other guy.”
Same here. I’ve known no shortage of gay slobs and straight clothes horses (e.g. my best friend is straighter than the road to hell yet he owns about 80 pairs of shoes). Just sounds like a total misfire that’s going to reinforce the “fey gay” images so many people already have.
Reminds me in the scenes in La Cage and Birdcage where they tried to teach a drag queen to walk like “a man”. Why?
Straight guys are no worse at buying clothes than a lot of my Gay friends.
I’m Gay and I don’t have any qualms about buying clothes at Burlington, WalMart or Ross or any of those non-namebrand places.
The whole premise of this show sounds like it was concieved after a night of boozing it up in a couple of clubs. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time…but they should have waited until noon the next day before signing the contracts.
Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right about that. I suppose things could wind up better in the execution than they sound in the premise. But it doesn’t exactly inspire hope.
Agree - terribly misguided, wrongheaded, and promotes stereotypes. However the show itself holds some appeal to me. Sort of like What Not To Wear for men. I’ll probably watch it.
What with this and Boy Meets Boy, it seems Bravo thinks there’s an audience for gay-oriented shows. Now that they’ve been acquired by NBC, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Will & Grace repeats turn up there as well.
There’s your problem, right there. Whoever’s in charge of that network has decided their target demographic is gay men and are catering the hell out of them. They still call themselves the “Arts and Entertainment Network,” which I guess they can get away with only because they still show “Inside the Actor’s Studio” at least twice a day. The rest of the time,it’s all queers-a-poppin’. Marathons of “Tales from the City,” documentaries on Fire Island, desperate attempts at “The Real World” with all-gay casts, and so on. And then Cirque De Soleil documentaries, which I guess is just a scattershot approach.
It’s just like Comedy Central trying to position itself as the edgy guy’s network with pandering stuff like “The Man Show” and “Insomniac.” Find who your target audience is, reduce them to an absurd stereotype, generate hours and hours of programming to reinforce that stereotype.
When ABC came out with “The Bachelor”, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then Joe Millionaire came out, and I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Then came “For Love or Money”, and I thought, “Surely, the reality TV thing can’t get any worse than this crap”. Somehow, reading the description of Boy Meets Boy, I feel that my lack of faith in American television ingenuity has once again fallen short…
Personally, I think Sandra should sue Bravo, pronto. The strip’s been around for at least three years now.
Well, then they need a new caterer. Because this show has struck me as a Bad Idea since the first time I’ve heard about it, and I am their demographic.
The queers in question were introduced to the crowd at the NYC Pride Dance on the piers this weekend. (As the “Fabulous Five,” no less.) A quick straw poll of those around mewe were tending barsuggested that not one gay man within earshot thought this was a good idea for a show, and most of us found it pretty offensive.
I’ve only just learned about Boy Meets Boy, which is frankly vile.
All Bravo needs to do now is to rename themselves “Bruce: The Network for Gays” and get sued by the estate of Bruce Lee.
I’ve really enjoyed some of Bravo’s gay-themed programming (particularly the Gay Weddings reality series), but both Boy Meet Boy and Queer Eye For the Straight Guy sound horrible and offensive to me.
Okay, and we can have a show about how a bunch of women show a hapless man how to really clean a bathroom, 'cause we know all women are superior cleaners, then some Chinese Americans can show all of us poor slobs how to do laundry the right way and…ad nauseum
I hate to see silly stereotypes reinforced…but maybe that’s just me
