I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU: Is Bravo's new makeover series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy "simply fabulous", as Samantha Bonar of the LA Times claims, or is the WaPo's house curmudgeon Tom Shales correct when he calls the show "patronizing" and potentially harmful for playing up the same stereotypes used to deride gays just a decade or two ago?
Well, it depends. If you think gays have been totally accepted in America and that playing into stereotypes is safe and fine and good and entertaining now, well, then you'll think the show's a hoot. But if you're not in the 54% of America that believes homosexuality to be an acceptable alternative lifestyle, then, well, this show isn't going to help things. It's just Meschach Taylor's swishy decorator "Hollywood Montrose" from 1987's Mannequin, only five times so.
So thank goodness this show is only playing on Bravo, a station nobody watches except for Inside the Actor's Studio and Larry Sanders reruns, and not on one of the networks where its effects could be more pernicious. Because while this kind of stereotyping and in-joking might be okay within the community, or in major US cities where respect and tolerance for gays is a given, I'm not quite sure that the heartland is ready for this. There's just too many parts of America in which the Fab Five wouldn't be welcome.
Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe America's more progressive than the polls would suggest. Maybe it's okay for Americans to think that all gays are like Just Jack on Will and Grace or the Fab Five, innately gifted with fashion sense and a flair for bitchy comments, because maybe they recognize these as stereotypes and not reality.
But maybe not.
No comments:
Post a Comment