Queer Guy with the Straight Eye

my rating:

NBC recently showed a couple of episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (normally on Bravo), enabling me - a non-cable-enabled person - to get a look at the show. I realise the is-this-empowering-or-stereotyping debates are old news by now, but I'm going to weigh in now anyway.

Overall, I'd say it's just good, queen fun. Yes, it does play up and play into the classic stereotypes about gay men. The "Fab Five" are each specialists in cooking, fashion, interior design, etc. and the basic premise is that they're better at all of that than the straight men that they provide with total makeovers. And in the scenes where they talk amonst themselves, they can be downright catty making fun of their subjects' "shortcomings". But it never gets mean-spirited, either in terms of the queer guys' criticism of their clients, or from the perspective of the show presenting them as fussy queens. Instead there's a lot of (mostly) good-natured kidding around.

Despite being an art-school student, I'm also a dyed-in-the-wool geek, which puts me closer to the "straight guy" end of the scale of having good taste. If the Fab 5 came into my home to give me a lifestyle makeover, they'd have their work cut out for them. So I tended to identify more with the subjects of their efforts, while still considering myself "kin" with the queer guys. I was especially interested in the episode in which their subject was a 13-year toupé wearer, whom they encouraged to burn the rug and buzz the remaining hair down to stubble. I've spent the last decade or so watching the thick hair on the top of my head get sparse, first struggling to maintain its youthful appearance and in the last few years cutting it progressively shorter.

To be honest, I'm not especially interested in makeovers, either to watch them being done for someone else, or for myself. I have nothing against them, and I think it's fine that the Fab 5 are able to give these guys the motivation, direction, or excuse they seem to want. It's just not something I'd bother watching on a regular basis. But the crew are entertaining, and I had fun watching them relate to each other and to their project du jour, as openly queer men.