More on "Queer Eye"
Oct. 5th, 2003 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beandelphikiThere was an article in our paper yesterday on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I would never have seen it, except that Mom pointed it out to me, so then I had to see what the Calgary Herald had to say about it.
(I'd provide a link to the text of the whole article, but I've been unable to find it on canada.com.)
"There are a lot of people who watch this show who filled out the 'no' column when surveyed about same-sex marriages," Thompson says. [Robert Thompson, founder of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.] "These are gay characters that can be consumed across the board, not only by people you would expect to watch, but by people you would not expect to."
That's fabulous, Robert. I know you're trying to make it sound like a wonderful thing - ooh, look, even 'phobes watch this show! Yeah, let's all feel the joy, they're watching it to see the fags dance in their little pre-assigned roles as fashion designers and interior decorators.
Except that some gay guys are interior decorators, so that's okay. Subversive, even!
"On one level, it's an incredibly conservative show, because it's about these guys helping some other guy reach some sort of heterosexual triumph. Not helping each other or themselves. The only justifiable goal in the end of this is the straight slob who then becomes transformed and is able to propose to his girlfriend or get her to move in."
So what you're telling the class here is that this show actually reinforces heterosexist attitudes?
Gotcha.
"This is a conservative show that doesn't ask much of you."
Like most of what's on television, I suppose. And people ask why I almost never watch TV.
"It doesn't ask that you accept gay marriage or complete legal equality for your fellow gay citizens."
Because television is best when it doesn't ask anything of you other than to sit on your ass with a beer or this months Cosmo and feel secure in the fact that you don't need to think.
"It's by no means a revolutionary show. If you have cable, you can find a number of shows with gay characters these days."
Like Boy Meets Boy?
"Does that mean we've reached this sort of Utopian point in our history where total equity has been reached? Absolutely not."
Evidently.
This is why I hate to see this show compared with Queer as Folk. I will certainly admit that QAF has its flaws. It's not a perfect representation of the gay community; nothing ever could be. And of course, it's taking some of the most sensationalistic aspects to put on television. (Well, yeah, it's TV.) But one thing it's doing that QESG is NOT is challenging its viewers. It puts issues out there, including some that are currently of vital importance to the gay community; drug addiction, HIV, poz guys and negative guys being committed to each other and what that entails.
Mom had a lot to say about how Carson Kressley is color blind. I mentioned to her that I'd read an interview where he said he designed his sister's prom dress, and all she could say was, "Oh dear. Oh my. Oh dear."
(I'd provide a link to the text of the whole article, but I've been unable to find it on canada.com.)
"There are a lot of people who watch this show who filled out the 'no' column when surveyed about same-sex marriages," Thompson says. [Robert Thompson, founder of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.] "These are gay characters that can be consumed across the board, not only by people you would expect to watch, but by people you would not expect to."
That's fabulous, Robert. I know you're trying to make it sound like a wonderful thing - ooh, look, even 'phobes watch this show! Yeah, let's all feel the joy, they're watching it to see the fags dance in their little pre-assigned roles as fashion designers and interior decorators.
Except that some gay guys are interior decorators, so that's okay. Subversive, even!
"On one level, it's an incredibly conservative show, because it's about these guys helping some other guy reach some sort of heterosexual triumph. Not helping each other or themselves. The only justifiable goal in the end of this is the straight slob who then becomes transformed and is able to propose to his girlfriend or get her to move in."
So what you're telling the class here is that this show actually reinforces heterosexist attitudes?
Gotcha.
"This is a conservative show that doesn't ask much of you."
Like most of what's on television, I suppose. And people ask why I almost never watch TV.
"It doesn't ask that you accept gay marriage or complete legal equality for your fellow gay citizens."
Because television is best when it doesn't ask anything of you other than to sit on your ass with a beer or this months Cosmo and feel secure in the fact that you don't need to think.
"It's by no means a revolutionary show. If you have cable, you can find a number of shows with gay characters these days."
Like Boy Meets Boy?
"Does that mean we've reached this sort of Utopian point in our history where total equity has been reached? Absolutely not."
Evidently.
This is why I hate to see this show compared with Queer as Folk. I will certainly admit that QAF has its flaws. It's not a perfect representation of the gay community; nothing ever could be. And of course, it's taking some of the most sensationalistic aspects to put on television. (Well, yeah, it's TV.) But one thing it's doing that QESG is NOT is challenging its viewers. It puts issues out there, including some that are currently of vital importance to the gay community; drug addiction, HIV, poz guys and negative guys being committed to each other and what that entails.
Mom had a lot to say about how Carson Kressley is color blind. I mentioned to her that I'd read an interview where he said he designed his sister's prom dress, and all she could say was, "Oh dear. Oh my. Oh dear."
