Rescuing a summer dulled by reality, Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has emerged as the year's biggest sleeper hit albeit by Bravo's tiny ratings standard. What's more, it's become one of the year's most-talked-about TV shows, and that's by any network's standard.
As a reward, this "make-better" show about five gay style experts coming to the aid of a hapless straight man gets a prime spot tonight (9:30 ET/PT) on Bravo's owner, NBC. Well, not everywhere at least two Southern affiliates are refusing to run it in prime time. But the scheduling is still a cultural sea change from the days when a network like NBC would have soft-pedaled a gay show like Queer Eye in hopes the target audience would find it while no one else noticed.
It's as if the Supreme Court has given the networks cover to pursue a demographic they have long coveted.
Like the short-shorts-clad cop on Comedy Central's Reno 911! or Showtime's upcoming L Word about lesbians, Queer Eye is another sign that gay people are slowly joining TV's mainstream. You can see more proof this fall with ABC's It's All Relative, a sitcom featuring gay male life partners who raised a daughter together, a concept that once would have been unimaginable.
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In truth, some of the charm of the hour-long original is lost in tonight's cut-down half-hour, which stresses insults over advice. Hes asked if he gets all his clothing at Home Depot and if his drawers are organized by ugly, uglier, and uglier. The interior designer suggests the guys apartment looks like the home of a psychopath: without you here to represent yourself, I would have looked at this, and called the police. Another calls it a crack den. Still, the essential sweetness of the project comes through, particularly at the end, where the gay men cluck like proud parents at their charge.Still, the essential sweetness of the project comes through, particularly at the end, where the gay men cluck like proud parents at their charge.
Still, it's worth bearing in mind that these men are simply people acting the way they act. We have to assume viewers know the five men in Queer don't represent all gay men, just as the dolts on The Man Show don't represent all straight men.
Someday it might be nice to do a reality show where the Eye belonged not to the Queer Hairdresser and the Queer Interior Designer, but to the Queer Professional Athlete and the Queer Movie Star. TV's not quite there yet, but keep your eyes open.
Rescuing a summer dulled by reality, Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has emerged as the year's biggest sleeper hit albeit by Bravo's tiny ratings standard. What's more, it's become one of the year's most-talked-about TV shows, and that's by any network's standard.
