As authoritarianism breathes down our neck, it may feel delightfully nostalgic to rage against Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
But rage we must.
Entertainment Weeklyrecently learned that Netflix would be rebooting the "groundbreaking" (their words, our ironic quotes) series and taking them to the Red States, where they hope to make them "go pink."
This show is profoundly reductive, a call back to a time when "G" was the only part of "LGBTQ" the culture recognized, and television only used gay men to dance and entertain their predominantly straight audiences.
SEE ALSO:Bangkok will hold its first gay pride parade in 11 yearsAnd listen, if you watched Queer Eye for the Straight Guyback in the 2000s, you're fine. There are lots of shows we all watch that are terrible for our souls and neurons. We can't even tell you how many times we've watched the world's most boring humans go to impoverished countries and refuse to buy mega-mansions made of angel blood because they're ideologically opposed to granite countertops (HGTV).
You're not the problem, the reboot is.
The show, which ran from 2003 - 2007 genuinely served its purpose at a time when few queer people had representation on television. But, these men were portrayed as highly stereotypical representations of gay culture at the time: handsome, fashionable, largely white, cis and nonthreatening. The original 'Fab 5' were shown as gay men whose sole purpose was to make their straight clients (and by extension, audiences) feel safe.
The theme song quite literally included the line, "When you are around, things just keep getting better."
Had they been women, trans, poor, people of color; had they shopped at Old Navy, had they worn socks with their sandals, had they asked the straight community to stand up for their rights instead of just wear their haute couture sweater vests, the show wouldn't have been produced or maybe even watched.
But -- hey -- at least they existed, at a time when even our most liberal leaders (like your lovable Joe Biden) refused to recognize gay love as equal love. If you were a queer kid growing up in early '00s America, it was nice to see some representation of queerness on television, even if that queerness looked nothing like you. They were likable, lovable even, and straight people could call them their friends.
That was something, and it was big.
But it's 2017, and times have changed.
We live in a world where most people understand that you can't assume every white cis gay man will be a fashion guru.
Despite what the current administration may attempt to do, we live in an era where marriage equality is the law of the land (for now). We have major celebrities unafraid to come out as every letter of the queer pantheon. Caitlyn Jenner -- whatever you feel about her politics -- had her own reality show. A report by GLAAD recently found that the 2016 - 2017 television season had more LGBTQ representation than ever before.
And, important for this conversation, we've had amazing fictional representation: The Fosters, Orange is the New Black, Transparent, Sense8. The list goes on of television that showcases characters and actors from across the LGBTQ spectrum, particularly people of color, with complex lives and stories. These aren't the bland, lifeless stereotypes of Queer Eye. These are real stories, meant to entertain and enlighten.
This is the golden age of television, where the people we see onscreen have started to reflect the actual world around us. But we're still fighting to push forward. We're still fighting to have trans characters portrayed by trans actors. We still need more queer people of color represented onscreen, particularly of Asian and Latin descent. We still have to fight back against comedians who pander to the lowest common denominator using homophobic and transphobic "humor." But we'd come so far in the 10 years since Queer Eye.
We live in a world where most people understand that you can't assume every white cis gay man will be a fashion guru.
Via GiphyOr at least that's what we'd hoped.
The 2016 election showed us in "the bubble" of diversity and human decency that far too many Americans would rather be comforted, just as long as they can feel safe and special. So of course, why show them an accurate representation of a queer person who is complicated and has sexual desires that reflect their sexuality, when instead we can pander with a cardboard sexless object that will tell them what shoes look best via self-defacing jokes?
Popular culture is far more powerful than people want to give it credit for. One of the reasons we were able to come so far in the last decade is that shows like Will & Grace, for all of their flaws, humanized the LGBTQ community for heterosexuals with no context for them. But we cannot move backward, not when our community's rights are on the line. As Meryl Streep and other actors have noted, Hollywood has a responsibility. They need to continue to push boundaries, to represent reality, and to not let political regression become social regression.
America in 2017 doesn't need Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
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