ualkeel fabius eerleena
Edilma Howard
My husband, Chris, who barely remembered the original series, and I sat down for the premiere episode in which the new, sparkly Fab Five went to Atlanta and made over an older, self-proclaimed redneck named Tom.
The original Queer Eye show was reasonably groundbreaking in the Early Aughts. It presented its five, happy-go-lucky gay life coaches to a culture that still thought you could catch Gay from a handshake. They may have been a little cartoonish, but for many American viewers, the series broke new ground by putting these guys together with accepting straights and showing them what they could learn from each other.
But the thing is I really do know and love men like that in my own life. Men who have become some of my best friends. And those guys are probably the most authentic, truest-living, happiest people I know in the world. They are men I admire.
The second episode followed the same pattern. Another schlubby straight got the full makeover from the Fab Five complete with haircut, beard trim, apartment renovation, shinier wardrobe and a heartfelt (possibly scripted) speech at the end from the straight guy about how his life was forever changed after hanging with gays for one week.
I came out in 1997 as a 36 year old, True Love Waits, fundamentalist. I gobbled up every episode of the first Queer Eye despite living in a market without Bravo! at the time. I remember one trip to DC where I stayed in the hotel room most of the weekend because it actually had Bravo! Similar memories of Williamsburg.
The first part of this blog entry really pissed me off. I am so tired of gays who have to make sure folks know there are queers who break stereotypes. You know, there are straights who break them, too. I think residual, internalized homophobia is the cause, and I was poised to strike.
If you have any familiarity with queer lady cultural obsessions, you are likely aware that the actress Natasha Lyonne is, uh, one of them. And understandably! Not only was she the star of the amazing (and amazingly campy) lesbians-fall-in-love-at-conversion-camp rom com But I\u2019m A Cheerleader, she also turned in a great performance as Nicky in Netflix\u2019s queer catnip prison drama Orange is the New Black.
It is not a stretch to say that many queer women adore \u2014 even idolize \u2014 Natasha Lyonne, that she has a special place in our hearts. Truly, there\u2019s only one hitch, which is that Lyonne herself isn\u2019t queer. Yes, the woman who turned in all those compelling lesbian performances is straight \u2014 and while that seems to shock people (like, really shock people), it\u2019s never seemed to tarnish her reputation. She\u2019s one of the few straight women who seems cool enough to hang with the queer girls, a straight woman we are happy to accept among our ranks as a queer icon.
She\u2019s definitely not gay, she has definitely been clear about that. But the thing that gives me pause is this moment in a 2016 interview with The New York Times. Interviewer Kathryn Shattuck has just noted that Lyonne is \u201Ca lesbian icon, but straight,\u201D to which she replies:
I never want to feel like I\u2019m taking ownership of an experience that\u2019s not my own. But it seems like a lot of the female experience is in response to men. And when I play a lesbian character, it means that she\u2019s on her own ride. I love men. I want to sleep with as many as possible. But I don\u2019t want my whole life, and certainly my creative experience, to be in response to always just being \u201Cthe girl.\u201D Like, who needs it?
What a curious response, right? I should acknowledge, of course, that this interview was edited and condensed and who knows how it actually went down in the actual moment, but: someone says you\u2019re straight and your response is not to confirm that, but rather to affirm that you\u2019re \u201Cnot gay\u201D yet have tried sleeping with women all the same \u2014 something that, apparently, only a dumb-dumb would avoid.
There are two reads that occur to me here. One is that Lyonne is straight, but has slept with women, and brings that up mostly as a way to tease, even bait, her queer women fans. If she\u2019s slept with women at some point, there\u2019s always a chance she\u2019ll do it again, and if there\u2019s always a chance she\u2019ll do it again\u2026 wink wink.
The other read \u2014 and admittedly this is the one that\u2019s far more interesting to me \u2014 is that while Lyonne adores men and only wants to date them, she\u2019s also sexually attracted to women and down for the occasional fling. That she\u2019s not straight at all, in fact, but merely a heteroromantic bisexual \u2014 albeit one who leans harder into her attractions to men.
It\u2019s such a thin line, you know? If you\u2019re a straight girl who\u2019s down to flirt with the lesbians and be a little eye candy you\u2019re good, right; but the second you actually cop to the fact that you might feel hot and bothered about the ladies \u2014 even as you prefer men \u2014 you\u2019re suddenly vile. God forbid you have agency, you have attraction to women, unless you\u2019re going to fully commit. Far better to be a passive object incapable of reciprocating than a woman who\u2019s only into other women for some fucks.
And look, I don\u2019t purport to know anything about what makes Natasha Lyonne\u2019s heart tick aside from what she\u2019s publicly said. And it\u2019s very possible that she\u2019s fully straight and just an excellent actor who manages to really sell a passionate attraction to women in so many of her works. But it also wouldn\u2019t surprise me if there is a little queerness to her (I mean even if she\u2019s straight, she\u2019s a pretty queer straight, truly, watch that Drew Barrymore clip), a slight sapphism that undergirds her lesbian performances and makes them that much more compelling. And if a heteroromantic bi girl can do that, well\u2026
Queer Eye is an American reality television series that premiered on the Bravo network in July 2003, initially broadcast as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The series was created by executive producers David Collins and Michael Williams along with David Metzler through their company, Scout Productions.[1] Each episode features a team of gay professionals in the fields of fashion, personal grooming, interior design, entertaining, and culture collectively known as the "Fab Five" performing a makeover (in the parlance of the show, a "make-better"): revamping wardrobe, redecorating, and offering lifestyle advice.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy quickly became a surprise success, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program in 2004, with subsequent merchandising, international franchising of the concept, and a woman-oriented spin-off, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl. The series name was abbreviated to Queer Eye at the beginning of its third season to include making over individuals regardless of gender or sexual orientation.[2]
Queer Eye ended production in June 2006 and the final episode aired October 30, 2007.[3] During September 2008, the Fine Living Network briefly aired Queer Eye in syndication.[4] The series was also run again by the CBS-affiliated Twist network in 2023.
Producers Collins and Metzler were given approval by Bravo to develop Queer Eye after the ratings success the network experienced when it counterprogrammed a marathon of its 2002 series Gay Weddings at the same time as Super Bowl XXXVII during 2003 January.[6] The pilot episode was filmed in Boston, Massachusetts during June 2002. Of the eventual Fab Five, only Kressley and Allen appeared. The culture, design, and grooming roles were filled by James Hannaham, Charles Daboub Jr., and Sam Spector, respectively.
The pilot was delivered to Bravo in September 2002 and was well received in audience testing. Soon thereafter, NBC purchased Bravo and ordered 12 episodes of the series. NBC promoted the show extensively, including billboard campaigns and print advertisements in national magazines.[1]
Kyan Douglas and Thom Filicia joined the show for these episodes, along with Blair Boone in the role of "culture guy". Boone filmed two episodes (which were broadcast as the second and third episodes and for which he was credited as a "guest culture expert") but was replaced by Rodriguez beginning with production of the third episode.[7] Each episode was shot over a span of four days and edited to create the perception that the events of the episode took place in a single day.[1]
The majority of Queer Eye episodes use the same basic format. The episode begins with the Fab Five in an SUV (usually in New York City, where the series was based) discussing their heterosexual client. The Five review details of the subject's personal life and note problems in their various areas of expertise. The Five usually have a specific event for which they plan to prepare the client. These included everything from throwing a backyard barbecue for friends to preparing to ask for a salary increase to proposing marriage.
Upon arriving at the subject's home, the Fab Five go through his belongings, performing a running commentary of catty remarks about the state of his wardrobe, home decor, cleanliness, and grooming. They also speak with the subject and family members to get an idea of the sort of style they like and their goals for the experience and to discuss the planned event.
The remainder of the first half of the episode follows the Fab Five as they escort the subject to various locales to select new furniture and clothes. Often, Ted demonstrates how to select and prepare food for a particular dish that the subject will prepare for the special event, and Kyan takes him for spa treatments and a new haircut. Each such segment includes a style tip superimposed on the screen, summarizing the style issues addressed in the segment. Interspersed with this are interview segments in which friends and family members of the subject discuss his style issues.
90f70e40cf