the awesome/terrifying freedom

chris from d.c. writes in with some insight:

You wouldn't believe the number of my straight friends who have emailed me about how appalling they thought the Bravo show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is. Universally, they expected me to decry the show's stereotyping of all gay males as obsessive-compulsive fashion divas with just a bit too much lilt in the voice and a penchant for adding the prefix "boy-" to otherwise mundane nouns.

Strangely, I'm not that disturbed by the show. Granted, I live in your typical urban gay ghetto. But, it seems to me that most gay men really ARE more aware of their bodies, really DO have better taste in clothes, and really HAVE more sensitivity to their surroundings. I'm sure everyone has that one gay friend who can't match his shoes and his belt, but c'mon...isn't there some truth to all stereotypes? Isn't there really such a thing as gay "culture"?? And should we be forced to reject the positive aspects of gay stereotyping just because we disdain the negative? Hmmmmmm.....

As for hate crimes...I think your gut reaction is the honest one. I'm not sure what difference it makes if someone murders me "simply" to get my wallet or because they were ALSO motivated by the fact that I sleep with men. If it's "simply" for the former, isn't it still sending a message to everyone with a wallet? ("Be afraid...we want your cash!!") And that seems to be what distinguishes a hate crime from any other crime; that it sends a signal to a group.

I dunno....it seems to me that this fight for hate crimes legislation feeds right into the hands of those who claim that our quest for equal rights really covers up an agenda of "special rights."

i think your friends didn't get it. right down to the title, the show is built around reclaiming a negative stereotype and glorifying it. it seems like there will always be backlash against highly visible flamers. sure, not every gay man is a screaming queen, but you can't be a cultural policeman, telling every nelly fag in chelsea to 'butch it up' for the benefit of the 'greater gay image.' in support of your friends, though, it would have been a nice twist if one of the guys, say the 'culture' guy, was more of a macho guy - it would be delicious irony to see a gay man who's even more masculine than the guys they're making over, coaching a perplexed straight guy on how to shake hands or walk in cowboy boots.

rrgghh.. people need to be able to differentiate between the presentation of a stereotype for purposes of degredation versus the presentation of a stereotype for celebration. your straight friends mean well.. they don't like the thought that much of america might lump you in with the nellys on 'queer eye.' this used to be a big problem. it's not anymore. there are many shades of gay, and more and more of those shades are getting their day in the sun. i can't wait for 'boy meets boy,' where we'll get to see a deconstruction of just what constitues gay and straight behavior - and maybe at the end of the show we'll see that the answer is nothing.

i totally agree that hate crime legislation could feed into the hands of the 'special rights' camp. i still don't know what to think. perhaps the solution isn't to eliminate hate crime legislation, but to make it a little tougher to prosecute people on it. maybe it should be like proving 1st, 2nd, or third degree murder - we could make 'targeted hate' a similar degree of offense. prosecutors would have to prove a pattern of behavior before the case could be classified as such...

an open letter to my friend paul who is a finalist on 'cupid':

i know you were hoping national exposure would jump-start your career. but the show is awful (i'm calling it putrid from now on) and now they own you because you signed a byzantine contract. to top it all off, your appearance wednesday was not the stuff of which careers are made. i'm sorry bud, but i actually felt sick to my stomach watching you humiliate yourself not just in front of those girls, but in front of america. so now you're stuck on the show until you get kicked out. what do you hope to gain by being on this show? street recognition? 'oh look! there's the pink suit guy!' it's really strange to watch a reality show when you actually know someone who's on it. usually you delight in other's humiliation and suffering. but wow, this was just horrible. made me sad actually. you'll never read this, since you've been sequestered, but maybe some sane thinking will work its way through the atmosphere to you. be as forgettable and invisible as possible. get yourself voted out for being unmemorable, and then never tell anyone that you did it. ever. because right now, i'm embarassed to know you, and i'm embarassed for you.