Super Queer

HE...
IS AN ACCESSORIES KINGPIN
GARNISHES GRACEFULLY
EXFOLIATES REGULARLY
MINGLES BETTER
SINGS COUNTRY
IS A WINE EXPERT
OWNS ANY ROOM
KNOWS COLOGNE
SHUNS WIRE HANGERS
CHARMS YOUR WOMAN

TV has come down with a new case of hero worship for queer guys: Get ready for gaysploitation.
by Henry Goldblatt

THE STYLE NETWORK (you know you're reading about Gay TV when the first three words of an article are "The Style Network"—but I digress) has recently started airing reruns of Melrose Place. In so many ways, the show is a precious time capsule of the '90s—but most of all for its portrayal of resident gay Matt Fielding (DoorMatt, to Melrose aficionados). A latter-day Sidney Poitier in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, DoorMatt patiently endured ignorance and slurs as he educated all of Los Angeles on the evils of homophobia. (He was a social worker, for crying out loud.) Amid a world of psychos, prostitutes, and alcoholics, DoorMatt never lost his cool—or on-screen virginity; the show even cut away from his one kiss.
     DoorMatt's saintly legacy lived on through the '90s in characters like Dawson's Creek's Jack (who adopted dying Jen's baby in the series finale), Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom alter ego (who patiently guided her parents through her coming out), and, of course, Will Truman (week after week Will plays—excuse the phrase—straight man to Grace's neuroses). Even South Park's Big Gay Al, the lispy, earnest Boy Scout leader, seems to have been put in the Colorado burg solely to tell Stan that gay is okay.
     Bravo's could-have-been-derivative makeover show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, is terrific and groundbreaking because it upends this saintly stereotype: These men are flawed and fabulous. They're strong, pushy, and intolerant of those who don't listen to them. And unlike Will & Grace's Jack, they aren't the butt of jokes—indeed, they actually excel at something. Says Neil Meron, executive producer of Chicago and ABC's fall gay-themed sitcom It's All Relative, "Gay people have finally found their gonads." (He's speaking metaphorically, but more on that in a moment.)
     The media—EW included—has thrown around a ton of labels to explain the turn-of-the-century gay phenom: Newsweek said we live in a post-gay world, while social anthropologists at The New York Times recently exposed a species known as the metrosexual, a straight guy who affects gay grooming customs. (The Times is more than fashionably late to this party: The Independent of London caught the trend about 10 years ago.) All that gay-speak seems a little dated now. Here's another term to consider: gaysploitation.
     Before you go all Foxy Brown on me, a bit of history. Blaxploitation films (most notably Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Shaft) were made by African-American filmmakers out to exploit an untapped audience, not their casts. The genre embraced black stereotypes (virility, strength, ass-whupping ability) and exaggerated them. (Sound familiar, Carson?) To hear executives talk, today's gay programming decisions come from a similar place. Says Matt Blank, chairman and CEO of Showtime, home to Queer as Folk: "Were we out looking for a show that explicitly portrayed sex among homosexuals? No," he explains. "Were we looking quite aggressively to serve underserved TV audiences, gays and lesbians among them? Absolutely."
     In this world of gaysploitation, my people shave better than you, apply hair products better than you, buy pearls and mingle at parties better than you. We're even better country singers: Producer Larry Dvoskin says he got 6,000 responses to an ad in a Nashville paper soliciting aspiring country singers for a potential TV series. "My secret dream is to get it on CBS with Dolly Parton hosting," he says. (Please take a moment to pity the poor lesbian who has completely missed this current TV revolution. After riding the lesbian-chic wave into the mid-'90s and cresting with Ellen's coming out in 1997, she's been shoved back in the closet, longing for the days when Cindy Crawford shaved k.d. lang on the cover of Vanity Fair.)
     At the moment, gaysploitation seems to be a product of reality television. There's no irony here: It's taken "real" TV to make gays seem, well, more real. The genre has promoted gaysploitation in subversive (the are-they-or-aren't-they designers on Trading Spaces) and not-so-subversive ways (pectorally blessed spouses Reichen and Chip on The Amazing Race are practically superheroes: One of them gets dragged through bull manure in India and still looks great).
     Indeed, the men of gaysploitation do pretty much everything better than you...except date. It's as if network and cable television executives have embraced the homo but conveniently left out the sexual. The reason that fashionista Carson can tell episode 3's straight guy, Tom, "If at any time today you want to make out with me, just let me know" is because no one thinks Tom will actually take him up on the offer. (And by the way, everybody knows Kyan, the hunky grooming guru, is the Fab 5 member most likely to get the straight guy to switch teams.)
     The few attempts to give gays a TV sex life have been pitiful. Bravo's other homo-friendly summer entry, Boy Meets Boy, is a gay minstrel show (stick that one in your promos, Bravo). In this mess, a handful of straight guys don Abercrombie & Fitch clothing (apparently the straight man's blackface) and pretend they're gay to woo the unsuspecting bachelor. As GLAAD's entertainment media director Scott Seomin says: "We have not seen the straight, cruel equivalent of this. There weren't gay men [on The Bachelorette] for Trista to marry."
     Scripted shows haven't done much better. Will & Grace's Jack talks a good game, but has yet to land in bed with a real romantic interest. And Queer as Folk's characters get into more sexual positions than the Kama Sutra envisioned, but the program is more a parody of gay life: Its portrayal of drug-dabbling whoretastic homos who do it on every street corner and fight hackneyed clichés feels like a gay version of 1996's blaxploitation spoof, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.
     So what comes after gaysploitation? There are a hundred different theories—I don't profess to know which one is right—but here's an idea: As gays continue to make more political progress (the Supreme Court has made the word sodomy appropriate for dinner-table conversation and the Massachusetts Supreme Court is readying to rule on gay marriage), TV will finally begin to show us some real portrayals of homosexuality in sitcoms and dramas. Right now, the closest scripted programming comes is Six Feet Under's David and Keith, whose bickering and foibles make them seem less like gay superheroes and more like actual people.
     "The middle ground needs to be filled in—from gay characters who are white, affluent, and two-dimensional to those who are more three-dimensional with romantic lives," Seomin says. "Where is the gay Everybody Loves Raymond?" Good point. In the meantime, that Romano guy needs some serious style help. Paging Carson! • (Additional reporting by Karyn L. Barr and Jennifer Armstrong)