My question is who is James Hannahan? I thought the black cat who got cut was Blair Boone.
It's from a site called
www.keithboykin.com
Black Eye for The Queer Guy
By Keith Boykin
August 27, 2003 08:50 AM
in culture
The long gone black guy from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" speaks out today
on Africana.com. James Hannaham, who is now an MFA candidate at the University
of Texas in Austin, explains how he got picked and dumped for TV's hottest new
show. Hannaham says the show is not about stereotypes, but I'm not so sure.
I've seen a few episodes of Bravo's new show, and I think it should be renamed
"Queer Guy for the Straight Eye." It's not a bad show actually. It's light, fun
and mostly entertaining, but it's filled with gay stereotypes. What emerges is
an image of stereotypical "queer guys" that works well for the "straight eye."
Each week, the so-called "Fab 5" -- made up of grooming guru Kyan Douglas, food and wine connoisseur Ted Allen, fashion savant Carson Kressley, culture vulture Jai Rodriguez and design doctor Thom Filicia -- drive into suburbia to rescue a hapless straight man from the evil clutch of unfabulousness. It's great for the straight guy who gets fixed up, but not quite so great for the gay guys forced to cater to the straight audience.
It's the same problem with the other summer gay reality show, "Boy Meets Boy." That show, billed as "television's first gay dating show," is actually nothing of the sort. A gay dating show would only use gay men, but "Boy Meets Boy" employs the services of heterosexuals (or maybe metrosexuals) to deceive the gay men.
According to the marketing campaign, it's a gay dating show with a twist. They're not all gay. Give me a break. If gay people tried to deceive straight men there would be national outrage. Remember that guy who shot and killed his friend because the friend revealed a crush on him on the Jenny Jones show?
The Pros and Cons of Gay TV
Before gay men start to uncork the champagne bottles, we need to seriously consider if these media images really help the community. On the one hand, we get to see more gays on television. On the other hand, those images aren't exactly flattering or representative. Sure, we're not being depicted as
murderers (the news takes care of that), but we aren't being depicted with substance either.
The gay men on these shows (and yes they are all men; I guess lesbians will have to wait for the Ellen show this fall) are safe for heterosexuals because they reinforce a nonthreatening image of homosexuality. Some gay men want to create a "boy next door" image so they can assimilate into mainstream culture, but that
image leaves out plenty of people who don't fit into the norm, and it limits society's "tolerance" for nontraditional expressions of sexual orientation identity.
Sure, it can be wonderful to be gay if you're a young, attractive, well-dressed, urban professional white male. But there's more diversity than that in the LGBT community. We don't all live in the gym, go to the opera and sing show tunes. We're not all white, not all male, not all fabulous, and God knows we're not all
cute. But this is television.
"Welcome to the rise of the gay minstrel show," writes Christopher Kelly in the Dallas Star Telegram. Kelly calls the "Queer Eye" show "more a creepy case of
gay self-ghettoization than a step forward."
"What's worse," Kelly writes, "gay people have become complicit in their own oppression: playing up to grotesque stereotypes, and widely ignoring the troubling questions these shows raise."
James Hannaham doesn't see it that way. Writing in this morning's edition of Africana.com, the former token black guy from "The Queer Eye" says "the argument that Queer Eye depicts gay stereotypes actually confuses me, since the show is
virtually unscripted." That's true, but the producers still get to pick the people who best fit the stereotypes in the first place.
"As a gay man," Hannaham says "you're freer to embrace your stereotypes with humor and a sense of performance, whereas black folks who try to fit stereotypes claim they're "keeping it real" and expect to be taken very seriously."
He's got
a point. Some groups actually like their stereotypes.
You won't find too many black men, for example, challenging the stereotype that black men have big d***s.(And we all know that's not true.)
How To Make A Quick Buck
Most of the reviews I've seen of the "Queer Eye" show have been positive, although some do acknowledge the issue of stereotyping. Still, I disagree with New Yorker magazine writer Nancy Franklin's description of the "Queer Eye" cast as "frank but not nonjudgmental." At the end of the show, while the straight guy gets the props for being so fabulous, the gay guys sit together in a living room watching it all on television with funny, unscripted, self-congratulatory bitchiness.
Maybe "Queer Eye" isn't the end of the world, and "Boy Meets Boy" isn't going to destroy the gay community, but can we please have at least one good show for us and by us? "Will and Grace" is designed for straight audiences. "Six Feet Under" is a great show but it's not a gay show. "Queer As Folk" is supposed to be a gay show, but talk about stereotypes. And I still can't get over the use of the ultrawhite word "queer" in any of these shows.
I'm not surprised by these shows, just disappointed. Television promotes capitalism and reinforces social stability. Since TV shows are designed to get ratings to sell advertising, most networks want to reach the broadest audience possible. That's why "black shows" usually don't do as well without white cast
members. Blacks, Latinos, Asians, gays and lesbians are simply entertaining straight white people and reinforcing their dominant image as the center of the television universe.
It's not all bad for minorities. Some of us are actually making money off of these shows. I have no problem with that, but let's not pretend it's a public service if it's just another way to get a laugh and make a buck.