xtcian

I'm a Little Light in the Skechers

4/8/04

Peter Rukavina wrote to me because he saw a scathing critique of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in the New York Daily Press, calling the show's hosts "'Sambo' gays." Now, I think they used the wrong black literary metaphor - Sambo is actually an old Indian story that is not particularly racist, but is definitely bizarre. There used to be a chain of pancake restaurants in the Midwest called Sambo's, but that was back in the mid-70s, when you could actually have a menu with a picture of a black kid with huge red lips eating "one hundred and sixty-nine pancakes."

No, I think the Daily Press meant to call the Queer Eye cast was a bunch of "Uncle Tom Gays," meaning they were obsequiously "being faggoty" for the highest corporate dollar, whoring out their swishiness for a world that otherwise wouldn't accept them. They are the Amos, Amos, Amos, Amos and Andy of modern gay television.

I hadn't thought about it before, and I'm not sure if I agree: seems to me that the last laugh is always on the audience, and any bit of Gay that slips into the atmosphere is good for homosexuals in general. If you start watching "Queer Eye," and that makes you buy leather shirts at Bang Bang on 8th Avenue, well, then, you're probably less likely to vote for the Defense of Marriage Act.

It is true, however, that we live in that liminal time when gays are not accepted, but their culture is celebrated – much like African Americans of the late 50s and 60s. Perhaps this is the natural progression of every disenfranchised group as they make their way slowly to the mainstream. Maybe the brazen flapper hussy of 1920 was the precursor to outright suffrage and the beginning of Taking Women Seriously.

I will agree that "Queer Eye" can be a little exhausting, and if you're a regular run-of-the-mill gay man just trying to get a little respect from the government, the Queer boys can seem like a minstrel sideshow. Other gays must hate "Queer Eye" the same way my friends hated the Generation X Irony Explosion of 1994: suddenly, all of our inside jokes were being sold back to us as beer ads and Urban Outfitter T-shirts. We can't make "Gilligan's Island" jokes anymore because everyone on TV already did – I wonder if "Queer Eye" has done the same for track lighting and cock rings.

Can you guess what program was the most forward-thinking show in the history of entertainment? That's right, "The Little Rascals." These were kids getting into mischief in the early 1930s, yet Buckwheat and Stymie were just as accepted into "Our Gang" as the white kids. Ah, that life would be that simple! Once Butch gets a pie in the face, we're all happy gay black lesbian bisexual left-handed Armenians at heart, right?