How Queer Is <em>Queer Eye</em>?
Updated on June 18.
It’s 2018—how is there a popular new TV show that portrays gay guys as sassy hairdressers, fashionistas, interior designers, platonic best friends, and underwear models who appear to mostly live off amuse-bouches? A skeptic of “woke” culture might argue that the success of Netflix’s rebooted Queer Eye is a sign of latent hunger for the comfort of stereotypes. A sociologist might say we’re seeing the results of decades of prejudice funneling queer men into trades coded as feminine. A superfan might echo the company line, as once articulated by home-décor guru Bobby Berk: “We’re just five guys who happen to be experts in our field, and who happen to be gay.”
The truth probably combines all three explanations. But as highlighted in the second, is queer on a level deeper than its sanctifying of homosexuals as domestic superheroes. It’d be queer—though not as fun—even without the ing of groomer Jonathan Van Ness and the tight tees of foodie Antoni Porowski. Queerness, the theorists will tell you, means an assault on normativity: a defiance of cultural codes about how to look, talk, love, live, dream, aspire. Ever-so-gently, the Fab Five test out how anyone can possibly try to construct their “best” selves once the social proscriptions for how to dress and act have been lifted.
