Engel mentioned the show Queer Eye for a Straight Guy a bit ago, so when I saw it starting last night (10pm, NBC) I figured what the hell, I’ll watch it for a few minutes and then go back to my MP3 tagging or do some code or something.
I watched the whole thing.
I watched the whole thing thinking to myself “I’ll turn it off in a minute or so” and “it’s going to get cheesy any second now”.
But it didn’t. I honestly can’t explain why I liked it, or if in fact, I did like it (I think I did), but I watched it, and will watch it again. The show is sort of a combination of Trading Spaces, What not to Wear, but not really. Five gay men, each with a different super power (one is the fashion guy, one interior design, one food, one culture, and one music) and they help a straight guy by sorting out his home, his fashion sense, and set him up on a nice dinner date with his wife, or I assume, a minor variation on that. All through the show there are little tips on fashion or design, what to wear to hide a bit of a belly, or fix up boring old clothes, etc. Some of the humour was from the “wow, look at the way those gay guys act” voyeurism, and some was from the reaction of a straight guy suddenly assaulted by five gay guys who come into his house and start critiquing his clothing, home design, and the state of their bathroom. After the initial sort of shock though, it was really just five guys giving advice to another from their areas of expertise.
There is some silliness and a bit of “over the top” feel to it all, but not too much, and while I’m sure that this is simply a way for those evil homosexuals to move forward with their evil agenda, it didn’t feel too offensive. Course, being a straight man I have no idea how a gay man would feel about the show.
End result though, is it was good, and enthralling for some reason. So if you do see it on TV sometime, watch it and maybe you will like it as well. Hell, maybe you can explain to me why I liked it.