CAMP Talk

We all have guilty pleasures, and one of my favorites is gay reality TV. I’ve been a fan of Survivor since the cocky naked stranger Richard Hatch won the first season’s million-dollar prize. On The Amazing Race, queer couples have fared well almost every season, including the most recent run when California boys Reichen and Chip went all the way. To the grand prize, that is. Last summer, the Bravo cable channel delighted me (and annoyed some of you) with its first-ever gay dating series, Boy Meets Boy. The show forced contestant James to pick a partner from a bevy of handsome men —some of whom were straight guys trying to fool him. Though some folks thought the concept was mean spirited, that’s pretty much the lure of all reality TV. After suffering through our own daily grinds, many of us find it a great tension release to watch others have to make tough decisions and often become embarrassed by their choices. Fortunately, James played his game well and ended up winning a luxury trip with a gay mate he liked (at least at the time).

This year, the Fox network has come up with another challenge to the notion of gaydar with its series Playing It Straight, which is scheduled to be rebroadcast in its entirety during the summer. This time, a heterosexual woman named Jackie must try to figure out which guys among 14 suitors are straight and which ones are just pretending to be that way. Even the male competitors (all vying for a huge cash prize) don’t know who is what. And that provides hilarious tension, as each man challenges the heterosexuality of the others: "I know so-and-so is gay; he shaves his legs." "So-and-so likes Cher! How gay is that!"

At the end of each episode, Jackie dismisses a candidate (or two) she believes to be a straight pretender, and the losers have to admit the truth. Based on the first few episodes, neither she nor the men are doing a very good job of differentiating between heterosexuals and homosexuals. With decades of experience picking gay guys out of a crowd, I consider myself a professional when it comes to having a reliable gaydar guidance system, but I must admit that I’ve been no more successful than the players.

Of course, the producers like to toss a few tricks at us. They’ve purposely sought out several men with effeminate mannerisms and a preoccupation with grooming or Feng Shui to portray straight contestants. (Some of the guys make me wonder how thoroughly the producers investigated their sexual orientation. Perhaps the old casting-room couch was employed!) The show’s creators also clearly recruited straight-looking, straight-acting gay men to confuse Jackie, as well as the other men and the television audience. Nonetheless, the resulting program is a highly entertaining game show, one that repeatedly puts forward a worthwhile message: Though many straight folks think they can pick out a queer in a crowd, and we gay people think we’re experts, it’s never wise to judge a book entirely by its cover.

While Bravo hasn’t announced whether it will air another season of Boy Meets Boy, the NBC-owned cable channel is continuing its emphasis on gay-related programming following the big success of its Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Right now, the channel is casting for gay couples (and straight ones) for a new feel-good show about enduring relationships. Sort of like The Newlywed Game in reverse, this show will focus on "the irritations you’ve told your partner about hundreds of times but you know will never change!" Oh, boy, the show will be another chance to watch people embarrass themselves for prizes and 15-minutes of fame.

Also coming up soon on Bravo is The Ross Show, starring Ross Mathews, better known as Ross the Intern on The Tonight Show. The chubby celebrity-chaser has been described as a sweeter version of Entertainment Tonight fashion critic and interviewer Cojo, who has been described as the male Joan Rivers. In style and mannerisms, the effervescent Ross is actually most reminiscent of Richard Simmons or perhaps Liberace. Which would make him a perfect candidate to portray one of the heterosexual dudes on the next installment of Playing It Straight.

All in all, the blurring of lines between gay and straight people on television is a good thing. As much as the new shows and celebrities are helping to bring gay characters into the mainstream of America’s TV culture, they’re also making mainstream America more comfortable with gay style and culture. That’s preferable to the current trend in radio, where homosexuals are just about the last group that shock jocks have left to pick on. With the FCC’s current crackdown on mentions of sexual acts and offensive language, frightened broadcasters are using more care in how they describe women and ethnic minorities. However, in search of a sharp edge, a growing number of shows increasingly have turned their attention to taunting "fags." For example, on Clear Channel’s Florida-based Monsters of the Morning, which airs on stations throughout the South, rarely an hour goes by when one of the characters doesn’t sound off about his disdain for "queers" and "faggots."

The nation’s largest radio chain, Clear Channel dominates the airwaves of many cities, determining an awful lot of the content we have to choose from. The company made waves recently by dropping Howard Stern’s syndicated show (arguably a more intelligent social satire than many of Clear Channel’s own offerings) for airing language it deemed offensive to women and black people. However, Clear Channel has completely ignored the incessant aspersions cast against gay people by such of its star performers as "the Monsters." Likewise, the Federal Communications Commission, which is so incensed by a handful of disfavored "dirty" words and the nanosecond appearance of a breast on the boob tube during the Super Bowl, has nothing to say when it comes to anti-gay rhetoric.