Ask Skye: TV shows

Dear Skye,

Do shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy make a difference? How do you feel about shows like that? Are they exploitive or supportive? 

Sincerely,
Curious College Student.

 

Dear Curious,

I got an email from a college girl in Kentucky. She wanted help with a paper and wanted to know more about gay people. Yes I felt like a High School bio project – again. Or is it a fish bowl, I’m the fish swimming naked. In either case, the question has me pondering gay role models. Yes Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Will & Grace and all the other shows have flung us gay boys and girls, into the main stream. Yet no actual gay role model has been created.

I feel like we’re fun, we’re the icing on the cake. There isn’t anyone actually having a relationship, an actual significant gay partnership. I’ve seen it on HERE (gay role model), the pay-per-view gay programming on Time Warner In Demand, it was a British show. Yet that can hardly be called main stream. 

I do think that the shows are supportive. I also think that the sitcoms and dramas can help turn us into real people; I can see someone in a red state, pondering, “check out those fun gay boys”. I’m really excited that Bree’s son kissed the new Solis gardener. I wonder how that will hit the Bible Belt. Homer also married gay people, Lesbians were mentioned on Gilmore Girls, it was a very gay week on TV.

Ultimately I think it’s more important for us as gay people to have a role model. Because unfortunately part of being gay is learning to accept a new style of relationship, one with very few socially bound rules. One that truly takes the adage; “a relationship is defined by the people in it” to new heights. I would like to see us have a valid relationship to mirror. I know this is shallow. Yet it is what I believe will make us more accepting to our own long term relationships. 

Yours,
Skye

Comments

[Roy]

I agree with you, however, I feel the shows listed above only depict a "safe" version of us. You know what I mean. You touched on it with the point that those characters do not have meaningful relationships, thus we're just the super funny life of the party type. I mean, Jack on Will and Grace plays that part to the fullest. I hate it when people compare me to him. I know they think since he's funny, and so am I, that we are one in the same, and that just irks me. However, I do not complain. It's great that there are gay people on these shows. I think that the new story on Desperate Housewives will do more for the "red states" than Will and Grace does. It will show a teenage boy going through being gay and coming to terms with it. I just hope they show it from his perspective and how hard it is, and how scared he is. I applaud the producers of the show. But he's gay, so it's not surprising that this is a story on the show. I just wished that Marcia Cross would have just gone through with her coming out and not ran for the door like she did. Being in LA, it's a known fact that she is a lez. I know a lot of lesbians in the industry, and they've all said it. Not that it's a bad thing obviously...Have a great day...

[a]

Three words: Six Feet Under.

[Haleigh]

are u gay skye?