Analysis Of TV Show Queer Eye (QE)
Queer Eye (QE) for the straight guy is a Netflix original TV show; which ran on the Bravo television network from 2003 to 2007. this shows follows the stereotype that gay men are more refined and carry feminine qualities like fashion, style and personal care. The show is centered around 5 gay men that are called “The Fab Five”. In the newest series each one of them are experts that specializes in specific fields. Jonathan Van Ness, grooming expert; Tan France, fashion expert; Antoni Porowski, food and wine expert; Karamo Brown, culture expert and Bobby Berk, design expert.
The title of the new series is dedicated specially to heterosexual men. The title specifying QE for the straight guy clearly shows the distinction of the masculine and feminine characteristics of a straight guy to that of a gay guy. In this series, having straight men as targets; the fab five tends to give makeovers for heterosexual men that are way too masculine to care about their lifestyle in every other episode. Which reinforces the masculinity factor in the show.
The media often portrays the heterosexual men as having stable gender roles and homosexuals as having unstable ones. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are cultural categories humans use to make sense of their personal sexual practices. Americans traditionally interpret sexuality in terms of identity according to the binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality; the fact that even “alternate” forms of sexual identity like bisexuality are understood in reference to the binary speaks to its primacy. They allow for the social classification, essentializing, and disempowerment of the groups that identify with them; just as mistaking gender expectations for inherent biology gives rise to sexist social systems, assuming that the heterosexuality/homo- sexuality are cultural constructions like masculine and feminine.
Queer analysis is an interdisciplinary perspective that seeks to disrupt socially constructed systems of meaning surrounding human sexuality. Sexuality is an enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction toward others based upon their gender or sex. Queer theorists asserts that such an understanding misrepresents the full spectrum of human sexuality. Sexuality is fluid and difficult to categorize, and as a result the rather simple identity categories we use to name sexuality can never fully represent any individual’s actual, varied sexual drives. Queer theorists work to expose the shortcomings of these labels and show how they function to support systems of social power and privilege which is also seen in the show from the perspective of karamo brown who specializes in culture.
In QE there is a pattern of heteronormativity (or heterosexism). It refers to a diverse set of social practices that function to perpetuate the heterosexual/homosexual binary and to privilege heterosexuality. The fab five characters all depicts flamboyant behaviors as compared with the men they were giving makeovers to. The men in their show have no sense of style their homes are very un-organized or messy and have no self-care routines. The fab five being men can relate to other men, but because they are gay they are also experts in fashion, organization and personal grooming. In the show without the binary there would be an unsettling feeling to the audiences giving them the sense that something is not quite right.
The number of queer characters or personalities present in the media and the way that those queers act, feel, and engage with the world are different. Increasing the visibility of the fab five characters, personalities or themes necessarily overlooks others. As certain aspects of queer life become more prominent in the media, others become ignored. Visibility results in invisibility. While some scholars have claimed that the show escapes stereotyping by presenting viewers with multiple masculinities, it still clearly participates in distinguishing between heterosexual and homosexual individuals on the basis of gender clarity and ambiguity.
One of the things that makes a character “intelligibly” heterosexual is a definite adherence to masculinity in men and femininity in women. Homosexual characters, on the other hand, tend to shift unpredictably between classic and opposite gender roles, or the blend aspects of masculinity and femininity in original ways. This sort of gender fluidity is a way to eradicate sexual classification, the ambiguity in the fab fives personalities helps this process of eradication in labels.
The show’s attempt to destabilize the sexual binary and reveal heterosexual privilege like living carelessly does not affect them as men because that is the given stereotype of heterosexual men in the show; this does not mean that queer theory is an approach of opposition to individual sexual practices or feelings that might be labeled heterosexual. But, defining itself against the normal instead of heterosexual. In the same way that feminists work against sexist systems and not individual men. Media texts promote heterosexuality as normal and other forms of sexuality as deviant, abnormal or other. In ways that they paint a picture of the world where sexuality fits conveniently into particular categories according to conventional meanings.
The Fab Five form a continuum of gender norms on the show that resists easy classification of masculinity. Media critic David Weiss claims that in the Five we see a multiplicity of gender performances that confound and blend traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity. The various gender performances of the Fab Five give the impression that homosexuals are less clear in their gender orientation than the heterosexual couples, and the degrees of bewilderment that the couples visually demonstrate toward the Five (varying from delight to discomfort) further to underscore these differences.
In conclusion, QE for the straight guy relies on the interaction between clear heterosexual gender roles and ambiguous homosexual ones. In each episode the Fab Five attempts to make-over hapless, heterosexual men so that they can return to their doting wife or impress their girlfriends. The show implies that the male subjects of these make-overs are often too rigid to indeed even know about how to groom themselves, choose fashionable clothing or comprehend the details of interior design. Their heterosexual female counterparts, the wives and girlfriends on the show, enact complementary feminine gender norms by coaxing their partners into getting a makeover and showering them with praise by the episode’s conclusion. In short, “men are me” and “women are women” on QE.
