Today, I'd like to present an article written by a man named Johann Hari. According to his website, he's an award winning, british journalist, and after reading a couple of his articles, I have to say that I'm very impressed, both with his opinions, how he presents them, and the way he uses the american language(I could say "english", but "the way he uses english" sounds really dumb and doesn't explain what I mean). I suppose I'm breaking some sort of copyright rule thing when including this piece of work in my blog, but I'm not sure. So, if you are some sort of authority person capable of making me pay you lots of money because of this blog entry, then please; ask me to remove it, and I will. Don't... Kill me. Or anything like that. Because I am in no way taking credit for Mr. Hari's brilliant writing skills.
Well, here goes.
~
Why I hate 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'
And how camp became outdated
You can catch a great TV double-bill this Saturday night. First up there's Black Eye for the White Guy, in which a gang of black people teach a hapless white guy how to acquire a sense of rhythm and greater sexual proficiency. It's followed by How Jewish Are You?, in which viewers will be quizzed about how cunning, persuasive and good with money they are.
Wait, there's something wrong here. Those shows would - quite rightly - be howled off the screen as peddling obnoxious stereotypes. Yet both Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and How Gay Are You? have been lauded as examples of how laid-back and accepting our society has become towards gay people.
In Queer Eye, a group of five gay men enter the lives of a badly-dressed straight guy. They gasp and tut their way around his flat and wardrobe, gaping at the ways of the mysterious heterosexual. He is then taken in hand: they ensure he is plucked, deodorised, and re-dressed, before being presented to a cheering girlfriend and mother. The show is a cult hit in the US, and a British version launched last week on UK Living.
The show is the straightforward peddling of prejudice. It is all the more aggravating that the producers no doubt consider themselves terribly radical and right-on, rather than manufacturers of a latter-day Black and White Minstrel Show. Queer Eye is based on a myth: the idea that gay men are somehow more stylish.
I am tragic and irrefutable proof that this is untrue. I realised something was wrong with the way I dress when my friends started buying clothes and throwing them into my washing basket, in the hope I would unwittingly wear something decent. Even my own grandmother looked at me in horror when I visited her last week in an ancient "Free Nelson Mandela" T-shirt and Marks and Spencer jeans. "Oh Johann, why can't you dress like those nice gay boys on television?" she asked with tears in her eyes.
Yet the Queer Eye caricature seems like a flattering myth at first. Isn't it nice to be considered stylish and fun? Perhaps; but is this lie any more positive than the belief that black men are well-endowed? Both contain a fetid underside - black men are big below but not very bright up here, it implies, while gay men are good at clothes but when it comes to politics, the Army or sport, leave it to the real men.
I know this sounds churlish. Isn't it better to have openly gay men on television - and being cuddled by straight guys! - than to go back to the dark ages of underground clubs and gay people trapped in heterosexual marriages? Sure. It was progress to have real black people in 1940s movies playing the a-whoopin'-and-a-hollerin' slaves rather than blacked-up actors too. But isn't it better to have neither?
Some people might imagine that camp behaviour is an inherent part of being a gay man. Aren't we somehow - perhaps genetically - more feminine? Aren't camp and gay basically the same thing? It's only if you look at the history of camp that you understand how flawed this belief is. Camp behaviour evolved among gay men during the 18th and 19th centuries for a good reason. Gay men couldn't be open about their sexuality, so they developed a shared way of behaving. Only by acting and dressing in a certain way could they send signals to each other and find sexual partners.
So camp behaviour represents the values of the 19th-century closet. To survive and to retain any sense of self-esteem, the gay men of that generation developed a camp outlook on life. Its main features were irony, theatrical frivolity, an aristocratic detachment from the worries of straight people, parody, and an emphasis on style over substance. It made sense then. But I've got news for you: the closet is broken, and we're never going back - yet too many gay people are still trapped on an outmoded camp-site.
The persistence of campery long after it has fulfilled its historical function seems, initially, quite harmless. The Queer Eye team seem to be likeable, happy men, after all. For every miserable, self-hating camp man - Kenneth Williams or the characters from the famous 1970s movie The Boys in the Band - there is a jolly Mr Humphries or a manic Graham Norton. But camp presents two big problems.
At university, I got to know a very butch, very male, very hairy rugby player. I'll call him Mark. He was the least camp person I have ever known. He drank a pint of real ale over breakfast and burped, it seemed, at 15-minute intervals. The closest he got to elegance and style was when he vomited in the bin instead of on the carpet. Yet I discovered, gradually, that he was gay.
The dominance of camp behaviour in the gay world massively increased his confusion. "How can I be gay," he asked one day, "when I can't stand Abba, I hated Muriel's Wedding, and I'd rather be shot than wear a wig?" On How Gay Are You? - the new Sky One quiz show - Mark would be judged to be heterosexual, because he does not conform to any of their "gay" characteristics. There's just one snag: he's attracted to men.
Camp has become an inaccurate and misleading label. By preserving and re-enacting the rituals of 19th century gay men, we make it harder for masculine 21st century gay men to understand their sexuality. Mark dreaded being seen as camp; he is still closeted, in part because he does not want to be seen as a Queer Eye queen
But the persistence of camp has also led to a dysfunctional gay culture. Susan Sontag wrote a famous essay defining camp in 1964, where she explained, "It is a way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. It goes without saying this is disengaged, depoliticised - or at least apolitical."
In a camp world, it doesn't matter what you do so long as you do it with style. This explains the camp man's admiration (and staggering willingness to vote for) Margaret Thatcher. Sure, she introduced the most explicitly homophobic piece of legislation in decades with Section 28, but, darling, did you see her boots?
The moral emptiness of the Queer Eye mentality is summarised in Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windemere's Fan, when a character says, "It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." This way of thinking is a key factor in the current gay scene, drained of solidarity with the gay people who are viciously oppressed across the world. That's all terribly earnest, dear; we'd rather talk about Kylie's latest frock. Irony and narcissism have captured and crippled gay politics.
Beyond Queer Eye, the truth about gay people - as we finally shuffle past the twitching, ball-gowned corpse of camp - must be dull, dull, dull. In reality, we are not gifted stylists and geniuses with eye-liner. We are just as likely to be mediocre - or brilliant - as our straight brothers.
Being welcomed as performing chimps for the straight folks does not mean we've won the battle for cultural acceptance. No, it will come when we are (rightly) seen to be as boring and lacking in style as everybody else.
Well, here goes.
~
Why I hate 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'
And how camp became outdated
You can catch a great TV double-bill this Saturday night. First up there's Black Eye for the White Guy, in which a gang of black people teach a hapless white guy how to acquire a sense of rhythm and greater sexual proficiency. It's followed by How Jewish Are You?, in which viewers will be quizzed about how cunning, persuasive and good with money they are.
Wait, there's something wrong here. Those shows would - quite rightly - be howled off the screen as peddling obnoxious stereotypes. Yet both Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and How Gay Are You? have been lauded as examples of how laid-back and accepting our society has become towards gay people.
In Queer Eye, a group of five gay men enter the lives of a badly-dressed straight guy. They gasp and tut their way around his flat and wardrobe, gaping at the ways of the mysterious heterosexual. He is then taken in hand: they ensure he is plucked, deodorised, and re-dressed, before being presented to a cheering girlfriend and mother. The show is a cult hit in the US, and a British version launched last week on UK Living.
The show is the straightforward peddling of prejudice. It is all the more aggravating that the producers no doubt consider themselves terribly radical and right-on, rather than manufacturers of a latter-day Black and White Minstrel Show. Queer Eye is based on a myth: the idea that gay men are somehow more stylish.
I am tragic and irrefutable proof that this is untrue. I realised something was wrong with the way I dress when my friends started buying clothes and throwing them into my washing basket, in the hope I would unwittingly wear something decent. Even my own grandmother looked at me in horror when I visited her last week in an ancient "Free Nelson Mandela" T-shirt and Marks and Spencer jeans. "Oh Johann, why can't you dress like those nice gay boys on television?" she asked with tears in her eyes.
Yet the Queer Eye caricature seems like a flattering myth at first. Isn't it nice to be considered stylish and fun? Perhaps; but is this lie any more positive than the belief that black men are well-endowed? Both contain a fetid underside - black men are big below but not very bright up here, it implies, while gay men are good at clothes but when it comes to politics, the Army or sport, leave it to the real men.
I know this sounds churlish. Isn't it better to have openly gay men on television - and being cuddled by straight guys! - than to go back to the dark ages of underground clubs and gay people trapped in heterosexual marriages? Sure. It was progress to have real black people in 1940s movies playing the a-whoopin'-and-a-hollerin' slaves rather than blacked-up actors too. But isn't it better to have neither?
Some people might imagine that camp behaviour is an inherent part of being a gay man. Aren't we somehow - perhaps genetically - more feminine? Aren't camp and gay basically the same thing? It's only if you look at the history of camp that you understand how flawed this belief is. Camp behaviour evolved among gay men during the 18th and 19th centuries for a good reason. Gay men couldn't be open about their sexuality, so they developed a shared way of behaving. Only by acting and dressing in a certain way could they send signals to each other and find sexual partners.
So camp behaviour represents the values of the 19th-century closet. To survive and to retain any sense of self-esteem, the gay men of that generation developed a camp outlook on life. Its main features were irony, theatrical frivolity, an aristocratic detachment from the worries of straight people, parody, and an emphasis on style over substance. It made sense then. But I've got news for you: the closet is broken, and we're never going back - yet too many gay people are still trapped on an outmoded camp-site.
The persistence of campery long after it has fulfilled its historical function seems, initially, quite harmless. The Queer Eye team seem to be likeable, happy men, after all. For every miserable, self-hating camp man - Kenneth Williams or the characters from the famous 1970s movie The Boys in the Band - there is a jolly Mr Humphries or a manic Graham Norton. But camp presents two big problems.
At university, I got to know a very butch, very male, very hairy rugby player. I'll call him Mark. He was the least camp person I have ever known. He drank a pint of real ale over breakfast and burped, it seemed, at 15-minute intervals. The closest he got to elegance and style was when he vomited in the bin instead of on the carpet. Yet I discovered, gradually, that he was gay.
The dominance of camp behaviour in the gay world massively increased his confusion. "How can I be gay," he asked one day, "when I can't stand Abba, I hated Muriel's Wedding, and I'd rather be shot than wear a wig?" On How Gay Are You? - the new Sky One quiz show - Mark would be judged to be heterosexual, because he does not conform to any of their "gay" characteristics. There's just one snag: he's attracted to men.
Camp has become an inaccurate and misleading label. By preserving and re-enacting the rituals of 19th century gay men, we make it harder for masculine 21st century gay men to understand their sexuality. Mark dreaded being seen as camp; he is still closeted, in part because he does not want to be seen as a Queer Eye queen
But the persistence of camp has also led to a dysfunctional gay culture. Susan Sontag wrote a famous essay defining camp in 1964, where she explained, "It is a way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. It goes without saying this is disengaged, depoliticised - or at least apolitical."
In a camp world, it doesn't matter what you do so long as you do it with style. This explains the camp man's admiration (and staggering willingness to vote for) Margaret Thatcher. Sure, she introduced the most explicitly homophobic piece of legislation in decades with Section 28, but, darling, did you see her boots?
The moral emptiness of the Queer Eye mentality is summarised in Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windemere's Fan, when a character says, "It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." This way of thinking is a key factor in the current gay scene, drained of solidarity with the gay people who are viciously oppressed across the world. That's all terribly earnest, dear; we'd rather talk about Kylie's latest frock. Irony and narcissism have captured and crippled gay politics.
Beyond Queer Eye, the truth about gay people - as we finally shuffle past the twitching, ball-gowned corpse of camp - must be dull, dull, dull. In reality, we are not gifted stylists and geniuses with eye-liner. We are just as likely to be mediocre - or brilliant - as our straight brothers.
Being welcomed as performing chimps for the straight folks does not mean we've won the battle for cultural acceptance. No, it will come when we are (rightly) seen to be as boring and lacking in style as everybody else.
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