Why Queer Eye’s common-ground approach doesn’t make sense in 2018

Slate

On the Netflix reality show, it’s up to the Fab Five to search for common ground while “the subjects must simply be polite and passively tolerant,” says J. Bryan Lowder. As he points out, that approach is “wildly at odds with the shows other demands. The queens must calm their clients with assurances of sameness while simultaneously drawing on their profound difference—particularly on the world-transforming aesthetic skills and sensibilities for which gay men have long been derided as sissies or stereotypes—in order to bring their students revitalization and happiness. Indeed, the more I reflect on Queer Eye, the more I feel like the whole thing is a queasy-making trade of queer talent and joy (see how the straight man, moribund just yesterday, now grins so brightly!) for little more than a ‘Well, y’all are all right.’”