The Intersection of Gay Street and Straight Street: Shopping, Social Class, and the New Gay Visibility

Abstract

If you turned on your television in the summer of 2003, you most likely encountered the Fab 5. Their TV show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," had quickly become a hit for the cable network Bravo, whose partner NBC then also picked up the program. In each episode the Fab 5 take a slovenly heterosexual man and give him and his space a makeover, just in time for the straight guy to impress his girlfriend, potential girlfriend, wife, or womankind more generally. The Fab 5, each of whom has a special exper tise—grooming, culture, food and wine, interior decorating, and fashion—are funny, warm, and witty. Straight men thank the Fab 5 profusely, praise them to their friends, and hug them; straight women gush about and around them. They have appeared on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Oprah," the MTV Video Music Awards, and the season premiere of the NBC sitcom "Good Morning, Miami." They have been parodied on Fox's "Mad TV," and inspired a Comedy Central take-off, "Straight Plan for the Gay Man." "Queer Eye" has often drawn over 3 million viewers, more than twice the number of viewers any Bravo show had pre viously attracted, often beating out the major networks for view ers; when NBC first aired it, the show drew 7 million viewers and tied for first in its time slot among 18-49-year-old viewers (Wein raub and Rutenberg 2003). In 2004, NBC ran a "Queer Eye" mar athon on Super Bowl Sunday. "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl," a spinoff, will begin airing in 2005. Bravo has sold the show to twenty countries (della Cava 2004).