 Straight Plan For the Gay Man (Comedy Central) Queer Eye works because it presents a dramatic and hilarious reversal of all the straight-male stereotypes we're fed by TV shows, demonstrating that there's just no reason to excuse straight guys for being sloppy, ill-mannered, and boorish. Everyone can have style and flair, regardless of their quantity of back hair or "wrinkle-proof" Dockers. But beyond the cleverness, Queer Eye connects emotionally with its subjects, treating them with irreverence, yes, but ultimately with a loving respect. It's not like the show tries to get straight guys to be gay; rather, it just shows them how not to live like pathetic slobs. Straight Plan doesn't aim for any specific goal other than to provide a counter-reversal of the Queer Eye approach. This is dumb for a lot of reasons, but the central one is that there is no need for it. TV gives us enough of the "slovenly straight white guy" routine; there is nothing creative or insightful to be mined from the idea of showing gay guys how to be "straight" in the limited, stereotypical TV sense of the word. More importantly, Straight Plan is simply not funny. I'm not against "straight, lazy, slobby, and proud of it!" brand of humor, but it seems to be successful only in the hands of the few who are genuinely witty about it (Adam Carrolla and Jimmy Kimmel may be the only ones). The posse on Straight Plan is the most witless group of morons I've seen on TV in a long time. They struggle to come up with improvised one-liners, failing every time, and then "riff" on each other, which only make it worse. "Riffing" only works if what is initially said has some merit, and the group involved has some actual ability to riff. These guys are just dumb. The one-dimensional idea that "guys" are all fat slobs who love drinking beer, watching porn, and shooting hoops is fallacious, so watching gay guys try to live up to this misguided standard is just degrading. What would be a lot better would be to have some more well-rounded straight guys teach gay dudes how to be dorky: like, show 'em the desperate geekiness of collecting "Star Wars" action figures, or repairing vintage synthesizers, or maintaining a blog. These are probably the more honest straight-guy pursuits. Come to think of it, I only know about three actual people who fit the supposed "straight guy" archetype, and one of them is a straight woman. The genders aren't as different as TV wants you to believe, and it's high time this lazy bullshit of "men don't ask for directions" and "women cry a lot" just goes away.
Review by Chicago Hilton © 2004 |
