New Fox Reality Show Called Backward Gay Stereotype
May 14, 2004
Michael Christopher Bryan
http://www.gfn.com/news/story.phtml?sid=15651
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=31442
Just when you thought reality TV had hit its lowest points, Fox television unveiled yesterday a new reality show where two heterosexual men will do their best to pass themselves off as gay, with the winner taking home a $50,000 cash prize, reports The Washington Post.
The show will be titled, "Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay!" and will air in a two-hour special June 7.
In the press release, Fox described the notion of a straight man "turning gay overnight" as "a heterosexual male's worst nightmare."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD quickly dubbed the show's premise a "very backward stereotype."
Two hours after the announcement, Fox issued another press release, apologizing for the wording of the first press release, and deleted references to turning gay a straight man's "worst nightmare."
The premise, however, remains the same.
Fox will move the men into separate West Hollywood apartments with "actual gay roommates to experience what it's like to live life as a gay man."
The straight guys will "immerse themselves in 'the gay lifestyle," and be "trained" by gay coaches, and complete a challenge each day "to test their ability to pass for gay."
During the course of the show they will come out of the closet to their best friends. They will "mix, mingle and dance in gay nightclubs and they'll even go on a romantic blind date with another man."
At the end of their trial period trying to pass off as gay, the two guys will then, in the words of the Fox network, be put before a "jury of their queers."
(The re-released press release also deleted "jury of their queers," and apologized at the ill-conceived attempt at humor.)
The jury, made up of gay men "from all walks of life," will declare which of the two they believe actually is gay.
That lucky little hetero guy will win $50,000.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Steve Macias, GLAAD's entertainment media director, said "The press release speaks to a very backward stereotype that raises red flags for GLAAD." Marcias said the show – which the organization had not yet seen - sounded "tiresome in its premise of yet another straight man pretending to be a gay man."
"This is an old premise - look at 'Three's Company,' for example - show after show of straight men pretending to be gay men so that they can find something for themselves," Marcias said.
"If Fox wanted to do a really interesting reality series in which two heterosexual men experience what it is like to be a gay man in America, noted the Post, they ought to also send them someplace like Laramie, Wyo. Of course, that would not be the 'outrageously satirical' and 'hilarious reality special' that Fox has promised this one will be."