Gayle R. Baldwin
Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota, Department of Philosophy
and Religion
Abstract
The "Magic Negro" is a term coined in the 1950s describing Hollywood's
portrayal of black men as characters who, although disabled, have
supernatural powers that allow them to save lost or broken white men.
Here, I compare this "gospel" with that of the Fab 5 (Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy), who transform disheveled, uncultured straight
men into "chick magnets." This comparison concludes that racial
and sexual minorities are acceptable in American popular television
and film as long as the salvation and redemption motif of the American
myth prevails and white heteronormativity remains unchallenged and
privileged.
[1] Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a so-called "reality
TV show," debuted on the cable network Bravo in July, 2003.
Their website describes the mission of the five:
They are the Fab 5: an elite team of gay men who have dedicated
their lives to extolling the simple virtues of style, taste and
class. Each week their mission is to transform a style-deficient
and culture-deprived straight man from drab to fab in each of their
respective categories: fashion, food and wine, interior design,
grooming and culture.
It's a full lifestyle make-over - a make better show where
straight guys turn in their pleats for flat fronts, learn about
wines that don't come in a jug and come to understand why hand soap
is not a good shampoo (and vice versa). When the journey is done,
a freshly scrubbed, newly enlightened, ultra hip man emerges. 2
[2] But this only describes a secular mission. Carlson
Kressley, the leading spokesperson for the Fab 5 speaks of this mission
with all the religious fervor of a vocation: "We're doing the Lord's
work. I'm here to be His servant."3
With this religious twist, the "queer guys" can suddenly be seen as
the "Finity," a new incarnation of God, five persons (each with a
particular charism to impart) in one substance (gayness, of course).
They are not only intent on cleaning up straight guys who are sloppy,
uncultured and unable to attract or keep a woman, their mission is
salvific. They intend to change lives. With all the urgency
of TV evangelists, the five men, who have been called in by
friends and family to do an intervention, invade the homes of the
"sinners," and begin the business of exposing sins in order to invoke
full repentance. Critics claim the Fab 5 only accomplish one
thing: they turn straight guys into bonafide "metrosexuals," narcissistic
style-conscious heterosexuals now equipped to spend money on clothes,
fine food, and overpriced skin and hair products. Another plus
is that they are now self-sufficient and no longer need women to do
these things for them.4 This autonomy the Finity assures their disciples,
makes them "sexy" because they are self-confident, and self confidence
is sexy. In other words, the "gospel" according to the new Finity
is aptly summed up in the theme song, "Things just keep getting better."
As the lyrics go, "You came into my life and my world never looked
so bright. It's true, you bring out the best in me when you are around.
Things just keep getting better." Confidence is the sign of being
"born again," and the reward is knowing what to buy to make yourself
look good and thus, sexy. The "booty" is women.
[3] The gay community has raised some serious questions about
this "gospel" and the ostensibly salvific role of these queer heroes.
The major criticism has been whether or not Queer Eye simply
concretizes stereotypes of gay men. If this is so, why is the
show so popular in America where the "Christian Right" and its "anti-gay"
campaign seems to have the upper hand when it comes to winning political
equality for non-heterosexuals? Why would stereotypical gay
men be acceptable? Could the answer be found in the very salvation
myth they impart?
[4] Questions concerning the role of minorities in bolstering
America's religious ideology of 'Manifest Destiny' are not new.
Several analyses of the American myth and the role of the "Other"
beginning with the first American "savages," the indigenous peoples
have laid the groundwork for examining the pattern of the American
psyche when faced with "aliens."5
A second source of analysis comes from African American critics and
scholars of Hollywood's use of Black men and women as stereotypical
"Others" who are redeemed by being saviours of straight white men.
Relying on these two sources, I extracted several themes which could
serve as a useful methodological framework by which to critique the
success and popularity of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
First, the use of successful gay stereotypes who are portrayed as
childlike, shallow and in some degree asexual makes them acceptable
to an American psyche that has been trained to fear gay men as predatory.
This has also been the case with black men who have also been perceived
as sexually dangerous and in need of control. The use of gay
men and black men as stereotypes and comedians allows the "Other"
to be controlled, thus rendering them harmless. Secondly,
the use of gay stereotypes prevents any referencing to gay violence,
inability of many gay and lesbian couples to achieve full human rights,
and the everyday unreported discrimination of gay, lesbian and transgender
people. This has also been the case for African Americans.
As long as black men are in "black face" and continue to "step and
fetch it," or, as in the case of professional athletes, have
successfully cloned themselves in to upper class whites, the reality
of the ghetto can be hidden. At the same time inclusion of minorities
on these terms perpetuates the American myth of "liberty and justice
for all". But most importantly is the religious theme of "vicarious
sacrifice" by the "Others." This is the use of minorities as
humble and willing to accept personal sacrifice in a gesture of atonement
for the sins of their oppressors. To cast minorities in the
roles of those who willingly give up their lives for the white man
ultimately assuages any residual guilt American popular viewers may
harbor over their own racism and homophobia.
The Savage and the American Hero
[5] In his foundational analysis of the development of the
American frontier myth, fundamental to understanding how Americans
treat those who are considered different or alien, David Slotkin explains
that the indigenous people were objectified by the early colonists
in response to the difficulty of life in the New World. This
resulted in a need to control the Savage either through violence,
conversion or sometimes both. The need to achieve heroism by killing
Indians was a way to prove to their sponsors at home that they were
still true Englishmen and were not yielding to savagery. As we can
observe in the genre of Puritan narratives, "... the first American
mythology took shapeÆa mythology in which the hero was the captive
or victim of devilish American savages and in which his (or her) heroic
quest was for religious conversion and salvation." 6To
achieve this conversion and salvation, one must conquer all elements
that could possibly pull you away from "civilization," a concept that
included orderliness, control of the body, modesty and a hierarchy
of power. Slotkin concludes that in order to remain in a saved state,
the colonists had to create a new set of measures by which to define
civilization. But this was far easier to achieve "through attacking
or condemning alien elements in their society." All those "whose
ideas were strange or whose behavior smacked of an Indian-like lack
of orthodox discipline" were cast out.7
[6] As the colonists overcame their fear through control of
the wilderness environment, there developed a "love-hate" relationship
with the Indian: "The whites appreciated and envied what they
took to be the Indian's ease of life and sexuality, the facility with
which he adjusted to the land, the fidelity and simplicity with which
he worshiped his wilderness gods, and the gratification of mind and
body such worship brought him."8 At the same time, the Puritan
mind feared the savage, and as is seen in the captivity narratives,
could gain a control of this fear and at the same time, achieve a
kind of purification from having been tainted by the savage and one's
fear of him, by not only hunting and conquering the savage, but also
by surviving captivity.
[7] There is then, deep in the American psyche an abiding need
to maintain control. This need to control or conquer fear is
a means of achieving salvation. The early frontier myths laid out
a pattern of "regeneration through violence" that includes sacrifice
by shedding blood of the "Other," controlling through appropriation
of culture, or by creating stereotypes that are conducive to supporting
the "civilized" structure of the hero. Another way is to allow
oneself to endure the captivity of the savage and to emerge untainted.
[8] This brief foray into the conflict between the Puritan
and the Indian and the mixed metaphor of salvation, control, being
controlled and purification provides us with some understanding of
why Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a perfectly legitimate
way of "handling gay-ness" in a civilized manner. The converts
on the show always end up better than they were, but better only because
they endured the touch of homosexuality, while becoming better straight
men. The Other is acceptable because he does not threaten the
prevailing structure, heteronormativity, but actually ensures its
privilege. This may explain why a largely straight audience
has defended the show as valuable and constructive. Comments
abound on the internet that argue the series demonstrates that not
only can gay men and straight men get along, they can even touch each
other because there is nothing to fear. Not only are straight
men converted, but, the argument goes, so are homophobes.
But questions are raised about what kind of gayness is useful for
this salvation metaphor to work just as they were about the use of
the Indian as supportive of the salvation of the civilization of the
Puritan. What needs to be interrogated is the necessary sacrifice
by the Other for this symbiotic relationship to continue. The "Magic
Negro" syndrome gives us some answers.
The "Magic Negro" and the Queer Messiah9
[9] African American critics have reflected deeply on the "Magic
Negro" phenomenon, or the way Black characters have been given magical
roles and supernatural powers in film, seemingly empowering a marginalized
group, but actually exploiting them. One answer to the question
why this is popular with dominantly white audiences, comes from Anthony
Appiah. Appiah speculates that the way black characters, but
particularly black men, have been used in film "works" because the
"Magic Negro," the "Magical African American Friend" (MAAF) is portrayed
within the belief that "suffering is ennobling,"10[13]
Kempley, "Movies' 'Magic Negro' Saves the Day. which is part of the
Puritan salvation scheme
[10] The Gospel according to the Magic Negro has been around
since late 1950s when Sidney Poitier sacrificed himself to save Tony
Curtis in The Defiant Ones. The term "Magic Negro" refers
to what critic Todd Boyd, author of "Am I Black Enough for You?" and
one of the coauthors of "The Wood" (1999) sees as "black pawns".11 These characters
are one dimensional men who have supernatural powers even though they
are in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination,
disability or social constraint. The supernatural powers seem
to be granted for only one intent: to "... help white people figure
out what's going wrong and fix it."12 Ostensibly, this seems like
the "coloured man" has finally made it to the top, honored as the
all-American Saviour, Martin Luther King's dream come true,
a black Jesus, yes, misunderstood and sacrificed, but so that others
may live. But as Rita Kempley and others have pointed out, what
is actually sacrificed goes way beyond the bodies of Black men: "It
isn't that the actors or the roles aren't likable, valuable or redemptive,
but they are without interior lives."13 In other words, what is sacrificed
is the complexity of race, showing the inability of the white dominant
society to understand blackness or to confront the insidious racism
that still persists in American institutions and the resultant nihilism
experienced by many young Black males. Kempley quotes Cedric Robinson,
author of "Black Marxism" who says of the portrayal of black males
in American Hollywood film, "The black male simply orbits above the
history of white supremacy. He has no roots, no grounding. In
that context, black anger has no legitimacy, no real justification,
The only real characters are white. Blacks are kind of like
Tonto, whose name meant fool."14
Racism is continued and white hegemony assured by the Magic Negro,
or to use Christopher Farley's preferred term, the MAAF (Magical African
American Friend). Farley adds this insight, "MAAFS exist because
most Hollywood screenwriters don't know much about black people other
than what they hear on records by white hip-hop star Eminem.
So instead of getting life histories or love interest, black characters
get magical powers."15
[11] If we examine two episodes from Queer Eye which
represent the typical pattern of the show, we can see some remarkable
similarities in the use of MAAFS and the Fab 5 and the ways both minorities
fit into the salvation scheme which raise the same questions raised
by African American scholars about the salvific role of the black
man. Can the acceptance of gay men in Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy be explained because the salvation scheme ultimately sacrifices
the homosexual and resurrects the straight man? Is the seemingly exaltation
of gay men working in the same way the Magic Negro does for Black
men, simply reflect yet another example of society's failure to confront
or understand the really important issues of race, gender and sexual
orientation?
[12] This lack of knowledge of the Other is condoned as necessary
on Queer Eye. Just as the norm in relationships between
Black domestics and their white female bosses was that domestics knew
every spot on the underwear and bedsheets of the white family, the
whites knew nothing about their Black employees. Similarly,
the gay guys on Queer Eye know all the dirty little secrets
of the hapless straight man, yet he knows nothing of the five gay
men. Although you can get a brief synopsis of the Fab
Five's paths to stardom on Bravo's Queer Eye page, the men
are careful on the show not to reveal anything of their own
personal lives. We never see their bedrooms, the status of
their bathtubs, the contents of their closets.
This distance is important for the magic to work. It actually makes
these messiahs more mystical, believable and able to perform miracles,
rather like the Markan son of man who quips "a prophet is not without
honor except in his own country."16
[14] Ignorance of the Other is necessary in order to sell the
Finity as true saviours. The American expectation is that the
Messiah is one who must make a sacrifice, in this case the sacrifice
of an interior life. Black film critic Anthony Appiah has reflected
on whether or not behind the saintliness of the Magic Negro lurks
the "theodicy that draws on the Christian notion that suffering is
ennobling." 17 He asks whether or not "... the black
person who represents undeserved suffering in the American imagination
can also, therefore, represent moral nobility? Does the Saint
exist to address the guilt of white audiences, afraid that black people
are angry at them, wanting to be forgiven, seeking a black person
who is not only admirable and lovable, but who loves white people
back?"18
Heather Hicks interprets Appiah to mean that "for white audiences,
a saintly black character is the moral equivalent of a 'normal' white
character on screen."19
Could this phenomenon also explain the success of Queer Eye?
Are straight audiences so in need of redemption from their homophobia
and underlying misogyny that they will gladly watch five gay men playfully
make one poor straight guy "be their bitch for a day?"20 But the question is whether
or not this kind of sacrifice ever changes anything. Is society
healed of their homophobia? Are the straight men simply turned
into metrosexuals? Is this just another infomercial, as some
have concluded, while none of the real issues of heterosexism or classism
have been addressed, while characteristically the gay men are sacrificed
in a more sophisticated way, unblemished lambs led to slaughter?
Interviews with the Fab Five suggest that none of them feels oppressed,
not in the least, but what if they suddenly lost all of their money,
contracted AIDS, or were mysteriously reincarnated becoming five of
those many nameless, faceless and powerless men who do not dare come
out of the closet for fear of their lives? Is this simply another
version of what Ed Guerrero has called the "... schizophrenic way
of representing black males as concentrated at the poles of celebrity
and pathology [which] leads to a dangerous array of perceptions and
assumptions"?21
[15] Unlike the Black man, who Appiah noted "orbits around
the white man," in Queer Eye, the gay men, flit like angels,
not above, but around the straight man. But as is true
of Appiah's Magic Negro description, they too lack roots and history.
They exhibit no interior life, except in the service of their mission.
Yet, they work their magic with childlike joy, not anger. "Playing
the fool" is essential to their redemptive purpose. According
to Carson, the most outspoken of the Finity, this "hetero 'make
better' hour, ... the reality show that could... [has been a success]
because we have no political agenda. We're all just about having
a good time and making people feel better about themselves."
He adds, " I'm also pretty amazed at how much we're able to get away
with on this show."22
As Hicks has said of the African American Hollywood saviours, they
do not have to be saints to do miracles.23
The Finity intrudes with determined purposefulness, making mockery
of the Sinner who has lived like a pig and hasn't seemed to notice.
They cajole, rip, ridicule, and deliberately harass, Jesus cleansing
the temple, but the whip is wielded with the wit of a comic dominatrix,
evidenced by comments such as this:
Ted: Well, we did braise a jockstrap, you have to admit.
Carson: That's good times.
Thom: But jockstraps do not qualify as sex. I know that surprises
you.
Kyan: Besides, what's so unnatural about that? You find a dirty
jockstrap. What do you do? Of course you boil it.
Carson: Make it clean and puritanical.
Thom: Amish.
Kyan: Our Quakers love us. We're big with the Quakers. It's
all about cleanliness.
Ted: Yeah, we're huge amongst the Pennsylvania Dutch.24
[16] Such comments compliment the theory that as long as the
dominating ones, even if they are the savages, ultimately support
puritanical standards, salvation for the straight man can be achieved.
All he must do is endure. Even though the Fab 5 are "savages
in disguise," and not saints themselves, they are accepted even when
they consciously make sexual innuendos, playing with the anticipated
fear of the one straight male surrounded by five gay men. The
gay men touch constantly, yet ever so gingerly, and tear down, metaphorically
and literally the straight man's entire outward life. This destruction
is a necessary component if it is to interface with the American Christian
salvation paradigm. Destruction and death mark the preamble
for resurrection and life, being "born again." Specific moments
in a few key episodes demonstrate this. In episode #109, "My
Big Fat Greek Haircut: from Fabio to Romeo," the Finity descends on
the apartment of George the body builder. Jai exclaims in dismay
as he looks around, "I have nothing." This lack of usable material
is necessary for the Judeo-Christian God to begin "His" work, for
this god is unique in that he "creates out of nothing," ex nihilo.
In episode #108, "Law and Disorder," the Finity look at a New Year's
Resolution list posted by their potential convert, Cop John V.
They judge it mercilessly, approving of John's intention to get his
finances in order and lose his belly. But this is not enough, they
conclude. Intervening grace is needed. They summarize
what John needs to do: "Grow up." Following the Christian paradigm,
intervening grace is needed, and they are there to help John do more
than grow up. Deification is the objective, which cannot be done by
the straight man alone.
[17] Yet in all of this destruction, there is no overt maliciousness
or intent for revenge. The message is "We are just like
you guys in every way. Our sensibilities are just keener, but
we're here to show you the way." They manifest the Lord's work
by portraying the Incarnation in the spirit of Dogma's "Good
Buddy Jesus" - some might say the pop culture's version of Bonhoeffer's
cheap grace saviour. But if we look at the unfolding of the
giving of grace, which may or may not "take," we observe a sincere
seriousness in the work of the Fab Five. In episode #109, Carson,
clearly the Holy Spirit of the bunch, gives George a tee shirt with
the name of his future body building gym, and tells him the purpose:
"If you can see it, you can be it." Carson exclaims over George
after he is coiffed and dressed, "You are a Greek god!" But
the images that surround George in the preparation for the evening
and the final scenes are more reminiscent of Jesus feeding the Five
Thousand. In the preparation for the supper, when Ted is teaching
George to cook, he leads him to the new outdoor grill and tells him,
"The Weber grill, worship it!" And on the altar, he is instructed
to cook lamb and lays out a table so the people can sit down.
When his mother sees her only son for the first time, she exclaims,
"It's a miracle!" But the Finity is careful to admonish the
convert that the transformation is not a passive one, not cheap grace
after all. Carson tells George solemnly, "Everything we've given
you, you gotta own it!" and George obeys. "This is me!" he exclaims
as he shows his Mom around his new place. The Finity, watching
from their unnamed domain on high where Queer Eye observes
its finished work: "No higher praise." It is as if to say, true
worship is to obey, to own it. The work of salvation seems sincere,
the Finity full of conviction. They do not seem to be only concerned
with selling products, quite the opposite. The "Lord's work"
is to make better heterosexuals. And this innocence and proclaimed
ultimate goal might explain why the American audience accepts the
show. It is a salvation myth that acknowledges the need for
material pleasure and sexual attractiveness, but only if there is
a sacrifice, a humbling, and ultimately, the salvation of "love."
But of course, the sacrifice is not equitable. The Captive allows
himself to be handled by the one he fears. That is his sacrifice.
That humbling is seen as ennobling, but the Captors' sacrifice, which
is far greater, is an interior life which they are not allowed to
reveal.
[18] When we look closer, however, we find that there are scenes
we do not see, more sexually intoned, and deliberately excluded.
According to Carson, there is a lot more sexual foreplay than is actually
taped or shown and the scenes that are kept are deeply revelatory
about the fear many heterosexual men have of potentially homoerotic
moments, which is the foundation of the disgust they feel towards
homosexual men. The scene most illustrative of this fear is from episode
#108, "Law and Disorder." In the opening scenes, Officer John V. is
clearly nervous and keeps the Fab Five as far away from him as he
can. He does not make eye contact. In the now famous tanning
booth scene with Kyan, the two men have disrobed and are wearing disposable
underwear. John is clearly uncomfortable. "Oh, my God,"
he blushes, "This is so gay." He is not even able to look in
Kyan's direction. Kyan says, "This is gay" (pointing
to himself), but what is gay about us together here?" "You don't
understand," says John. Is it the witness of the camera?
The woman who is going to "tan" the two men? Why was the scene
left in? Is it because the majority of the audience would clearly
sympathize with John's embarrassment? Yet the real fear that perhaps
John would feel arousal is left unaddressed. In a later interview,
the Five are talking about that episode and how much John changed
during the filming. Carson claims he licked him, but the scene
was cut.
Carson: I was licking his arm at Lord & Taylor.
Ted: Yeah.
Carson: They edited it out. Can you believe it?
Kyan: They edited it out?
Carson: Yeah.
Ted: No way.
Carson: The lick that changed the world has been edited. 25
The scene was edited and the world remained unchanged. The
chance for sexuality to actually be confronted by the audience was
dismissed. However, there are moments when it seems that the
straight men in the episodes are actually transformed. John
V. for example is obviously moved when Jai gives him tickets to "La
Boheme." Misty-eyed, he says to Jai, "Thanks, bro." Later,
during the celebratory meal with his girlfriend, John says something
uncharacteristic, "This is divine," and later he looks into the eyes
of his girlfriend and gives praise, "Thanks to you and these guys,
I have a spark in my pants." The exposure to the gay men from
Queer Eye clearly affects the straight men, but questions remain.
Is it a true conversion? " Would Officer John call Jai his "brother"
out on the streets? Is there is real change or is the
acceptance we see simply due to the realization that heterosexuality
is not disturbed, that things will go on like before, in which case
they are still in charge and can afford to be generous?
[19] The Fab Five rebut these questions and argue against their
critics that the show is making progress in overturning homophobia.
Kressley mentions several encounters at a horse show in conservative
Louisville, Kentucky where closeted gay men have spoken to him favorably.
26 An interview in The Advocate
shows that the Finity are not hiding anything, nor deliberately acting
out stereotypes; they are just being themselves and this is having
a positive effect:
Carson: We always get the stuff about us engendering every
gay stereotype. And one thing: Hi, it's a reality show. We're not
cartoonish and we're not pretending to be supergay or superstraight
or whatever. We're just being ourselves, and I'm not going to make
any excuses for who I am, and I don't think any of these guys are
either.
Jai: It's rude, because you're commenting on who we are
as people. We're not playing a role.
Kyan: Just to play devil's advocate, even if we are embracing
a stereotype that gay guys are effeminate or whatever, so what?
A gay guy can be effeminate. It's OK. If somebody has a problem
with it, they need to lighten up, and they need to open up their
minds.
Ted: So far the response has been so staggeringly positive,
and if it turns out that there are going to be a couple people who
don't like the show, whatever. That's fine. You're entitled to your
opinion. As far as backlash, you know what? Bring it on. We're OK,
we can take it. We're not going to be worried about negativity.
We're going to keep doing our thing and doing the best job we can
and I think let people respond the way they want to respond.
Kyan: This whole stereotype issue may force the gay community
to look at our own homophobia.
Carson: Exactly.
Kyan: I'm all for guys being butch and guys being men.
I identify with that and appreciate that. But if I'm going to stab
my gay brother in the back who isn't butch and who maybe acts a
little bit more effeminate, what good is that?
Thom: It's part of the deal. I have straight friends who
are more effeminate than my gay friends.
Kyan: If being gay is only OK if you're straight-acting,
why are we letting them set the standard?
Carson: We're being homophobic.
Ted: Being gay is such a huge diverse mix of types of people.
Let's not forget it's the drag queens who started the whole liberation
movement in the first place. We have to honor those -
Carson: Snaps for the drag queens who paved the way. [He
snaps his fingers, and they all join in].
Ted: Snaps for Stonewall.
Carson: Snapping. Furious snapping.
It appears that the Fab Five have it all together, just like good
saviours should:
Carson: We're being ourselves. And there's nothing more
liberating and more confidence building and also more flattering
than being yourself. If you listen to the feedback and they say,
"You're too this" or "You're too that." I'm beautiful, damn it,
if I may quote Bette Midler in Uncanny Alliance. You know
what? God made us all to be a certain way, there's nothing wrong
with it, and the only time it's bad is when you're not being yourself.
That's the worst thing you could do. 27
Taming the Savage Beast: A Salvation Metaphor
[20] The question then remains, what makes gay men "being themselves"
comparable in acceptability to straight white audiences, especially
females, and why? If we apply Heather Hicks' critique of the
Magic Negro in film to the Finity's phenomenal success on Queer
Eye, we find some similar issues concerning economics, demasculinity,
and the feminization of work. In her analysis of Unbreakable
and The Green Mile Hicks notices three characteristics
of Black Magic protagonists that are useful tools for answering these
questions. She notes first that the black protagonist needs
a white man in order to do his magic. In other words, without
the white man and the mission of his salvation, the black man is of
no value. Secondly, it is the white man's success that is paramount
and the central theme. Thirdly, it is the childlike nature of
the black man, or the demasculinizing of the black man that allows
the miracle to be successful. Hicks' conclusion about the friendliness
of MAAFS is that this reduction of blackness to a childlike magic
suited only for the transformation of white men shows that they are
not friends at all, "... Nor are they saints. They are ghosts,
or, at least, tips of a historical iceberg jutting into the present.
As such, they are provocateurs, forcing latent troubles into the light
of day."28
The nostalgia is for the former times, one might say, when marginalized,
silent voices knew their place, before Women's Liberation and Malcolm
X, when there was clear good and evil, when white men
were really men and knew what was expected of them and knew what to
expect of women, supermen who got the girl. "Yet," she continues,
"along with this nostalgia comes the haunting presence of other lingering
histories: black men systematically excluded from public, paid work
because of the threat to white male hegemony they might pose if they
had economic power." 29
[21] Similarly, the Finity may be seen in the same way, as
"provocateurs" of a time before Stonewall, when homosexuals were kept
under control, when homosexuals in religious traditions hid instead
of forcing heterosexism out in the open, in front of the altars and
communion tables. The ironic twist is that these "faux women," as
gay men have typically been viewed, get away with straightening out
their elect by "feminizing them." The Captors tame husbands
and boyfriends so that they become narcissistic, childlike and vulnerable,
which could be the ultimate triumph of the gay man. This trump
card of the Fab Five, to play the stereotype, participate in the salvation
metaphor, but with the covert mission of transforming the straight
man into someone more like them and making money on it, places the
five in the tradition of the "trickster." This is the role the
Magic Negro has also performed, as Jay Edwards observes in his article,
"Structural Analysis of the Afro-American Trickster Tale." 30 Concerning the African
American in film, he writes that the trickster tale was "... a cultural
cognitive model which enabled Afro- Americans to reflect on the moral
dilemmas imposed upon them under conditions of servitude and economic
bondage ... [the black men are] power brokers "31 who "interact with their white counterparts
not for selfless reasons, but to fulfill their own needs. Whether
that need be to confirm one's own identity, to share one's burden
of suffering, or simply give a powerful white man his comeuppance,
each of the transactions between black and white men that these films
imagine is the sort of 'exchange of value' that typifies a trickster
encounter."32
Within this framework, the Christian paradigm of salvation no longer
fits, but this may be part of the trick, to use the framework and
"turn a trick." If the audience is duped, all the better.
[22] But don't heterosexual audiences know that there is an
exchange of value going on? Popular reviews seem to reflect
that the audience knows this quite well, so why does it work?
There may be several answers for this. First of all, the religious
imagination of the American audience is programmed to receive this
kind of "salvation" scenario regardless of the trickery. But
as Damon Lee, actor in the film Undercover Brother, comments,
the magical, or miraculous transformation may be the final ingredient
that sells the portrayal of the flat superficial character:
The White community has been taught not to listen to black
people. I truly feel that white people are more comfortable
with black people telling them what to do when they are cast in
a magical role. They can't seem to process the information
in any other way. Whoever is king of the jungle is only going
to listen to someone perceived as an equal. That is always going
to be the case. The bigger point is that no minority can be in today's
structure. Somehow the industry picked up on that.33
"No minority can be in today's structure." This seems to be
the message of the magical salvation of the Fabulous Five. As long
as they are rich, stylish, somewhat feminine, as long as they do not
rock the boat of society's structures, make no demands or have a life
of their own, and as long as they continue to be the body servants
of the heterosexuality, and make changes that tease albeit playfully,
as long as they continue "to offer the possibility of grace to all
the bigots in the audience,"34
then they are acceptable, even adored. In the end, salvation
for the gay man, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual is still out of
reach. But any minority alone cannot exist, that is, be understood
and accepted in all the complexities of her or his life and be of
value. We still live, like the black man, with "a double consciousness."
As Ed Guerrerro writes concerning the lack of real representation
of the black man in the media:
... the psychological complexity of the black man's outlaw subjectivity
and how that subjectivity gets worked out through the lens of what
W.E.B. DuBois called a black "double consciousness,"
and Richard Wright, "double vision." Applied to transactions
and negotiations of daily life, these terms come down to constantly
having to think and see double: as the black Other, marked and relentlessly
locked out of the American Dream, and simultaneously as Being beyond
the stigma of Otherness, striving to realize the perks, privileges,
and humanity of that Dream.35
The Consequences of Sacrifice of the Other
[23] Guerrerro also points out that portraying only stereotypes
provokes a schizophrenic image of race. in the case of Queer
Eye, showing gay men as singular characters, rich, attractive,
slim, successful, and always positive, provokes a similarly schizophrenic
image of sexualities:
The schizophrenic way of representing black males as concentrated
at the poles of celebrity and pathology leads to a dangerous array
of perceptions and assumptions. To follow the visual argument
of our media screens, the spectator is invited to ask the simplistic
and bogus question, "if Quincy Jones or Bryant Gumbel can 'make
it' in America why can't all those black men we see standing on
inner-city street corners?"36
If the Fab Five can make it, why didn't Mathew Shephard? Why not
the countless, nameless faces, who are harassed, often assaulted and
sometimes killed make it? If the Fab Five on Queer Eye
are indeed the Finity, then why does Canon Gene Robinson, the first
openly gay candidate for the episcopate in the Episcopal Church receive
death threats daily? Why did a gay couple recently get dismissed
from the church choir in a Roman Catholic church when they proclaimed
their fidelity in a marriage ceremony in Canada?
[24] From the preview of Radio, a recently released
film about a developmentally deranged, but inspiring black man who
is instrumental in the victories of white Southern men, it seems that
the "Old Black Magic" still sells. But how long will "gayness"
sell? Negative reactions to Queer Eye have so far been
innocuous, but how long will this last? It is not simply that
the Religious Right might prevent their network affiliations from
not showing the series, but what more severe consequences might be
in store? Going back to the analysis done by Richard Slotkin of the
American mythic psyche, we find a disturbing development. "Captivity
psychology left only two responses open to the Puritans, passive submission
or violent retribution. Since submission meant defeat and possibly
extermination, New England opted for total war, for the extirpation
or imprisonment on reservations of the native populations." 37
The first episode of South Park's current season, episode
#708, "South Park is Gay" may serve as a prophetic warning of what
is yet to come if the Finity changes its mission to save heterosexuality.
As the South Park episode unfolds, Queer Eye for a Straight
Guy is enormously successful in mythical South Park, Colorado.
But it is too popular, converting the majority of the male
inhabitants into "metrosexuals." At first the women are happy
that their men have cleaned up, look good, and are taking care of
their appearance. There are some not so accepting. The
resident homosexuals, Mr. Garrison and his lover, are not happy because
their "culture," like the Afro-American culture has been appropriated.
Gay men are no longer unique. Kyle, one of the boys doesn't
like it either because his friends disown him for not embracing the
new "hip" style. So far, the show exhibits some sensitivity
to the misuse of marginal groups and the alienation such "trends"
can cause. However, the story takes a sinister turn. The
women decide they do not like what is happening to "their men."
What is happening? In short, they are taking on characteristics
that could be labeled, "feminine." They are becoming "faux women,"
although not self-identified as gay. The women ultimately destroy
the Fabulous Five by beating them mercilessly. However, the
show seems to assure us, this is not so bad, because the gay men are
not really men at all, but "crab people," aliens attempting to take
over the world by converting heterosexuals to meterosexuals.
[25] Although South Park never intends to reflect the
values or feelings of mainstream America, the plot of this episode
is very revealing and can be illuminated by some of the closing comments
made by Heather Hicks concerning the portrayal of race and gender
in Hollywood films. What she has observed, we recall, is that
blackness in the service of whiteness, is an acceptable script, for
it assures the continuation of the supremacy of white maleness.
In her response to the film Family Man she makes some valuable
insights concerning race, gender and economics. After a convoluted
plot wherein Jack, the male protagonist has to decide between autonomy
and economic success on the one hand, and domesticity, on the other
hand, a decision aided by the Black Magic Negro, "Cash," Jack ultimately
chooses to "bond with the feminine," captured in the declaration,
"I choose us." Hicks analyzes this film which "superficially
celebrates a new, more integrated social role for male workers," but
she adds, "it also makes available a reading in which conventional
notions of white masculinity are threatened by a collective ideology
associated with femininity and blackness; an ideology that, by celebrating
family and disavowing materialism, threatens to suck white masculine
subjects - be they men or women - into the mass existence that effaces
their distinction."38 Hicks concludes that
the black "angels" of Hollywood films "work" as long as they concretize
white male hegemony. The black male steps in to "magically bolster
the crumbling fiction of autonomous masculinity [which] only temporarily
defers the deeper fears the works reflect: that the other construction,
whiteness, might itself be equally tenuous." She adds, "...
perhaps the very yearning for miracles these films express must serve
as a measure of how dire the condition of both constructs is, and
in that regard the ascendancy of the MAAF might be good mojo."39 If we translate her analysis to the
potential prophecy of the South Park episode, we notice a couple
of things. First of all, gays are accepted as long as they do
not try to convert a heterosexual male to a homosexual. Secondly,
if heterosexual men go "half way," becoming somewhat "feminized,"
essentializing the feminine, a necessary ingredient in maintaining
"hetero-normality" is threatened. In the end, it is the women
who do the murder, and ultimately, the homosexuals, the "crab people"
who die.
No Transgression; No Deconstruction
[26] Queer theory emerged in the 1980s with the rise of political
activism bolstered by the influence of the French postmodernists,
Lacan, Derrida and Foucault. As Robert E. Goss contends, the
early theorists Eve Sedgwick, David Halperin and Judith Butler, gave
the movement "a contentious edge" which eventually influenced what
has come to be known as "queer theology." This edge Goss and
others have claimed is "transgression." If queer theology has
one thing in common, it is to challenge "heteronormativity" which
Goss explains as that worldview which "creates a gender/sexual fundamentalism
that pathologizes gender and sexual differences and fails to accept
the fluidity of gender and sexual identity."40
Goss, as well as many queer theologians suggest that in order for
real conversion to occur, queer activists, whether religious or secular,
must provoke change, not collude with dominant systems. This
is done not by participating in maintaining the orthodoxy of hetero
or homonormativity, but by transgressing all attempts to construct
new discourses that only appear to be transgressive.
[26] Black womanist theologian, Kelly Brown Douglas agrees
that because the sexuality of black people has been feared and therefore
controlled by white society, the task of "Black and womanist theologians
[is] to engage in and promote a sexual discourse of resistance ..."
in order "to liberate Black people from the cycle of White sin."
This means to engage in discussion about sexuality, including homosexuality
not as a "vessel of sin and evil."41 Both black and white theologians
are concerned with serious examination of sexuality and how heterosexism
has prevented the full achievement of human rights for sexual and
racial minorities. When we examine the "Lord's work" of the
Fab 5, we see some destruction, but no deconstruction; trespassing,
but no transgression. Instead, unless these are tricksters intent
on eventually having the last joke, the "good news" of the Fab 5 is
that "Do not be afraid. We are just like you." Recent comments by
gay activist and writer Martin Duberman, a historian at CUNY and author
of twenty novels, reflect a frightening trend towards collusion with
a society that continues to use minorities as servants and victims:
In general, there seems to be little sympathy in our community
for radical analysis - and that worries me. The country is
going to hell in a hand basket, and most of us are devoting our
energies to assuring mainstream America that we're "just like you,"
"just folks," just as committed to a shallow, callous, and dumbed-down
national set of values ... Why aren't our leaders and organizations
loudly condemning imperial arrogance, endemic poverty, joblessness,
soul-destroying minimum-wage work, racism and gender inequality?
Why are our leading publications far more concerned with floor shows
in Las Vegas than with homelessness among the transgendered? Why
do we seem so grateful for Will & Grace when queer people
of color go largely unrepresented in the media?42
[27] The Gospel according to Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy is that heterosexuality and consumerism rule, and that homosexuals,
as long as they do not claim any real power to change these structures,
will be accepted and cherished. But the sacrifice is precisely
what Ed Guerrero identified in his analysis of the portrayal of black
men on the screen: the "empty space of representation" which he says
"we need ... to fill... with many more black dramas, family films,
films with black men in loving relationships, but also with science
fiction and horror films and dramatic transcripts from black intellectual
and political culture and African American history."43
Meanwhile, the real "reality TV" about gays, lesbians and transgender
people is that there is no place for you in our institutions, you
are a sinner, and even in danger if you cease to know your place,
which is no place. The real magic is yet to come, a glance, a hope,
a flicker of possibility, a Gospel that offers change for society.
The real mojo is when fear is confronted, when institutionalized evil
is rooted out, and when anger is recreated. But this is not
the scheme for salvation the American audience is programmed to accept.
The Magic is yet to come:
It's a kind of magic, One dream, one soul, one prize,
One goal, one golden glance of what should be,
It's a kind of magic,
One shaft of light that shows the way,,,
The waiting seems eternity,
The day will dawn of sanity,
It's a kind of magic,
There can be only one,
This rage that lasts a thousand years
Will soon be gone...
It's a kind of magic.
http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye_for_the_Straight_Guy/About_Us
Notes
[1] This is a quote from Carson Kressley
from an MSN TV review and interview by Ray Richmond, "The 'Queer'
Phenomenon: 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's' Carson is ready for
play in prime time," 9/22/03
[2] Ibid.
[3] From the home page of the Queer
Eye for a Straight Guy website: http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye_for_the_Straight_Guy/About_Us
[4] For a full discussion of the "meterosexual,"
see Mark Simpson, "Meet the Metrosexual: He's well dressed, narcissistic
and bun-obsessed. But don't call him gay," Salon.com Arts
& Entertainment, October 7, 2002.
[5] The classic work by Richard Slotkin,
Regeneration through Violence: the Mythology of the American Frontier,
1600-1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973) is
the foundation work for these studies.
[6] Ibid., 21.
[7] Ibid., 22.
[8] Ibid., 26.
[9] When the show was first created,
one of the Fab 5 was a black man, Blair Boone. He was dismissed
and replaced by Jai Rodriguez, an Hispanic American. The producers'
reasons for the dismissal was that Blair was "not working out."
Before Boone, another African American, James Hannaham was tested.
He too did not make it into the final cast. The fact that an
African American gay man never "works out" is an interesting issue
and would be worth pursuing. We can find a few hints from an
interview with James Hannaham in an article by Keith Boykin
from his webpage, August 27, 2003:
As a gay man you're freer to embrace your stereotypes with humor
and a sense of performance, whereas black folks who try to fit stereotypes
claim they're "keeping it real" and expect to be taken very seriously.
Boykin comments that it is true that many minority groups want to
maintain certain stereotypes. An African-American gay responder,
"Damian" adds this comment:
We do not share the advancements of a group that does not embrace
us ... and still must struggle to seek acceptance within a race
that does not wish for us to live our lives in truth.
It could be that gay male stereotypes are acceptable, but not
gay black male stereotypes. This reality about "reality TV" is something
I plan to explore in a larger project. http://www.keithboykin.com/arch/000819.html
[10] Anthony Appiah, "'No Bad Nigger':
Blacks As the Ethical Principle in the Movies," in Media Spectacles,
ed. Margorie Garber, Jann Matlock, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz (New
York: Routledge, 1993), 81.
[11] Comments from Boyd are quoted
in a review in The Black Commentator.com.. Rita Kempley, "Movies'
'Magic Negro' Saves the DayÆbut at the Cost of His Soul," Issue 49.
[12] Boyd, see above.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Christopher John Farley, "That
Old Black Magic: Hollywood is still bamboozled when it comes to race,"
Time 27 (November 2000), 14.
[16] Paraphrase from Mark 6:4.
[17] Appiah, 83.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Heather J. Hicks, "Hoodoo Economics:
White Men's Work and Black Men's Magic in Contemporary American Film,"Camera
Obscura 18.2 (2003), 28.
[20] This phrase comes from an online
commentary from Matt Wells, "Pink is the Magic Colour," The Guardian,
Monday, September 1, 2003, who, in reviewing the British version of
Queer Eye now being filmed refers to a moment when in the filming
of a scene, Dierk, the culinary expert in the show was explaining
to the straight guy that he is to be his "sous-chef." When Dierk
asks him what he thinks that means, the guy replies, "That means I'm
going to be your bitch for the day."
[21] Ed Guerrerro, "The Black Man
on our Screens and the Empty Space in Representation," Callaloo
18:2 (1995), 396.
[22] An Advocate.com exclusive
interview, "Excessive Outakes," August 18, 2003.
[23] Hicks, 51.
[24] "Excessive Outakes."
[25] "Excessive Outakes".
[26] MSN interview (see note #1).
[27] "Excessive Outakes."
[28] Hicks, 51.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Jay Edwards, "Structural Analysis
of the Afro-American Trickster Tale," Black American Literature
Forum 15 (1981), 159.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid., 160.
[33] Kempley, "Movies' 'Magic Negro'
Saves the Day."
[34] Farley suggests that the film
industry not only has manufactured MAAFs but also the BHG, the "Bigot
with the Heart of Gold," "...to embody the notion that not all racists
are bad people."
[35] Guerrero, 399. Guerrero
refers the reader to two references regarding this issue: Gerald Early,
"Introduction," Lure and Loathing, xi-xxiv; Bernard W. Bell,
The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition (Amherst: University
of Massachusetts Press, 1987), 3-36.
[36] Guerrero, 396.
[37] Slotkin, 145.
[38] Hicks, 50.
[39] Hicks, 52.
[40] Robert Goss, Queering Christ:
Beyond Jesus Acted Up (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 2002),
224.
[41] Kelly Douglas-Brown.
Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 121.
[42] Martin Duberman, "The Unmaking
of a Movement,"The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide 11,1 (January-February
2004), 22.
[43] Guerrero, 398.
[44] "It's a Kind of Magic" by Queen
was played during the final credits off Queer as Folk while
Justin is shown drawing, episode 118.
