IDIOT BOX SAVANT Oh my God! Dennis Leary's joined the Village People.

Thursday, July 31, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Idiot Box Savant: Homo improvement!

By Andrew Kiraly

O queers! Unleash upon the Savant's slothtarded abode your weapons of mass gaystruction! How I tire of wading through an underbrush of S'mores Pop Tart wrappers covering the floor of my lair, counting gravy spills as a suitable proxy for an actual shirt and...well, I'm sorry, but my rank sentimentalism demands that the Pizza Hut box, at least in the short term, will continue to serve as my cheese-streaked pith helmet/novelty mobile sundial.

Yeah, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" has given me a glimpse of hope. Who knew the Scrubbing Bubbles were so witty, well-dressed and spoon-bendingly gay? In case you haven't caught the phenom yet, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (Bravo, cable channel 53, Tuesdays, 8 p.m.) is a lifestyle makeover show with a lisp and sashay. Five stereotypically vampy lifestyle Power Gayngers basically loose a vicious karate makeover attack on some unsuspecting straight guy whose idea of sophistication is--please note I'm speaking hypothetically here, and in no way endorse you trying this dangerous, flavorific stunt at home--using a KFC hot wing, and not his hand, to scoop peanut butter straight from the jar into his maw.

If you're not into makeover shows and/or are Pat Robertson, check out "Queer Eye" nonetheless, if only because these guys say some Funny Ass Shit, Gay Edition. It mostly comes in the form of hand-flapping gasp-bombs over the dreadful state of the lifestyle of the straight guy currently in their pink, tolerant crosshairs. Dirty kitchen! Ugly clothes! A baseball-sized plug of hair with a quickly evolving central nervous system blocking the shower drain! (Fun fact: I named mine Hambert.)

Indeed, on a personal level, the show has proved to be a sobering look in the mirror. I've gotta admit that many of the straight-guy sins showcased on "Queer Eye" are well within the preserve of the Savant's own bumblefucked life. I definitely could benefit from a coup by a paramilitary fashionista queerforce. Still, I could just imagine myself explaining, "You don't understand the rules of my universe! After four days, that empty Little Debbie Fudge Brownie box is promoted to end table status! Move it not or taste the singular wrath of my rolled-up Maxim magazine!"

The freakiest thing about the show is it's not only entertaining, it's--here I dab a Kool-Aid tear from my Blizzleberry Blast-themed duct--actually endearing. You truly do get the sense that these straights are catching a whiff of some new direction in life after the the Gay Team is through with them. This is no superficial salon buff 'n' shine; admirably, the Fab 5 thoroughly evaluate and revamp everything in the subject's life, from bedroom furniture to professional behavior--with the perhaps ironic result of making their target even more manly, not less. One hopeless hetero subject, for instance, was an aspiring artist who made mosaics by painstakingly folding up tiny squares of magazine pages and gluing them on a board, which is pretty gay already. Besides that, he was saddled with long, hippie-ass hair (quite gay), paint-splattered clothes that loudly advertised his status as an artist (definitely gay) and a fey, unassertive demeanor (totally gay). They chopped his locks, scored him some sophisticated threads and taught him how to successfully schmooze 'n' gladhand at gallery exhibitions. What is the world coming to when it takes five queers to turn a hippie into a real man? A truly civilized society, that's what. Go queers! Kill the hippies and smash their congas!