opendemocracy | In each ‘Queer Eye’ episode, the ‘Fab Five’ co-hosts give a
struggling hero – usually a depressed man – a lifestyle refresh:
teaching him to cook something scrumptious, buying him stylish clothes,
grooming him, doing up his house and supporting him to confront troubles
in their life.
What this means for each character varies. But the
underlying message of every cry-athon episode is the same. Toxic
masculinity and competitive ultra-capitalism have taught men life
lessons which make us miserable. To find joy, we need to unlearn.
While
reality TV is notoriously cruel, the ‘Queer Eye’ cast specialise in
kindness. Each of them opens up about their own struggles: grooming
expert Jonathan Van Ness is an HIV+ non-binary former sex worker and
ex-meth addict. Interior designer Bobby Berk is estranged from his
Bible-belt family, and was a homeless teenager.
Culture expert
Karamo Brown is of Jamaican-Mexican heritage, grew up “very poor” and
became a father at 17. Fashion aficionado Tan France comes from a “very strict”
Muslim household in Doncaster, and is one of the first openly gay
people of South Asian descent on a major show. Chef Antoni Porowski, the
son of Polish migrants to Canada, is estranged from his mother.
Each
episode, I would sob to a stream of touching moments and familiar
feelings, and an unbearable pressure would slip from my chest.
Far Right masculinity
As
I gossiped around that Veronese conference hall, I realised I had
rarely met people who so desperately needed to learn from the Fab Five.
The
event was a sort of rally for far Right forces hoping to storm the
European elections. But the combination of speakers seemed a bit
incongruous: Catholic bishops and alt-Right YouTube stars; Italian far
Right politicians and American evangelical pastors. While most started
their speeches by announcing the enormous number of children they had
fathered – as though success comes with the capacity to ejaculate – they
were otherwise an odd mix.
When you met their audience, it all
made sense. This was a world which gave struggling men meaning. Rather
than helping us confront our demons, it suggested we worship them,
weaving myths about masculine superiority, encouraging a world in which
husbands and fathers are mini-dictators. A world where “the strong and
the weak will know their place”, as Franco’s great grandson, the
self-proclaimed heir to the French throne, declared from the main stage.
The key preacher in this world wasn’t any priest. He wasn’t even there: it was Jordan Peterson.
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