When the phone lines opened last Wednesday on "The Tenth Voice," KKFI's radio show for Kansas City's gay and lesbian community, guess what most callers wanted to talk about.
Was it:
(a) President Bush's declaration that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry?
(b) Word that the pope was planning to speak out against gay marriage and adoption?
(c) Those kicky new shows on the Bravo channel?
The answer, (c), may be proof of the rising profile of popular culture or the decline of civilization, take your pick. But gay viewers aren't the only ones buzzing about "Boy Meets Boy" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which air back-to-back beginning at 8 tonight on Bravo.
"A lot of straight women I know are watching, too," said Mark Manning, host of "The Tenth Voice"on KKFI-FM (90.1).
Indeed, Bravo's ratings are soaring among adult women, the channel's target audience. Credit for that goes to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the all-male makeover show that's been described as a cross between "Trading Spaces" and "Will & Grace."
"I told my husband that he should watch it because he might learn something," said Reuille Green, an event planner for Californos restaurant and "Queer Eye" fan.
The show's style experts, known collectively as the "Fab Five," generously dispense tips on wardrobe, grooming, food, wine, culture and home decor. Their ideas are designed with the clueless male in mind, but their practical approach and good humor appeal to female viewers as well.
After Ted Allen, the show's food and wine expert, demonstrated quick 'n' easy pizzas made with lavash (a Middle Eastern flatbread), Eileen O'Hara went online to get the recipe. O'Hara, a marketing consultant in Overland Park, said she raves about the show to other women, though she sends her 10-year-old to bed on Tuesdays "because otherwise I'd have to explain what 'queer eye' means."
Word of mouth - and a huge marketing push from Bravo - have made "Queer Eye" the summer's hottest new show. This week alone, the Fab Five grace the cover of Entertainment Weekly and advise the readers of People.
"It's weird," said Paul Donovan of Kansas City, "but 'Queer Eye' is becoming sort of a bonding experience for people of different sexualities."
Donovan, who is gay, watches Bravo's Tuesday-night lineup with friends, so they can savor "two hours of public gayness" together. The next day, the shows make for water-cooler talk between Donovan and his straight friends at work.
Not everyone is a fan. Some critics object to the show's reliance on stereotypical gay images, and its tacit assumption that gay men are innately superior to straight men in their aesthetic and culinary tastes.
In a recent syndicated column, L. Brent Bozell III of the Parents Television Council referred to "Queer Eye" as the "Gay Supremacy Hour" and said the show was "drenched in references to raw, perverted homosexual sex."
Jamie Rich, director of the Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Westport, called "Queer Eye" a "revolutionary" program because it presents an image of gays never before seen on TV.
"Usually what happens (with gays) on television, it's who can be the most acid-tongued person - like Sean Hayes," said Rich, referring to the actor who plays Will's wisecracking pal on "Will & Grace." By contrast, the Fab Five "are always doing something nice for people."
Well, not always: Each episode opens with the style mavens entering their subject's house and bombarding the poor fellow with catty comments. The show's fashion cop and breakout star, Carson Kressley, specializes in rifling through closets, discarding most of what he sees (in one case emptying a basket of dirty clothes out a window) while tossing off such zingers as "Unnatural fibers are hurting you, my friend!"
By hour's end, however, they have given him a new look (oh, the wonders of exfoliation!), helped him pick out a menu and made his house presentable to members of the opposite sex.
After they leave, a camera follows the subject around to see whether he actually took their advice (usually he does) and if the women in his life were impressed (usually they are). At show's end, they raise a glass - "Cheers, queers!" - to their latest rehab success.
"Queer Eye," which premiered July 15, is already the highest-rated program in the 22-year history of Bravo.
Its audience (2.8 million last week) continues to climb, and Bravo is re-airing the show seemingly around the clock. Which means Bravo's president, Jeff Gaspin, is almost certain to greenlight more programs that present what he calls "positive stereotypes" of gays on TV.
Some viewers might grumble that there are too many displays of the homosexual lifestyle on TV, from the sloppy kiss two men gave each other at the Tony Awards in June to the ever-increasing number of gay and lesbian TV characters. This fall, two new sitcoms, "A Minute with Stan Hooper" on Fox and "It's All Relative" on ABC, feature men in committed gay relationships.
But many of these roles are "extremely safe," said Scott Seomin of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Hollywood.
On "It's All Relative," for instance, the adopted daughter of the gay couple wants to marry the son of a blue-collar bigot modeled on Archie Bunker. But because she's grown up, we see little of her two dads' parenting skills. Seomin thinks that would be too provocative for many viewers.
That's one reason "Queer Eye" is such a breakthrough.
"It's unapologetic," Seomin said. "These are probably the most well-adjusted guys on television."
