Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
 

Do you like QE? I can weekly see it on Sunday night. I watch QE on Hong Kong TVB-Pearl Channel (www.tvb.com.hk). I think the QE cannot change my life in a short time. But it has brought me many good ideas.

1. Gays are never abnormal. Ago, in our conventional thoughts, gays are abnormal and antihuman nature. It is just becasue we know little and listen to the gays. From QE, I know they are good people. The only difference is that they just like same sexual friends.
2. The important thing in life is the quality. The QE teach us how to eat well, dress sexy, feel comfortable. Almost of us want to have the quality life, but they don't how to start and how to do. QE just do this work for us.
3. How to love? Sex and the City teaches me how to make love and have the right sex. But the QE teach me how to think love, find love and keep love go on.
4. Beauty is more self-confidence, comfortable, sexy. In every episode Fab Five find out different ways to make the guy more self-confidence and lead him to find himself.
5. Applied life skills. I have learned many good skills from them, such as take one pocket book to read in waiting bus.

All in all, I really like their good shows. Hope they have a good life as they do in the show.

Billy...I'm not sure that American TV is really the best model for your lifestyle, sex life, or pretty much anything else that is remotely grounded in reality.

I know that, but I don't do all things that they say in shows. I like Friends, I know I cannot have the life like them forever. The programs make me know more and know more.

I agree with Elspode. Although your 5-point Am-TV Guide To Life is quite sweet, I'm interested to know exactly what you get from these programs? How much do you take on board as valuable advice, and can you see through the Hollywood characateurs (sp?), drama and tat?

If it teaches people to be more accepting (of homosexuality etc) then brilliant. But if all it instills is a $ and fashion-framed perspective of love and life from Sex and the City's superficial characters and plots, it is slightly concerning.

Billy,

I really like your post!

I think these shows teach the same things to Westerners as they do to you.

We have big debates over gays. Many people will never accept them. We argue about whether gays have made a choice to have sex with each other. Many scientists now believe it is a part of the brain that makes one gay, and that it is not a choice. I agree with this because I have seen my gay friends grow up and their sexuality is deeply a part of them. It does not seem like a choice. My gay friends say they did not think about it, they didn't choose, they just knew.

The younger people accept it more often, because shows like QE show gays to be normal in most other ways. Younger people are more likely to watch QE.

While TV from any country shouldn't necessarily be taken as the be-all-end-all of the mannerisms of the people of that country, one can glean some useful information from shows that are intended to give useful information. QE is more or less a self-help program. Take X guy and make his life better somehow...new hair, new clothes, whatever. The gay hosts part of it is just a selling point. There wouldn't be nearly as much hoopla about the show if it was five straight guys, and chances are they'd be pegged as gay anyway if they were doing this kind of show. If anything, this show bolsters the stereotype that gay men have much better fashion and personal aesthetic sense than straight guys do. :D

I'm curious, Billy: When you see QE in China, is it subtitled (with the Chinese written at the bottom of the screen) or is it dubbed (you hear someone speaking Chinese instead of English?)

My only real problem with QE is that they often ruin perfectly good straight guys ... like the dude that was the male model that looked a little bit like Richard Chamberlain, had really long hair and a beard? Hot guy with the hair, average guy with the hair and beard gone. He had a really happening house too, with an excellent room of manly comfort and solitude that they screwed up.

Some of their straight guys are in dire need of some help, including a good backwaxing, but overall, the Fab 5 go way to far.

I don't think that QE is a good place to learn about American Culture and social mores. I'm not sure if there ARE any good ones, but QE ain't it.

I know the episode you're talking about wolf, and I totally agree. He looked 15 years older without the beard. I didn't need the long hair, necessarily, but making the Brawny man look like David Bowie was very unsexy.

I like long hair.

A lot.

Totally makes me all drooly.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that even the current "tolerance" for homosexuality on TV is nothing more than a, "Hey! Will and Grace is doing great! We've got to have some gay content, and quick, or we won't be trendy!" sort of thing.

There is no social consciousness involved, here. It *is* all about the $.

Did anyone else notice that Ellen's sitcom stopped being funny when she made it a vehicle for politicized expression of her gayness?

i agree w/ El on that. Our society as a whole is become MUCH more tolerant and open minded towards the gay populace, but TV and the media in general aren't trying to spread gay tolerance, they're just trying to get a quick buck off the "gay trend".

Well for my money it wasn't that funny even before. She's a poster child for how funny stand-up comedians almost never make funny TV stars.

I just gotta say, I know the episode with the David Bowie looking guy, and man... I thought he cleaned up nice!
Billy! its very interesting to hear about your reaction to these programs. I'll admit that Sex and the City has prompted me, not too subconsciously, to purchase new shoes that look great but hurt my feet. I know its not practical, but it is fun.

Definitely in need of a makeover:

:lol:

I am sometimes fearful that they will show up at slang's, and damage his essential slanginess.

Although he could use a set of FiestaWare and some Calphalon.

It is subtitled. I can understand some of the English, but I cannot get the slangs.
I sometimes see the CBS Late Show. It is very funny, but I cannot understant all of them.

What the HELL is Calphalon????? Am I not girly enough for the QE?? GADS! :eek:

In fact, the American movies, songs, books 7 other culture tools are invading all over the world. Like France, they fight for American Culture for years, but they still cannot keep out.
I think there is no perfect show can present the American Culture. Now the HK TV often show the CSI, 24, Cold Case and other similar shows. I don't like them becuse they make me feel American is a safe country and full of killers.

Calphalon is the best motherfucking cookware in the world.

And don't you forget it.

Now the HK TV often show the CSI, 24, Cold Case and other similar shows.

Do they show any animated American programs?

Yep, some. But in my watching time, not so many. The Friends and Six Feet Under ae over. I like Late Show, but it is in deep night.

I learn some good life skills from them. I cannot find the source from Chinese books or TVs. I think I have no way to see all Hollywood programs and see them though. But I learn what is good for me.
Carson shows how to iron shirt in one show. Thom show hot to design house. ted show how to mix the cocktail. ect...

MMmmm it sure is good stuff--and priced accordingly. I just have cheap T-fal knockoffs.

Didn't you forget a KitchenAid mixer??

We have a bunch of Calphalon, and it is good stuff, but it has one serious flaw: the handles. They are not ergonomic. Before you buy into the Calphalon hype, go to a store and pick up one of the larger pans and hold it for ten seconds by the handle. Then ask youself if the handle is comfortable. Then walk around the store and pick up a cheaper pan with a plastic handle and hold it for ten seconds. Ask yourself the same question. You'll see what I mean.

Calphalon sells an optional $$ rubber grip that slides over the handle and makes it more comfortable and less likely to burn your hand, but then the pan is no longer oven-safe.

As bad as the handles are, I still like my Calphalon. They are heavy duty, heat evenly and quickly, clean up pretty well, and look cool.

Absolutely wonderful piece of equipment, but really only good if you have sufficient counterspace. If you have to keep dragging it in and out of a closet every time you need to whip egg whites, you're actually better off with a good whisk and a small hand mixer that you can stow in the junk drawer.

Mine lives on top of the refrigerator. :)

...to mask the radioactivity in the basement.

Dammit! You're not supposed to mention that ...

You'd think the ton of lead would have fixed that little problem ...

(the deep orange-red is my favorite FiestaWare. However did you know ...)

Do you accept the homosexuality? Do you support the homosexual marriage in the USA? One China woman scholar wrote to the China government to publish law to protect the gay's right and permit the homosexual marriage, but the government rejected her.

40% of Americans support homosexual marriage, 60% are against it. Amongst younger people, however, the figures are 60% support, 40% against. Eventually there will be enough support for it. Until then, it's the subject of much political debate.

There are 30million gays in China by the Chinese officical data. In fact, it maybe more. I guess that only 5% Chinese support the gay marriage. Many Chinese people cannot understand the homosexuality, they think it is abnormal.

First off, I dont answer the door for anybody. This would be especially true for a lispy sounding stranger.

And also, I cut the bear beard and got a haircut.

In that case maybe QEFTSG is doing some good after all. The more people see and understand homosexuality (even the hollywood-tinted camped-up stereotyped version) the more likely they are to accept it as 'normal'.

There are 30million gays in China by the Chinese officical data. In fact, it maybe more. I guess that only 5% Chinese support the gay marriage. Many Chinese people cannot understand the homosexuality, they think it is abnormal.

Billy, I read somewhere that China has the highest percentage of homosexuals in their population, possibly because there are so many more men than women because of the "one child" rule. Do you think that's true?

I don't agree you. China doesn't not the hishest gay rate. It is not because there are too few women to casue this result. If you know more about how gays are growing, you would not give me this question. I give you a example, one my gay friend, he just like guys since he entered the middle school. There were many girls in his class. He cannot control himself to love guys.

And these Chinese people are Christians or not?

Well, they do say that the best offense is a good defense. Shave and a haircut will reduce, but not eliminate the possibility of a visit from the QE guys. Better hit the Armani store as soon as possible.

From my point of view (and I am admittedly *very* liberal in this particular area), marriage of anyone to anyone else is an arrangement of mutual consent which is sanctioned by law. However, current laws are based on the Christian view of marriage, which excludes homosexual unions.

I feel that, if we are to have a legal set of standards applied to marriage as a contractual, consensual agreement, then religious standards should not apply. If you want to get married in the Christian church, do that, and have the government put their seal on it. If some fella wants to smear peanut butter all over himself and marry the guy in the next cubicle under the supervision of an Albanian goatherder while skydiving naked, trailing a string of photos of Bette Davis, then have the government put the stamp on it...what's the difference?

The salient point is the legal advantages of government sanctioned partnership, and gender doesn't enter into it. Depriving consensually united individuals of the rights granted to other consensually united individuals is discrimination, and discrimination based on religion at that.

NO. There are a few Christians in China.