[Sndbox] Queer Eye Parodies

[Jen --]

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Launching this summer, Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" turned conventional mainstream sexual power dynamics upside down. While not exactly branching too far from traditional stereotypes, the show suggested the possibility that after years of being mocked and diminished in popular culture representations, things had progressed to the point where homosexual protagonists were free to both mock and improve straight people.

Out of that fertile ground, two "Queer Eye" parodies are set to emerge, both inverting the Bravo show's formula by introducing a panel of straight men ready to teach gay men how to pass for straight. It may take a road map to tell the dueling parodies apart. Comedy Central is preparing "Straight Plan for the Gay Man" for a February launch, while Bravo will counter with the hour-long special "Straight Eye for the Queer Guy," set to air sometime next year.

The Comedy Central project will take the form of pure comedy in its three episodes. Four straight stand-up veterans -- Curtis Gwynn, Billy Merritt, Kyle Grooms and Rob Riggle -- will be the Flab 4, a group of experts in the ways of heterosexual masculinity. The Flab 4 will be enlisted to help three gay men achieve their straight dreams.

The gay subjects include Jonathan, a fashion salesman who wants to understand the life of a blue collar worker, Roger, a yoga instructor who just wants to join a pick-up basketball game, and Stephen, a singer/dancer who would like to see if he could become a ladies man. The Flab 4 will give each of these men a crash course in straight male life, messing up their clothes, stripping their kitchens bare and encouraging false egotism, as they let them pass as straight for a day.

It's going to be a bit like a fictional version of "The Man Show."

The first episode of "Straight Plan for the Gay Man" will Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004.

The tone of Bravo's reversal, which is expected to be a one-shot special, is a little fuzzier. "Queer Eye" creators David Collins and David Metzler will oversee "Straight Eye" and they intend to maintain the nonfiction framework.

"It's done in a fun spirit, a campy spirit, in a way that allows the straight guys to have a little fun with the Fab 5," Collins promises.

While the special is still in the earliest planning stages, the producers speculate that the Fab 5 will be involved. They also hope that the panel of "straight" experts will include some of the men who were made-over in the first season of "Queer Eye."

"It's also a way to show that these two worlds are not that far apart, so if our Fab 5 are teaching straight guys how to dress and how to have better social skills, then we feel the straight guys should have the opportunity to show the Fab 5 how to throw a football or how to enjoy a football game," adds Metzler.

While presumably the crash-courses in heterosexual mores will go beyond pigskin trivia and throwing the perfect spiral, the producers promise that the special will also include a mixture of valuable real lessons and light-hearted humor.

"There is going to be some takeaway information there," Metzler says. "There's definitely going to be some things you're going to walk away with that are informative and there's gonna be some things that you're gonna walk away with that are just funny."

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