July 24, 2019 at 05:34AM
Fans of Queer Eye may be familiar with Van Ness's backstory as a high-school and college cheerleader, even if it hasn't previously been talked about in detail on the show. For many viewers, enjoying the series means not just bingeing the episodes, but also following the five stars as public figures. Not long ago, Van Ness was cutting hair in Los Angeles and hosting a web series about Game of Thrones; now he's been cast in a scripted TV role and has podcasted with Nancy Pelosi. The other guys have had similar trajectories: from relative anonymity to Taylor Swift–music-video stars. Queer Eye turned its cooking coach, Antoni Porowski, from a personal chef to a New York City restaurateur. The show's sartorial expert, Tan France, a fashion Instagrammer, and its "culture" adviser, Brown, a former The Real World cast member, are now inspirationalmemoirists. The home-decor guru Bobby Berk has launched a furniture line, a lighting line, and a lifestyle-and-design website.
It wasn't long ago that the list of mainstream LGBTQ celebrities was so short that the addition of five new figureheads would have represented a momentous increase. But social change and the streaming ecosystem have made it so that, nearly overnight, five new queer entertainers can court ubiquity without much fuss. In fact, the growing wattage and draw of the Fab Five might seem to create a problem for the show, which is, on some level, about regular folks: real people having their life transformed. That the normies were meant to be the stars was underscored by the fact that the show refers to its makeover subjects as heroes. At what point do those heroes get outshone by the celebrities making them over?
It's a question that Queer Eye deftly navigates in Season 4 by, somewhat counterintuitively, centering the Fab Five even more. To a greater extent than ever, the experts are pulling from their own biographies, and the results can be pretty affecting. Some amount of this dynamic was always present: One of the most potent moments in the first season came when Berk leveled with an evangelical-Christian dad about Berk's own upbringing in the Church. In Season 4, such exchanges are common. There's that premiere, about Van Ness's own high school. Two episodes later, he draws on his personal interests again when helping out the depressed dad of a 10-year-old figure skater. Van Ness is obsessed with ice skating, and so he gives the precocious girl a history lesson about Oksana Baiul, and he—more importantly—gives her dad a lesson in how to cheer for his daughter's sport.
Though, as before, plenty of unkempt straight white men are on the makeover docket, the show's producers do keep finding new sorts of stories to tell—and relate to the Fab Five's own lives. One episode is about a man, Wesley, who was paralyzed in a shooting at age 24. When France praises him for the fact that he shows more confidence than most of Queer Eye's heroes, Wesley responds that he's impressed with the Fab Five's own poise. France then shares that he didn't come out to his own family until Queer Eye premiered, and talks about how self-acceptance continues to be a struggle. The moment is less about Wesley than France, who's softening and complicating his image as the most polished and put-together cast member.
Fans of Queer Eye may be familiar with Van Ness's backstory as a high-school and college cheerleader, even if it hasn't previously been talked about in detail on the show. For many viewers, enjoying the series means not just bingeing the episodes, but also following the five stars as public figures. Not long ago, Van Ness was cutting hair in Los Angeles and hosting a web series about Game of Thrones; now he's been cast in a scripted TV role and has podcasted with Nancy Pelosi. The other guys have had similar trajectories: from relative anonymity to Taylor Swift–music-video stars. Queer Eye turned its cooking coach, Antoni Porowski, from a personal chef to a New York City restaurateur. The show's sartorial expert, Tan France, a fashion Instagrammer, and its "culture" adviser, Brown, a former The Real World cast member, are now inspirationalmemoirists. The home-decor guru Bobby Berk has launched a furniture line, a lighting line, and a lifestyle-and-design website.
It wasn't long ago that the list of mainstream LGBTQ celebrities was so short that the addition of five new figureheads would have represented a momentous increase. But social change and the streaming ecosystem have made it so that, nearly overnight, five new queer entertainers can court ubiquity without much fuss. In fact, the growing wattage and draw of the Fab Five might seem to create a problem for the show, which is, on some level, about regular folks: real people having their life transformed. That the normies were meant to be the stars was underscored by the fact that the show refers to its makeover subjects as heroes. At what point do those heroes get outshone by the celebrities making them over?
It's a question that Queer Eye deftly navigates in Season 4 by, somewhat counterintuitively, centering the Fab Five even more. To a greater extent than ever, the experts are pulling from their own biographies, and the results can be pretty affecting. Some amount of this dynamic was always present: One of the most potent moments in the first season came when Berk leveled with an evangelical-Christian dad about Berk's own upbringing in the Church. In Season 4, such exchanges are common. There's that premiere, about Van Ness's own high school. Two episodes later, he draws on his personal interests again when helping out the depressed dad of a 10-year-old figure skater. Van Ness is obsessed with ice skating, and so he gives the precocious girl a history lesson about Oksana Baiul, and he—more importantly—gives her dad a lesson in how to cheer for his daughter's sport.
Though, as before, plenty of unkempt straight white men are on the makeover docket, the show's producers do keep finding new sorts of stories to tell—and relate to the Fab Five's own lives. One episode is about a man, Wesley, who was paralyzed in a shooting at age 24. When France praises him for the fact that he shows more confidence than most of Queer Eye's heroes, Wesley responds that he's impressed with the Fab Five's own poise. France then shares that he didn't come out to his own family until Queer Eye premiered, and talks about how self-acceptance continues to be a struggle. The moment is less about Wesley than France, who's softening and complicating his image as the most polished and put-together cast member.