Just one example of why you should always take my taste in entertainment with a grain of salt

Posted by Dan March 21st, 2007 at 11:30am In Guilty Pleasures The Gays Vintage

Playing it Straight — I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that this show is the pinnacle of human achievement.

Like Top Design, I can't help but love this show based on the fact that it has the gay factor and the elimination factor. Plus, it has a high degree of psychological intrigue. I'm powerless. 

Here's the story behind it.

Take The Bachelorette format.  Put it in a fakey Texas ranch.  Make (more than) half the dudes gay.  Bring in a cash prize of a half million dollars — if she picks a straight suitor, they split the cash.  If she picks a gay guy, he gets it all. 

Seriously, this is some good shit. 

I recently caught up with the show when they had a marathon on Fox Reality Channel (I have no idea what I was doing looking at that channel — don't ask).  I saw a few episodes when it originally aired on FOX.  The show was a dismal failure ratings-wise and forced Fox to cancel it mid-season, unresolved. In fact, they didn't even burn off the remaining episodes over the summer — they announced the winner via press release.

The bachelorette's name is Jackie and she is completely ordinary. And that's not a slam, it's just that she's like every pretty girl in a strappy H&M tank top you've ever met. She seems like somebody you went to school with and can barely remember.  "You remember Jackie?  Long brown hair, really cute. She was in our sociology class first semester junior year… No, the other one…  Yeah.  She was nice."

One of the best parts of the show is watching the bachelors turn on each other, exposing each other's perceived gay qualities. The boyish (and obviously straight) bachelor Banks receives sideways glances for his interest in architecture and knowledge of which one's the salad fork.  Anytime someone shows refined taste or proper hygiene, the other guys are like "Hey there, Susie."

At the end of every show, when Jackie eliminates bachelors, she has to ask the rejected suitor (who, in this case, I will call Gustav): "But before you go, Gustav, I have to know — are you straight or are you gay?"  And then Gustav, with his well manicured (too well manicured?) fingernails and impeccably shaped eyebrows says: "Jackie, I never wanted to hurt you.  But you chose well — I am gay!"  And then everybody gasps and Gustav goes back to the house to pack his gay bags. 

One of the noteworthy events of the season was when the aforementioned Banks had his accident. Halfway through the season, he got into an arm-wrestling competition (with a guy who I think turned out to be gay) and grotesquely got his arm broken.  It was like he was waving a baguette bag filled with sticks.

I have to admit, the producers did a good job of casting the bachelors.  They all live in the grey area between metrosexual straight and uber-butch gay. For the most part, they were pretty damned ambiguous. One of the gays (who lasted a long time) gave himself away, though, because he was so concerned with sabotaging the other players, he was all "Jackie who?"

If this actually sounds interesting to anyone but me, Fox Reality is having a marathon on April Fools Day.  Get it?