New view of gender
Queer Eye stars say kindness, decency real fabric of society
It’s possible there’s a more weep-inducing evening than a marathon of Queer Eye on Netflix, but I don’t know what it would be. In episode after episode, five gay men fix their emotionally and sartorially flailing clients with a relentless onslaught of kindness, compassion and French-tucked shirts.
A friend and I spent a weekend trading emoji as we caught up on the third season. The elderly barbecue pitmaster who finally got her teeth fixed? Wailing emoji. The young lesbian, Jess, whose storyline included a reunion with an estranged sister? Wailing emoji infinitum.
The Jess episode in particular was an example of what I think is the show’s most meaningful contribution: a thoughtful examination of gender and how it affects us as we move through the world. What it means to be masculine or feminine, male or female or neither. What it means to be ourselves, and how other people’s notions of what that should look like can hold everyone back.
Jess, disowned by her adoptive family when she came out, began the episode by describing her style and identity as a “lumberjack lesbian.” She gravitated toward flannel and denim. Feminine clothes, she said, reminded her of her of “church” and the suffocating roles she’d been confined to while closeted. But midway through, the show’s fashion expert, Tan France, invites her to try on a sleek black dress. Jess looks at herself in the mirror, talking through how it feels different to wear a dress she’s chosen, rather than one she’s been forced into. “I love this,” she says.
Off camera, France — an English designer who now lives in Salt Lake City — and Jonathan Van Ness, the show’s hair and makeup expert, who first gained fame via the web series Gay of Thrones, speak about gender, fashion and “bending the knee” to binaries.
“Growing up as a teenager in rural Illinois,” Van Ness says, “I would have to wear what I wanted at dawn or in the dark of night — I would be terrified to go out and wear what I wanted to wear in the day.
“The older I get, the more I feel like I’m non-binary or gender nonconforming,” Van Ness says. “I’ve definitely never felt comfortable in traditional masculine clothes. The pressure of that really started to wear on me in my 20s, so I’ve really tried to get rid of the shame. For me, it’s really about celebrating clothes that make me feel good. I think I’m feminine. I’m masculine. I’m both.
For France, “It’s a conscious effort I make,” he says. “I try to be as hyper-aware as possible that just because someone is female, the thing that will make them feel best is not necessarily a pair of heels. And with men, especially straight men, it’s a different beast because they’re trained from a very early age that there are things men do and don’t do, and these are the things that are going to encourage your masculinity.
“It’s an archaic notion that just because you have a feminine side, you can’t be a man. Within the gay community, there can be negativity around presenting femme,” France says. “And I hate that, because I am quite feminine.”
“I think the way gender binaries are so entrenched and enforced in our culture — it’s everywhere,” Van Ness says. “But, bending the knee to the binary — for men, it increases toxic masculinity and it enhances the ‘boys will be boys’ culture, instead of saying kindness and creativity and sensitivity can be really strong, and vulnerability can be really strong. And what it does to women is it keeps women underestimated; it makes it harder for them to come to the forefront.
As for Jess, France says, “the only other option was lumberjack?”
“Just because you don’t fit into one box doesn’t automatically mean you must fit into another,” France says.