Queer Eye: the Fab Five. 
I had passed Queer Eye by through many a Netflix browse, thinking, well, that’s like soooooo 2005, it must be stale. I mean, how many more straight guys could there be left on whom to bestow the queer-eye makeover? Oh right, The Don’s horrid sons, maybe. But who would want to watch that? And as for Dad, that orange hair hasto go, darling.
But my son-in-law Neal put me right, so I dipped in and was swallowed up by it instantly, because the series is an utter delight right the way through its first two seasons (both out in 2018). No surprise then that it was all over the Creative Arts Emmys on 9 September and is up for Prime Time Emmys too. They’re happening on Monday (17 September) and I sure as hell will be rooting for the guys.
They’re five new queer-eyed dudes, not the original line-up a decade or more older, and they have been very expertly picked for their bright, super-confident personalities and winning ways. Each of the five boys (and they call themselves boys) has a great sense of humour, but, most of all, these guys have heart. And Neal knows by now what a big softy I am and how easily I am taken by a story that rips the emotions to shreds. These dudes do a lot of that.
They’re called The Fab Five — a nod, for those younger than some of us, to the heyday of the Beatles in the Sixties, when the Liverpool lads were the Fab Four — and each has a particular speciality as they are assigned, in each episode, what to them is a mystery candidate for their makeover magic. They don’t know who it will be, and get to read a card while en route, explaining who the subject (or, some might say, victim) will be. Unlike with the original series, the subject may not necessarily be a man. Nor necessarily straight. Nor even of particularly determinable sexuality. Hence simply Queer Eye, unlike the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
To a man, the Fab Five are likely to lift even the dullest, drabbest spirit.
Watch the official trailer for the first season:
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Tan France, a Brit with a posh North Country accent — as if he was plucked out of Yorkshire and forced to speak proper in London — is the fashion guru. Tan (real name Tanweer Wasim Safdar, changed at some point to France), is a fashion designer of Pakistani origin, and worked at Zara, Selfridges and Shade Clothing before launching his own clothing line, Kingdom & State, and is a partner in Rachel Parcell. He has a memoir coming out in 2019.
Tan’s on-camera persona is delightful, which can be said of all five of the boys. He’s an imp, a Puck in a posh suit, topped by a grey-black swish of hair, and when he talks fashion you know he knows what he’s talking about. You would trust him to dress you for a Big Night Out, or just for a braai with your mates. Who would then check you out skeef like.
It’s the sort of line-up where people take to choosing their favourite. Mine is Karamo Brown, who, it turns out, is a psychotherapist and social worker. Once you’ve seen how Karamo engages with the individuals that the boys make over, this makes total sense. It’s clear he cares genuinely about the next man, has tremendous empathy, Trumpian bucketloads of it. Tremendously. It’s also clear that, like most empathetic humans, he (and the other dudes) do not like Orange Man, or his politics.
Karamo — whose television debut was The Real World: Philadelphia in 2004 — is the culture expert of the Fab Five. A handsome dude with effortless charm, he is 37 and has been openly gay since he was 15. He’s been a key activist against the gun lobby since his old alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, was the target of a vicious shooting attack on Valentine’s Day 2018, which birthed the Never Again MSD students’ movement.
Bobby Berk, also 37, is a brilliant interior designer with his own furniture and home accessories line. Texas-born, he opens up in Queer Eye about not being accepted and welcomed by the church community he grew up in. He comes over as sad about this, rather than bitter, quietly accepting the way things are, yet his openness about it on-camera must surely be a touchstone for other gay kids in similar circumstances. This applies to all of the boys; each is a beacon for young gay people to follow and look up to. They deserve to be so proud of their roles in this. Every kid in that position should insist that their parents and, for that matter, church elders watch this series.
So, while Karamo is looking at the cultural and private life of the episode’s subject, and Tan is improving (you might say correcting) their wardrobe, Bobby is making over their home, or another space of their choice.
Which brings us to their hair. Enter, (screaming and mincing) from stage left, Jonathan Van Ness, the gayest gay dude in all Gaydom. Jonathan was, before Queer Eye, better known as the hands-waving, chatterbox hairdresser in the Funny Or Die web series Gay of Thrones, in which he encapsulates each episode of Game of Thrones— through all of its seasons — in frenetic chatter to a somewhat bemused customer whose hair he is doing. This won him a Prime Time Emmy.
Here’s a Gay of Thrones clip: