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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Playing It Straight

  
  

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Ganesh
11:47 / 14.04.05
I'm mildly surprised at apparently being the first to start a thread here on Playing It Straight, C4's newest dating reality contrivance, a sort of gayed-up version of Lapdance Island, presented by June 'Scraping Rusty Metal' Sarpong. Basic set-up is, Girl (Zoe) is presented with ten suspiciously well-groomed metrosexual Boys, and has to gradually eliminate them over a matter of weeks until she's left with her date - the twist being, an undisclosed number are gay. If Zoe's last man standing is straight, both parties win fifty grand; if he's a homo, he pockets the lot.

Hmmm.

We're told that those organising the show sought very camp straight-identifying men and non-camp gayers. Double-hmmm.

It's been reviewed, generally speaking, as harmless (if compulsive) fun, with the occasional C4 spokesperson claiming it challenges our preconceptions of gay and straight blah blah fishcakes. I'm not so sure, though; it feels... well, not quite right, somehow.

Trying to rationalise the feeling of 'wrongness' I get from Playing It Straight, I suppose I'm a little uncomfortable with the role the gay contestants have been placed in: bolting themselves firmly in the closet in order to deceive straights out of money. The winning conditions, too, would seem to encourage one to root for 'good, honest' straight coupledom over 'bad, dishonest' poovery. Perhaps it's a reflection of my own relatively late 'coming out', but it feels somewhat retrograde making a gameshow out of this situation...

I'm also uncertain where they're getting their baselines of Straight and Gay here, other than, one presumes, taking the contestants' self-identified sexual orientations at face value. This assumes that

a) contestants haven't lied to the show's organisers regarding their sexuality,

b) contestants haven't lied to themselves regarding their sexuality,

and

c) Gay and Straight are the only options, in terms of sexual identity.

In the first week, a nonplussed Zoe voted out two straight Boys, reckoning them gay on account of having hair straighteners and too many shoes, respectively. She was subsequently castigated for having a crap gaydar - which seemed, under the circumstances, a little unfair...

I strongly suspect that gaydar rules do not apply in Playing It Straight because many, if not all, of the Boys are likely to have more complex sexual identities than simply Gay or Straight. Think Jason from last year's Big Brother: self-identified as bisexual then backtracked to straight; evidently not straight, but not uncomplicatedly gay either. As with Jason, Playing It Straight is, I think, dealing with individuals whose sexualities may be closer to bisexuality or even asexuality, and are complicated by strands of exhibitionism, narcissism, fetishism, insecure denial, etc., etc. The label they choose for themselves, when presented with a Gay/Straight dichotomy, does not necessarily reflect their sexual reality.

Doubtless it'll all be presented as a marvellously confounding shattering of stereotypes - but, as I see it, it actually subtly reinforces stereotypes, most notably the tacit assumption that the world can be neatly divided into Straight and Gay.
 
 
D Terminator XXXIII
12:10 / 14.04.05
but, as I see it, it actually subtly reinforces stereotypes, most notably the tacit assumption that the world can be neatly divided into Straight and Gay.

Quick reply before I go: is it the US version you're speaking of here? The first episode I caught had the elimination of two very suspect, effeminate guys -- who turned out to be - gasp! - straight. I seriously would have thought of them as big, fat homos if I had meet them irl. The interesting thing about this would be, perhaps, that it turns the division upside down but with the added effect that the gay ones probably are the least likely suspects. And thus a new division is born.
 
 
Jub
12:23 / 14.04.05
"Twisted" dating shows are all pants. There's that one where the person has to pick a singleton from 5 contestants, 4 of whom have partners. There's that American Average Joe. Don't know why I bother watching them I really don't....

Anyway... This one is rubbish because it *is* homophobic - make no bones about Ganesh - it's also so crap that I don't think it's important enough to bother giving it a hard time for being so, however: the whole premise of the show seems to be if Zoe scan pick out the dirty gays by looking out for unmanly, gay, perverted behaviour and/or appearance.

...it's rubbish because she (and the audience) clearly can't do that as they've got a mixed bunch of lads who all seem the same level of straight/gay. Eg. they take care of their appearance etc, which was the reason for her kicking them out.

It does make those suggestions of gay or straight as a strict divide, but then it's only TV. Shit TV at that, and they're always doing that.

Don't think anyone really cares about it - no-one I know IRL has talked about it.
 
 
Ganesh
12:28 / 14.04.05
No, BBU, I'm talking about the UK version - but it's probably very similar. Ours is set in Mexico (Rancho El Macho, ho ho) for no apparent reason.

I agree that - surprise! - the campest, most overtly effeminate guys turns out to (identify as) straight, but I'm rather suspicious of that, for the reasons I've given above. I suspect that, if one were to sit all the contestants down and evaluate their actual sexual behaviour (using God knows what - Kinsey questionnaires plus polygraph?) they wouldn't fall neatly into Gay/Straight categories at all.
 
 
The Strobe
12:51 / 14.04.05
Oh god, I thought it was awful. I mean, it was actually rubbish TV, never mind the ethics.

But the ethics are important, and they too were rubbish; everything said so far about the inaccuracy of the straight/gay dichotomy is bang on. Lots of latent homophobia; I mean, sure, they want to challenge people's preconceptions - but even thinking that's your average starting point is pretty shallow. I wanted Rafael off not because he was camp but because he was highly, highly irritating. I'm still not convinced by his self-labelling as straight - I definitely think he's a complicated one, the way he talks about "laydeez" warrants an essay of its own - but once they're gone, we're not to question them.

It does feel like it's harking back to the days of Love Thy Neighbour.
 
 
Smoothly
12:54 / 14.04.05
The winning conditions, too, would seem to encourage one to root for 'good, honest' straight coupledom over 'bad, dishonest' poovery.

This is assuming we're rooting with Zoe. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if as many people are rooting for one of the pooves to scramble Zoe's gaydar, persuade her to fall for him, then fuck off back to civilisation with all the cash. That, to me, would be winning. The reverse would be, at best, breaking even.
 
 
Ganesh
13:08 / 14.04.05
This one is rubbish because it *is* homophobic - make no bones about Ganesh - it's also so crap that I don't think it's important enough to bother giving it a hard time for being so, however

Well, in the Grand Scheme of Things, a huge percentage of the stuff we talk about in this forum could also be classed as unimportant by dint of crapness. What interests me here is the way C4 seems to have sneaked Playing It Straight onto our screens in the guise of innocuous fun-with-a-hint-of-sociology. I'm trying to imagine the racial alternative: Blacking Up, perhaps, in which black and white contestants (because obviously there are no in-betweens) don prosthetic disguises and are put through tasks (rhythmic dancing, crotch measurement) designed to help decide who's faking blackness...

A scream, no?

I think it's important (or, at least, not-completely-unimportant) because it's generating a low-level buzz among reviewers and public alike - suggesting that playing Spot The Poof appeals to some. I see the show itself as something of an ethical wolf in sheep's clothing.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:16 / 14.04.05
I heard the v/o in the trailers and nearly destroyed my TV in a fit of howcrapcanitget pathological rage.

"The only thing is - some of them are G-A-Y!"

Fuck OFF

Not watching, on account of the central idea behind the show being a load of old cobblers. (There's Something about Miriam being the other crapfest of this 'genre')
 
 
Ganesh
13:22 / 14.04.05
This is assuming we're rooting with Zoe.

Perhaps 'rooting for' is the wrong phrase to use. I think we're encouraged to identify with the likeable Zoe, in her general bewilderment (the viewer, not having any prior knowledge of who's Gay and who's Straight, is essentially in the same boat). There's also more of a sense of 'fairness' about the idea of two people happily splitting the winnings, as opposed to a single 'liar' taking the lot and leaving our heroine with fuck-all...

But, as you say, the sadism implicit within the format may well predispose some viewers in favour of the duplicitous gayers.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
13:25 / 14.04.05
suggesting that playing Spot The Poof appeals to some.

Is that what it is, though? The trailer made it look more like "laffs aplenty as straight men are misidentified as gay - and, therefore, not really men at all!"
 
 
ibis the being
13:25 / 14.04.05
I saw one episode of the American version, and I too am assuming they're pretty similar.

Even if you grant the show good intentions (which I don't, but just pretend), the way it plays out is homophobic and also reinforcing of gender stereotypes in general. The way it plays out involves a lot of "Well, HE'S clearly gay" and "I AM NOT GAY." With "gay" clearly equivalent to something like cooties. At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that they set it up with "effeminate" straight men not only reinforces the stereotype of gay men as effeminate, it also bolsters the old chestnut that [straight] men have to be "manly." The woman struck me as a bit peripheral to the main attraaction. I think one its main effects, if not purposes, is to tap straight into that male fear of "a gay among us," secretly ogling the straights while they change into their pajamas. I thought it was just awful, no redeeming qualities.
 
 
Smoothly
13:51 / 14.04.05
Perhaps some good could come of this. For example, I find the whole idea of 'gaydar' mildly troubling, and I would be rather pleased to see the popular and seemingly uncontroversial idea of a poof-sniffing faculty, debunked. Maybe this will take us at least somewhere in that direction?
 
 
Ganesh
14:45 / 14.04.05
Possibly, Smoothly, but only in the direction of 'if he's not Gay, he must be Straight'. Also, as I've said, the gaydar-debunking relies on the contestants having sufficient insight to accurately identify their sexualities to themselves and to the show's organisers - and I don't believe they're that self-aware.

I suppose it co-o-ould be framed as a positive progression from the days of no gay representation, when it was automatically assumed that everyone was straight - only now it's automatically assumed that everyone is straight or gay. Two tick-boxes rather than one.

Inside, I'm celebrating.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
15:47 / 14.04.05
Well stop it, you gay pre-vert, you'll go blind, or get hairy palms, or some such thing.
 
 
Smoothly
08:28 / 15.04.05
the gaydar-debunking relies on the contestants having sufficient insight to accurately identify their sexualities to themselves and to the show's organisers - and I don't believe they're that self-aware

Well, that's the ideal basis from which to debunk it. But I fear the principles of the lowest common denominator at play here, and entertainment formats' preference for binary opposition, mean that demonstrating that there is fluidity in those kind of categories is like demonstrating the fluidity in a paste of cornflower and water - you have to tip it slowly. As a first step I'd be reasonably pleased to see a popular proof of the fact that, contrary to what Carrie Bushnell might tell you, women are not gifted with a 6th sense that rings a bell when they get within range of sure-fire vagina-decliner, regardless of how committed he is to his gender of sexual preference; even if he is the gayest gayer who ever gayed it up in Gaysingstoke. Playing It Straight is far from cause for celebration though, I couldn't agree more.
 
 
Ganesh
11:38 / 15.04.05
Well, that's the ideal basis from which to debunk it.

You reckon? I'd say it depends on the degree to which viewers are willing to suspend disbelief and accept the Boys' declarations of sexual orientation at face value. I suspect that, not infrequently, Zoe's gaydar may actually be more accurate than the contestant's sexual insight (a la "100% heterosexual" Spamboy from the last Big Brother) - which doesn't debunk gaydar so much as individual self-awareness.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
12:27 / 15.04.05
With regard to J in Big Brother, I think if anyone on 'Playing It Straight' starts trying to massage chocolate sauce or whatever it was into anyone except Zoe's buttocks, the chances are they won't be going home with the hundred grand.
 
 
Smoothly
12:37 / 15.04.05
Yes yes. What I meant was that while it would be dandy if it was a more widespread appreciation of the notion of sexuality as complex and nuanced that led to doubts being cast on the whole idea of an extra-sensory, either/or bender-detector, a TV experiment like this might make people who believes that they can spot a gay person from 50 yards doubt that belief. It's the 'you can just tell' mentality that I'm hoping this might challenge.
Or are you saying that homosexuality *can* be reliably detected from without? I understand what you say about *self*-awareness, but isn't one problem with this show the central assumption that deceiving *others* about one's sexuality is enormously difficult, even for a short period of time in a very insulated environment?
 
 
D Terminator XXXIII
13:36 / 15.04.05
It is interesting to note that there are a handful of new reality tv concepts that attempt to challenge sexuality and gender-type thingie. Besides PiS, There's Something about Miriam and He's a Lady come to mind - but the downside is that they lack the edgy pretense that might have elevated them into something more groundbreaking. There's Something about Miriam made the mistake of saving the central conceit until the end - imagine how compulsive the series might have been if the transsexuality had been revealed before any elimination. He's a Lady suffers from playing it safe - it plods on Mrs. Doubtfire territory and boasts the most annoying presenter Yankee tv can offer. Avoid. PiS, on the other hand, is fundamentally For Love or Money with gay un-gay people, and un-gay gay people. Which is why it's dull.

And next time a tv personality-wannabe utters 'game,' 'the' or 'playing' in any combination, my hissyfit will be monumental.
 
 
Smoothly
13:41 / 15.04.05
Something about Miriam made the mistake of saving the central conceit until the end - imagine how compulsive the series might have been if the transsexuality had been revealed before any elimination

You mean, imagine how *short* the series might have been. Judging by the reaction of the person who'd been declaring his undying love for Miriam the night before, and the theatrical sighs of relief from the eliminated contestants, I suspect that the reveal would have signalled the end of the game whenever it happened.
 
 
D Terminator XXXIII
14:30 / 15.04.05
Perhaps, or perhaps not. As I recall, one of them (Tom?) made remarks that sound like "I don't mind if a guy sucks my dick" pre-reveal and "I'd still fuck hir" post-reveal. The short, stocky one had a long, long silent pause, glaring meditatively into the distance, which is a curious reaction I would have loved to have seen an exploration of. Umm, and of the final two, the other one didn't seem to mind her transsexuality - if anything, he seemed upset because she had deceived him.
 
 
Ganesh
14:32 / 15.04.05
Or are you saying that homosexuality *can* be reliably detected from without? I understand what you say about *self*-awareness, but isn't one problem with this show the central assumption that deceiving *others* about one's sexuality is enormously difficult, even for a short period of time in a very insulated environment?

I'm sure that's intended to be a central factor here, along with the gaydar-debunking thing. What I see as problematic is, one can only really "deceive" someone about one's sexuality if one has first sussed it oneself. We don't all pop out of the womb with 'Gay' or 'Straight' printed on our battery compartments, and sometimes it can take a lifetime to get to the bottom (ho ho) of who/what/when/why one's boat is floated. I don't think homosexuality can reliably be inferred by outward appearance and behaviour, no, but in some cases, I'm also dubious that it can be reliably gauged by self-reporting. From what I can gather, the individuals who consent to take part in this sort of programme are not infrequently rather complex in terms of being strongly exhibitionist, narcissistic, etc., etc. - and often not terribly self-aware. I suspect many of them don't really know what they are.

Playing It Straight might partially debunk the idea of the gaydar but, as I say, I suspect that, with at least some of the contestants, it's not Zoe's gaydar that's flawed but their own perception of their sexuality - so while the concept of the gaydar might be debunked, in this particular situation, I think it's being debunked on the wrong grounds...
 
 
Smoothly
14:38 / 15.04.05
With you.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
14:59 / 15.04.05
A TV experiment like this might make people who believe that they can spot a gay person from fifty yards doubt that belief. It's the 'you can just tell' mentality that I'm hoping this might challenge.

This is what I find slightly strange about the whole idea of 'Gaydar' in the first place - For notion that as I understand it appears to have at least in part originated in teh gay community ( I'm assuming when I say that it wasn't just dreamt up by this or that Nathan Barley at C4 back in the early Nineties - I could well be wrong there, ) it doesn't seem all that different from the kind of telepathic insight claimed by say, enlisted men out on the town of a Saturday night.

Either way, I can't see this show debunking the concept - If Zoe does pick one of the mendacious inverts, all it'll 'prove' is that her Gaydar 'needs work,' I fear.
 
 
Ganesh
15:06 / 15.04.05
While increasingly overstated as a concept, there's actually a certain amount of validity to gaydar, because at least some gay men do talk, move and behave differently from straight men (see this thread for related discussion) - and, historically, gay men did evolve covert ways of identifying and signalling to one another.
 
 
Smoothly
15:32 / 15.04.05
Yeah, and I believe it is that signalling that 'gay-dar' was originally conceived as reacting to, when it was first coined by Nick Cohen, I believe, in the early 90s.
But I think it has since become decontextualised and reconstituted to mean something along the lines of spidey-sense, usually possessed by women, that alerts them when a man they clock is a gay one, and thus saves them from wasting their time in a hopeless pursuit.
 
 
Rawk'n'Roll
18:38 / 15.04.05
But I think it has since become decontextualised and reconstituted to mean something along the lines of spidey-sense, usually possessed by women, that alerts them when a man they clock is a gay one, and thus saves them from wasting their time in a hopeless pursuit.

You could flip that round and say that it is the same for gay men, in these metrosexual times (but not outside of the big cities), to save them wasting their time in a hopeless pursuit.
My flatmate is incredibly metrosexual, most of my friends presume he is gay and it usually takes me a lot of time to convince them otherwise. Not because he "acts gay" but because he's a straight man who dresses well and looks after his appearance, much like most gay men I know. We shop at the same stores, he uses more beauty products than I do and is more attuned to fashionable circles than I am. But he's as straight as a die.

In fact he's a total womaniser because he can get away with it looking the way he does. It's a subtle trick but very effective.
He's the one that got me to watch Playing it Straight so we could play "spot the gay". We both failed by the way.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
00:36 / 16.04.05
While increasingly overstated as a concept, there's actually a certain amount of validity to gaydar, because at least some gay men do talk, move and behave differently from straight men - and, historically, gay men did evolve covert ways of identifying and signalling to one another.

So historically there's a validity to 'gaydar' - I think the term's as horrendous an anachronism as the whole 'bent/straight' axis these days. I know people who still claim this semi-mystical ability to sense teh gay - it's bullshit. Not least because, as a near-as-dammit-straight-identifying male (I have crushes on men but I don't want to fuck any of them), I've been identified as gay often enough to get me my own Channel 4 talk show. What they mean is that they reckon they can recognise certain historically gay-identifying characteristics upon a cursory examination of a person's appearance, demeanour or behaviour. The very fact that the mainstream media has coined the phrase 'metrosexual' to describe men who 'fit the pattern' who nontheless identify as straight gives the lie to that particularly horrible piece of baggage from a less self-conscious era. If Sky One's caught up with it enough to ridicule it, it has to be passe...
 
 
Ganesh
10:02 / 16.04.05
Well, there's a historical and a 'scientific' validity to the idea of gaydar, at least in part; it's the fact that the concept's become widened and overstated to such an extent (as not infrequently happens when the mainstream gets hold of a 'gay' subcultural phenomenon) that's rendered it ridiculous. Something as non-specific and fallible as 'intuition' or 'a hunch' is in danger of being taken as gospel. Playing It Straight does go some way in highlighting the situations in which gaydar doesn't work but, as I say, concludes that that's because "they're actually Straight" whereas I think it's because "they're more complicated, sexually, than a simple Gay/Straight dichotomy suggests".

Among gay people themselves, I think the term 'gaydar' is becoming passe, at least in the 'spidey sense' meaning - because it's now more commonly used to refer to the contact website...
 
 
Whisky Priestess
13:43 / 16.04.05
Hmm, I've known folk who claim to have the spidey gaydar ability (but then I've also known people who claim to be "a bit" psychic and have prophetic dreams, natch). But I don't think it's a total myth, because I would have thought it's probably as likely and non-mystical a skill as any other form of "reading people".

I'm thinking now of a programme I wacthed which was about debunking psychics, palm-readers etc, where a member of the Sceptics Society and a professional palm reader each gave a woman a "cold reading". The woman rated them both as good, but the Sceptic as more accurate about her life and herself.

Thus it occurs to me that if you excel in cold reading, have a good knowledge of psychology, body language, and people in general then if you study *anyone* closely enough and really pay attention to how they behave and interact with other people, you can learn (or guess) amazing amounts of stuff about them. You may not be right all the time (especially if they are trying really hard to deceive you and know a bit about body language, "tells" etc. as well) but you will probably do pretty well.

Of course, intensive Desmond Morrising of this sort could be focused on trying to find out whether someone is straight or gay, straight or on smack, straight or hep cat, straight or criminal, married or single, depressed or anorexic or suicidal or homicidal, rich or poor ... anything. Thus it's not exactly homo-watching except in the homo sapiens sense.

I would say that it's a lot easier to tell when someone is interested in you as opposed to not interested, but that there are many reasons for the latter and being gay (as opposed to coupled-up, bored by you or just not interested) is rarely top of the list.

I know this is not the object of the game, but if I were she I would follow my heart, i.e. settle on the person I liked or fancied most among the contestants, someone with whom I thought I could get along post-show, and crucially, someone who I wouldn't mind seeing waltz off with the cash if they did turn out to be gay. Of course, if he were trying to deceive me and did it well, the "best friend" might be a git ... but if he were trying to deceive me and did it well I would have had the pleasure of being his pretend girlfriend for a few weeks and getting me some of that gorgeous gay lovin'.

What if an initially gay winner falls in love with Zoe and changes his mind? What if an initially straight winner is persuaded by his weeks in the company of men that he's actually queer? Are there rules about having a sexual Damascus mid-show?

(What are the rules about sex/snogging on the show, btw? Surely if Zoe just summoned a man to her bed every night that would be a relatively definitive way of telling who was which way inclined (unless the straight guys *really* didn't fancy her)? Or is that cheating?
 
 
Alex's Grandma
18:03 / 16.04.05
I suppose the other thing is that if Zoe hasn't worked out the show's remit by the end of it ( ie, if she isn't thuh-rowing out anyone who doesn't moisturise first thing in the morning, ) she pretty much deserves not to pass Go, and collect her fifty grand.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
02:07 / 17.04.05
Or the other way round.
 
 
Rawk'n'Roll
11:14 / 18.04.05
She's kicked out three straight guys, two on the reasoning that straight men don't have lots of shoes or straighten their hair.
That's little britain thinking and deserves to be debunked by a program such as this.
So far she's only ejected one gay guy and since we're only down to six contesants left I think it's pretty safe to bet the split was 50/50 minimum so she's only got two straight guys left to choose from. More fool her.

Oh and finally some gay-history is found on one of the contestants: Ben is a former Mr Gay UK. And he's probably one of the most "butch" men there.

She is sooooo going to lose.
 
 
Ganesh
14:03 / 18.04.05
She's kicked out three straight guys, two on the reasoning that straight men don't have lots of shoes or straighten their hair.
That's little britain thinking and deserves to be debunked by a program such as this.

No. It deserves to be debunked by a programme a lot better than this.

I don't think the hapless Zoe is to blame here: how the fuck is she supposed to distinguish the Straights from the Gays? Sleep with them, as suggested above? There are gay-identifying men who have (or have had) sex with women. There are straight-identifying men who don't particularly like sex with women - or with Zoe, or with anyone; sexuality's complicated that way.

And, in the absence of any more foolproof way of ascertaining sexuality (Kinsey-plus-polygraph presumably being disallowed), I don't think it is necessarily "Little Britain thinking" to make a judgement call based on shoes or hair-straighteners or whatever. Zoe wasn't claiming that "straight men don't have lots of shoes or straighten their hair"; she was basing her guess (probably still more-or-less correctly, although I expect much less so than previously) on the presumed likelihood that the average gay man is more likely to stockpile shoes and mess around with his hair than the average straight man. It's crass and it's stereotypical, yes, and in this particular situation, the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against her but, frankly, what else does the poor cow have to go on? She's been set up by the format.

How would you decide?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:55 / 18.04.05
I feel sorry for her and I haven't even watched the programme. If you don't have a straight brother who knows more about hair straighteners than you (mine does) than how are you supposed to know that these myths aren't true? By common sense? And how is the knowledge that all gay men aren't effeminate and all straight men aren't butch going to help you pick between the men exactly? And don't even get me started on the sad shoe existence that most men prescribe to- two pairs of shoes is not enough. Jeepers, four pairs isn't enough!
 
  

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