Looking back at the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the five stars had — with the exception of Carson Kressley — personalities that “were all pretty muted and down-to-earth,” says Kevin Fallon. “I had prepared myself for a cacophony of men in a**less chaps snapping their fingers and shouting ‘fierce’ every three seconds; in reality, they were certainly quippy, but also just normal, competent guys.” In the Netflix Queer Eye, “the men in the reboot are appealingly well-intentioned, but hardly as calibrated,” he says. The problem, he adds, is that the new Fab Five “subscribe to the modern reality-TV idea that LOUDER! IS! BETTER! At some point, this grating big-ness became the default for anyone looking to make an impression on reality TV, but it generally has the effect of seeming artificial and hollow. It’s a shame, because the encounters the hosts have with the men whose lifestyles they’re meant to rehab are, once the hysteria settles, quite genuine. Beautiful, even.”
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TOPICS: Queer Eye, Bravo, Netflix, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Reality TV