Day 60 - Why I Love Queer Eye and the Fab Five
It’s Day 60, time for the Fab Five of Queer Eye to come bouncing into my place and make me over.
I think that show is like church The show is like church because there is so much love in the house the very walls sometimes come down. Church with giggles and long hair and rolled up sleeves. There is Antoni, Tan, Karamo, Bobby, and Jonathan, and they are my friends. They have made me laugh and cry time and time again. In the last episode I watched, they braved the homophobic deep South to help make over a young gay man at his mother’s request.
When you see what these men can do in what I think is less than a week’s time you start believing that, for you also, anything is possible. They take disasters: people who look and live like hoarders or depressive dorks and turn them into stars. Truly. Every made over person these men have worked with—all males and one very lucky and sweet female—end the show generally shaking and in tears, thanking the Fab Five and hugging them goodbye as the newly made-over starheads for some exciting and wonderful event in his (and the one her) life.
You get to see how much feeling valued means to people. When the Fab Five go into the houses of people who are struggling economically and get them new clother, redo their house, fill their refrigerator and teach them how to cook some healthy food, people change. They stand straighter. They smile more. They glow. Someone cared enough to notice what they needed. Someone cared enough to give it to them.
When your plate is empty, a fish can seem like a miracle.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the Fab Five sees beauty under scruffy haircuts, beards, sagging bellies or sad faces. A haircut, some beauty products, a few words of fashion advice can change a life. Really. It’s so simple, but when you are depressed or overwhelmed by the hamster wheel of your life, you can lose your shine and when you look like you don't care, people often treat you differently than if you’d spent a few minutes making yourself look good, looking like you really do care enough to put on some shine. The Fab Five give people permission to love themselves, and it’s so fun to watch.
But the Fab Five aren't just about products and new Ikea shelving. They are about love and understanding and acceptance. They go charging into people's lives and the next think you know, we are deep into the secrets and shameful beliefs people have been carrying that have affected the way they show up in the world, and the Fab Five show up for these people. If you want to know the definition of empathy, watch an episode. And then try not to watch another and another and another. This show hooks you with its creativity, humor, and heart.
I want the Fab Five to come find me. I’d be okay with them coming into my place like a cylclone, making fun of me and my possessions and the food I eat, letting me know that I am no longer in charge. Santa times five would be in town and my world would be turned right side up before the week was over.
But what would they do, exactly? What would they tease me about? What would they see in me that I’m not seeing in myself? I may just play it out one day, pretend they are in my house, play out the dialogue just to see what happens. Just because it would be fun.
If the Fab Five came to your house, what would happen? What would they say to you? What would you say to them? What would your deepest hope for change be? What can you make happen now?
(If you haven’t watched the show, jump on over to Netflix and watch any episode in the 2018 season to get an idea of what I am talking about.)
See you tomorrow.
xoxo
image from Netflix
