In contrast to Van Ness’ dynamic personality, his more masculine counterparts, such as Antoni Porowski and Karamo Brown, recede into the background. In my opinion, Jonathan Van Ness, Queer Eye’s “grooming expert” and an unabashedly femme gay man, carries the show. Ethan’s story is underexplored and, as Tobia argues, his racial and gender nonconformity are presented as a foil to Simon’s average white masculinity, telling gay teens it’s okay to be gay as long as you are gay in a “respectable” way.īut I disagree with Tobia that Netflix’s reboot of Queer Eye follows this same formula. Jacob Tobia, in a recent New York Times op-ed, critiqued the film Love, Simon for portraying its lead character as “the right kind of gay” (typically masculine, not flamboyant) in contrast to the character of Ethan, a queer black gender nonconforming teen. Still, the conversation is beginning to move in positive ways. Here’s How Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us In So Many Ways There has been little mainstream discussion of the ways white gay male culture, in particular, is rife with its own brand of toxic masculinity. In light of the #MeToo movement and the exposure of sexual violence and misconduct in Hollywood, the federal government, and society at large, much attention has been directed towards the toxic behaviors exhibited by heterosexual men that contribute to a culture in which sexual violence and misconduct thrive. Jake’s attitudes are a microcosm of many of the toxic behaviors enacted by white gay cisgender men: the adulation of conventional masculinity and muscularity, the rejection of femininity as undesirable, and the sexual objectification of black and Latino men due to their supposed exoticism and hypermasculinity. When I saw that his Instagram feed was comprised primarily of images of muscular black men, I declined to follow him back.
Jake tried to reach out to me via social media. Not long after, I quit in order to have more time to focus on my dissertation. He couldn’t possibly be racist because he was attracted to black men. I later tried to make Jake aware of his racism, but he said that had nothing to do with him.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the frankness of his words stunned me into silence for the remainder of my shift. “Black men are for fucking white men are for bringing home to your family.” Jake’s tales frequently centered on his conservative rural upbringing, his “love” of black men, in part because of how “masculine” he thought they were, and how he didn’t like guys who were too “femme.” “How would your family react if you were dating someone who wasn’t white?” I asked, trying to make small talk during a lull between customers. These conversations quickly went from amusing to problematic. One of my co-workers - let’s call him Jake - was a white gay man who liked to tell stories about his various dating exploits each time we had a shift together. W hen I was in graduate school, I worked part-time in retail. Flickr/Duncan Hull There has been little discussion of the ways white gay male culture, in particular, is rife with its own brand of toxic masculinity.