Jul 25, 2003  |  By: Brian Moylan  | COMMENTS     

THE CONCEPT FOR “Boy Meets Boy,” Bravo’s new gay dating series, is so similar to ABC’s “The Bachelor” that it should have been called “Confirmed Bachelors.”

On “Boy,” James (last name withheld by the network), a nice, attractive, but somewhat bland, California man, must choose a potential boyfriend from 15 “mates,” as the contestants vying for James’ affection are known on the show.

But some of the contestants are really straight men pretending to be gay. James doesn’t immediately realize this, and the gay “mates” are not told that there are straight men in their midst. The audience is also unaware of how many and which men on the show are straight.

If James ultimately picks a gay man for his potential boyfriend during the course of series of 60-minute shows, the couple gets to go on a free cruise. If he picks a straight man, the chosen one gets $25,000 and James goes home alone.

James as well as Andra — his female best friend, who is along to help him make the decision — and the “mates” all live in a beautiful Palm Beach house for a week to tape the show.

IN THE FIRST EPISODE, James meets all the boys and they have a big party so everyone can mix and mingle.

The audience hears James’ reaction to the men and the men’s reaction to him.

The “mates” appear to be a lot alike, regardless of sexual orientation. They are all white (with the exception of one, who is African American), all wear outfits right out of the latest Abercrombie catalogue (except one, who wears jeans and a T-shirt), and all but one have short hair.

At the end of the first episode, James hands out 12 glasses of champagne to the men he wants to keep and three men are sent packing. Before they leave, the audience finds out who’s gay and who’s not. In the first episode, two gay men and one straight guy get booted off.

Dani Behr, whose saccharine perkiness and British accent quickly become annoying, facilitates the scenario. (Do these shows use hosts with accents to make them seem more sophisticated?)

With the exception of Behr, the show is as entertaining as any reality dating show. But the gay twist, which the show plays up to the extreme, might leave more discerning viewers feeling frustrated.

THE SHOW’S EXECUTIVE producer, Douglas Ross, told Newsweek magazine, “[I] wanted to test boundaries between gay and straight, and create a world where the straight people were in the closet.”

That sounds like an interesting experiment, but this show’s gimmick creates an environment that is all too familiar to gay people — one where straight men have the upper hand.

“They told me they put the twist in there because they wanted straight people to watch,” James told Newsweek. “I said to them, ‘Well, you’ve played gay people as entertainment for straight people. Of course they’ll watch.’”

And he’s right. In a world where every reality show needs a gimmick, Bravo isn’t scheduling programming to lure gay viewers. The cable television channel is using gays as their gimmick and, unfortunately, gays are playing along.

Last week, Bravo premiered “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” where five gay designers make over a straight man, and it was the highest-rated program in Bravo’s history. It was so successful that an abbreviated episode of “Queer Eye” was scheduled to air July 24 after “Will & Grace” on NBC, which owns Bravo.

While many gay viewers might be pleased that there is programming that appears to be “just for us,” Bravo is pulling the same trick on the gay community that the producers of “Boy” played on James.

Like Sissy Spacek in the movie “Carrie,” we think we’ve been invited to the prom out of good intentions. Instead, we end up with people laughing and pointing at the pig’s blood on our prom dress.

MORE INFO
‘Boy Meets Boy’
Bravo
Tuesdays at 9 p.m.