"boy meets boy"

[Lilly]

TV's Gay "Bachelor"
Tuesday May 27 4:40 PM ET

By Julie Keller



Call it equal-opportunity humiliation potential.

The Bravo network has taken a pinch of The Bachelor, a dabble of Joe Millionaire-esque fibbing and a few lovelorn homosexuals to produce Boy Meets Boy, a new reality dating series featuring a hot single gay man looking for love.

The new show, which will bow this July, centers on one man who must find his love match from a pool of 15 fellow singletons. And to make things more interesting than, say, a Trista-Ryan cheese-fest, the network is throwing in a few straight men pretending to be gay to trip up their bachelor.

"I think this will be truly groundbreaking television," executive producer and cocreator Douglas Ross told the Hollywood Reporter. "One of the reasons we decided to take the basic dating format and throw in this twist is that we wanted the show to appeal to a broader audience."

Boy is made up of a six-episode season of one-on-one dates and contestant elimination until the pack of hunks is whittled down to one. Extra correspondent Dani Behr hosts.

So far, complete details are sketchy, but producers have let a few tidbits out of the bag. For one, the Boy in question is a 32-year-old HR exec from Southern California who recently spent nine days in Palm Springs on a whirlwind dating bonanza.

Like The Bachelor, Boy Meets Boy features group meetings and one-on-one dates designed to help its star narrow down his choices.

Bravo has not revealed the number of straight versus gay bachelors who participated (though viewers will know their orientation at the outset). Ross said he is sure viewers, both gay and straight, will be surprised by the results.

"Several of the straight men have very intense experiences," he told the trade paper. "We anticipate a lot of both gay and straight viewers will have their assumptions challenged about what it means to be gay and what it means to be straight."

One thing the network is revealing is its strict TV-intimacy credo: any sexual interaction beyond a lip lock is a strict no-no.

Though producers call Boy Meets Boy "groundbreaking" and the first prime-time dating series that is exclusively gay in scope, this isn't Bravo's first foray into gay-themed programming.

Ross earlier produced a documentary called Gay Weddings for the cable net. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a new series teaming fashion-conscious gay men with fashion-disaster heterosexuals, will bow in July, as well.

eugh

 

[mmmBono]

when are these stupid shows going to come to an end?

 

[Red Ships of Scalla-Festa]

i was hoping this would be about a reunion show for boy meets world. the homosexualized world that is!

but alas, no dice.

 

[deep]

Mixing in straight guys is stupid.


I can't imagine many straight men would want to try and win a rose. There must be a cash prize if they are successful.

Ross earlier produced .., a new series teaming fashion-conscious gay men with fashion-disaster heterosexuals,

This sounds like a worth while gay-straight alliance.

 

[MiniFly]

Ross earlier produced .., a new series teaming fashion-conscious gay men with fashion-disaster heterosexuals,

Can we say stereotyping? Oy! All these stupid dating reality show fuckin things are disgusting and nauseating. I'm so sick of them!

 

[kobayashi]

ed

someone will watch.

lots of people probably.

probably some that say they wont.

 

[ouizy]

I would watch this, my brain is turning into mush anyway.

I just have to say that I hope they come out with the lesbian version of "The Bachelorette."

 

[melon]

Well, that's just peachy. Why don't they throw in transsexuals in the mix of "women" in these straight shows?

I find this insulting, but television has a history of being insulting to subordinate hegemonic groups anyway.

Melon

 

[martha]

Well, that's just peachy. Why don't they throw in transsexuals in the mix of "women" in these straight shows?

This would change these shows forever, most likely bringing about their end. Having straight men unknowingly getting hot for transsexuals would freak out straight guys so much that some kind of law would be passed and dating shows would be outlawed.


Which would not be a bad thing.

 

[Sicy]

A dance teacher at the place I dance had an audition for this.

I wonder if he made it.. have to ask him.

 

[zonelistener]

Bravo Networks, which includes Bravo and Independent Film Channel (odd or not - they are under the umbrella of Rainbow Media) has done a lot to support the Gay and Lesbian community. I applaud them for that. Even if this is not a succesful venture.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

I wonder why this is considered any more awful than all of the dumb reality tv shows?

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

now this i will watch.

 

[sue4u2]

I wonder why this is considered any more awful than all of the dumb reality tv shows?

It is going to be as equally dumb and awful as all of the other reality TV shows.

 

[foray]

That's not very groundbreaking; I've seen a show like that in Sydney

foray

 

[hiphop]

I would watch this, my brain is turning into mush anyway.

Is it?

Have fun watching.

 

[Angela Harlem]

That's the Mardi Gras fors.
Ok, that was lame...what's the show? I've never heard of one before. But then, I dont watch a great deal of tv.

I don't actually see really, why this new show is any different to the others. Unless it is picking up on themes and trying to cash in on it, well yeah its dubious, but they all are. Its the same as the others in that it specifies sexuality. This time homosexuals. Yeah its trashy and cheap, but so are the others before it who used heterosexuals. We just turn a blind eye to that and call it entertainment.

 

[Mrs. Edge]

I saw this article the other day in the paper....(bolding is mine) I have no idea how they get away with saying something like this without being busted for hate propaganda???


New TV show: gay meets gay

NEW YORK? The Bravo U.S. cable network is going where no TV dating show has gone before: matchmaking gay men. Boy Meets Boy, to premiere in July, also twists reality show conventions by secretly including straight men among the pool of dating prospects.

The show is being made by a gay producer, reality veteran Douglas Ross.

Already, the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition plans to alert its 43,000 member churches to protest the series, said executive director Andrea Lafferty. "Clearly, they've hit a new low," she said. "What's next after Boy Meets Boy? Boy Meets Sheep?

The series will feature a gay leading man choosing from 15 suitors. Midway, he will be told that some of the men are actually heterosexual. He won't be told which ones, of course, and Ross is still debating at which point viewers will be let in on the secret.

"We have created a gay world where the straight guys are in the closet."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

[melon]

IAlready, the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition plans to alert its 43,000 member churches to protest the series, said executive director Andrea Lafferty. "Clearly, they've hit a new low," she said. "What's next after Boy Meets Boy? Boy Meets Sheep?

"Traditional Values Coalition." You know, if this were still the 1940s or 1950s, I'm sure a black-themed show would have received the same kind of attention from our "Christian" folk. The fact of the matter is that, clearly, the world didn't implode when civil rights went through and black people became represented on television. And, yes, white people still have the right to be bigoted...but they are also generally relegated to being "fanatics" like they should be.

This argument that homosexuality is equivalent to incest and bestiality is tired and insulting--both insulting to the homosexuals that such a comment is directed at and also to Christianity, posing the question as to whether such a faith is really full of ignorant morons who make such ridiculous statements.

To me, it is Christianity that has hit the "new low," and, sadly enough, I wish it would pass into the annals of history like any other fanatical hate group. Faith in Jesus Christ no longer requires the constraints that religion inherently creates.

Melon

 

[HeartlandGirl]

Already, the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition plans to alert its 43,000 member churches to protest the series, said executive director Andrea Lafferty. "Clearly, they've hit a new low," she said. "What's next after Boy Meets Boy? Boy Meets Sheep

I have really developed an aversion to and shame of my Christianity in the past few years. I wonder why.

If these people took half the time they spend comdemning people and spent it helping people, there's no telling what they could do. It's such a shame that people think like this.

 

[cujo]

Well, that's just peachy. Why don't they throw in transsexuals in the mix of "women" in these straight shows?

Bosom Buddies has already broken that ground...

Oh what wacky misadventures those frat boys had.

on the constraints of the hierarchy.

 

[megadrum2002]

well if homosexuallity goes like it is now in 50 years we wont have an overpopulated planet.

 

[melon]

well if homosexuallity goes like it is now in 50 years we wont have an overpopulated planet.

What utter nonsense.

Melon

 

[Dreadsox]

well if homosexuallity goes like it is now in 50 years we wont have an overpopulated planet.

Well, after counting to about 1,000.....



Is it necessary to post this total here. What productive response are you expecting to like this.

 

[Anthony]

Some controversial, and highly dubious (I am forced to add), remarks here. I would like to remind posters to stay on target with the subject at hand; namely, the quality of the show in question and its purpose, as opposed to population forecasts resulting from allegedly increasing homosexual activity.

Ant.

 

[Anthony]

And, while I'm posting here, I would like to add my two cents.

Perhaps I'm shallow, stupid and completely intellectually retarded, but I don't find this programme insulting to anyone (except to intelligent people, but then again, how rare an occurrence is that in television these days?) in the slightest, and I am looking forward to seeing the show, should I ever get a chance to.

I am forced to admit my hypocrisy; I condemn the horrors of 'Big Brother', but if someone comments upon the latest eviction, I will invariably blurt out 'NO! They should have voted out the other one!'. Indeed. Stupid programmes are ubiquitous in television, are they not, and if one stupid programme finds a different way of exploiting the stupid and morbid curiosity of the public, how is it any different to any other programme of dubious quality ever created? I would rather watch a programme such as this one, instead of a few minutes of 'Big Brother'.

Will I praise this programme? No. Will I condemn it? Well, no. I don't condemn any show unless I genuinely believe it is causing harm, and this show is reasonably harmless - it has no intellectual integrity, not even a shred of influencing people in the slightest. Had this been a series of 'documentaries' revealing how recent developments in psychology have exposed that all homosexuals have a mental defect, my approach would be far more indignant. The programme in question has no validity or integrity, but it is a stupid show with stupid people in it being watched by the stupid or those prone to stupid programmes (I would much prefer to put myself in the latter group), and so it is relatively harmless. Yes, it is stupid, I don't refute that. And no matter how inane and PC-infested it is to remark, if you can have a programme dealing with one particular sexual orientation, why not another? It is harmless, I feel.

Quality entertainment it is not, but it is not I feel as insulting or as immoral as it has been portrayed by some.

Ant.

 

[melon]

I only find the mix of straight men to be insulting, not the rest of the show concept, which is no more or less insulting than the rest of reality television. I was always for equality...

Melon

 

[Anthony]

Well, I'm quite interested in the mixing of supposedly 'straight' men as well. The only real ones who are insulted are those straight men willing to 'act gay' for a chance at profit. I wonder, exactly 'how' straight are these men - exactly how far would they be willing to go?

No, I am not genuinely interested; they could either be distasteful whores (yes, and you can get tasteful ones) who will do anything for money, or men with certain inclinations (in which case, I wonder, how 'straight' is a man who willingly commits a homosexual act and actually enjoys it?). Either way, they are pretty harmless parties and their intentions are harmless, for they are equally base and stupid.

Ant.

 

[FizzingWhizzbees]

well if homosexuallity goes like it is now in 50 years we wont have an overpopulated planet.

What in the world are you talking about? Some friendly advice: you might have more fun here if you try posting comments which aren't solely about attacking gay people or Muslims.

 

[Salome]

not only might you have more fun, megadrum2002
it may even prevent you from getting banned

because, trust me, if you keep insulting (and don't give me any freedom of speech crap, you're just downright insulting) I will make sure that you will get banned