Oy Vey! Gay Weddings and Sex and the City 2

The problem I've always had with the admittedly humorous show Sex and the City and the movies thereof was its decidedly stereotypical treatment of gay men. [Also the fact that lead character Carrie is rather shallow and uncultured. Supposed to go to the opera with a guy on one episode, she decides to forgo the Metropolitan and hit McDonald's instead. Huh?]

The two main gay characters on the show were both big queens [not that there's anything wrong in that], one of whom was kind of sweet and likable, and the other of whom was bitchy, grotesque and altogether repulsive. These two went out on one blind date and hated each other almost on sight. So what happens in Sex and the City 2? These two get married in the Big Gay Wedding that occurs early in the film.

Yes, yes, I suppose it's okay to poke fun at gay stereotypes at times, but am I the only person who's getting tired of references to gays and musicals, gays and Liza Minnelli (who officiates at the wedding, which is mildly amusing), and the like. Virtually every gay guy depicted at the wedding is a screaming queen. In one scene at the bar, Carrie's husband "Big" [I never quite understood what she saw in this guy, who is quite a bit older than her in addition to other problems] is hit on by a gay guy who is played by an actor who resorts to such "faggot" mugging that you'd swear you had temporarily switched to The Gay Deceivers or something along those lines.

Then the girls go to an Arab nation on a junket and are each assigned a kind of butler/personal concierge. The gay one is, of course, effeminate and nicknamed "Paula" after Paula Abdul. There are the usual tiresome jokes about gays and hairdressing, decorating, dressing skills, even though most the gay guys I know have little knowledge of any of that shit. It's the old gay-guy-as-straight-woman's-accessory all over again.

What makes it worse is that Sex and the City 2 -- which seems to go on forever -- was written and directed by openly gay Michael Patrick King, who I have to assume must be a Big Ol' Queen or Swishmeister Deluxe with that painfully awful old-fashioned queer sensibility that thinks and/or suggests that All Gay Men are limp-wristed hairdressers. [And a reminder here that even out-of-the-closet gays can be dealing with issues of self-hatred.]

Sometimes if you object to stuff like this you're told by gays and straight alike to get over yourself, because -- after all -- there are gay guys like this out in the real world. This is the justification for a lot of gay humor/fag jokes that can be well-intentioned or mean-spirited. But I mean, the world already knows that some gay men are Big Queens -- can't we just get past it? Surely there's some humor to be mined in the bear community with its chubby chasers and big fat guys strutting around like sex symbols? [Then again -- maybe not. There's a kind of bearish gay couple on a show called Modern Family but they seem to be a couple of Big Queens as well.] Let's see something different and more diverse, please!

The thing is that stuff like Sex and the City -- while it has a large gay following I imagine -- is not directed specifically at gay people. I know that I am tired of the constant linking of gay men with fashion and hair-dressing, transvestism, and "girlie" attributes -- and the snide attitudes this engenders in even gay-friendly straights, many of whom are much more comfortable with obvious gay men and lesbians they can feel superior to [don't get me started!].

Gay men have had a perpetual problem in being taking seriously as men and stuff like The Producers and Sex and the City 2 -- no matter how supposedly good-natured -- don't help at all.

Oy vey -- just what we need -- NOT!

Okay, Carson Kressley, or whatever his name is, one of the campy, bitchy "fab four" of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy -- which finally ceased production, although undoubtedly it will live forever in reruns -- has a new show out in which he will undoubtedly dish with (and swish for) the straight girls and give them fashion tips and the like. Pass me a barf bag. [That's Miss Carson dressing up as Carmen Miranda. NOTE: I could stomach only one episode of Queer Eye. I didn't even like the title. Today "queer" refers to the entire GLBT community. It shouldn't be used to refer strictly to gay men because at one time it was used in the same way as "faggot" or "fairy" and in many quarters still is.]

Okay, I'm not a meanie. I often find myself liking the more "fabulous" or colorful members of our community. It's just that I do get tired of this whole image of gay men, as one bright person on a message board put it, as "accessories" for straight women (for some reason these guys always seem to cater to straight gals, perhaps out of a disturbing anti-lesbian bias, who knows?), their sole function being to advise them on their hair, clothing, and make up. Guys like this not only don't seem like men, they don't even seem remotely sexual. It's the gay male as eunuch, the court jester. And it's so out of date and inaccurate that it isn't funny. [The very worst "court jester" is Ross the Intern on the Tonight show. He's such an absurd caricature that he hardly seems recognizably human let alone gay.]

They seem to be popping up all over, "queer" guys who will tell straight women how to maximize their assets and minimize their flaws, mix and match cosmetics, where to shop, and how to throw the best dinner party, and -- Enough! Like I said, pass me a barf bag.

Of course the "fab" gay boys have a right to do their thing and carry on in their own stereotypical style. If only they weren't considered "typical" gays. If only straights -- and even many gays -- didn't think that "being fabulous" was the only way to be "gay." If only the bear and leather communities, the butcher guys, or at least gay guys who were different (not so "fabulous" but great in their own way) from the stereotype got a little more visibility in the media. I don't think even bears realize how fuckin' huge the bear community is.

Look, I'm not a super-butch Charles Bronson and I'm more of a city boy at home with a martini or at the concert hall than a back-packing, camping type, but I think most gay men have more of a purpose in life than advising women -- or anyone -- on their hair (of course, being bald, this is really not an issue for me). If only the gay community could be seen in its full diversity now that we're in the 21st century, for crying out loud.

I'm not against "fabulous" gay guys, believe me. Ironically, just the other night I was sitting at my favorite butch gay bar feeling -- and this was really odd -- bored out of my mind. I looked around and had the oddest sensation that I was not in a gay bar in the West Village but in a straight bar out in Brooklyn. There were no willowy young queens in sight, but rather middle-aged, often paunchy [not that there's anything wrong in that!] macho guys who looked for all the world as if they had just come out for a beer to get away from the wife and kids (of course, there are a lot of men with wives and kids who are also gay, but that's another story) and were busy watching sports on the TV. I almost longed for a big campy drag queen to walk in the door and shake things up. I later realized I was only temporarily "bored" because on either side of me were guys, clearly on dates or with their lovers, who I sensed were not really open to outside conversation (I'm rarely bored in a bar because I'm friendly with everyone). Everyone in the fuckin' bar seemed to have a lover (how dare they?) What was a poor guy who wanted to cruise to do? (Luckily a whole pack of single guys came in a little while later and I was bored no longer.)

Of course, the fact that it felt like a "straight" bar for a time is just the point. The world -- and even members of the gay community itself -- should know that gay men like this exist, and while some can seem as comparatively dull (not to be "heterophobic") as some straight guys, many are a hell of a lot of fun, even if they'd no sooner don a dress or give hair advice than order a syrupy drink with a cherry in it. They're "average" guys only in the sense that they don't have an "outrageous" or campy component -- and what's wrong with that?

Butch or femme, we're all gay brothers, and all discriminated against by a homophobic society, which is why we should all get along, regardless of our personal styles.

But please -- enough with the gay man as straight woman's "accessory."

Many of these advice gurus are big on personal style. I say, if a person's style is to be a slob, leave them be. They tell everyone how to dress and wear their hair, but they sure as hell wouldn't like it if someone told them to tone down their act or put on something a little more masculine or just a bit different.

If you truly believe in personal style, why tell everyone else how to dress?

As for those of us who are not so "fabulous:" We're here, we're men, and we are definitely not eunuchs!