The real gay survivors

Gay men have a secure presence on even the most mainstream of reality TV shows--you know, those network vote-off-a-thons designed to force impossibly pretty contestants into slowly driving one another out of their little minds. As a writer fascinated by human beings' reactions to stress and the universal truths those reactions reveal, I try to pass off my affection for these shows as research.

This is crap. I just like watching people come unglued.

Every television season I hold out hope that the gay male contestants on these shows will somehow manage to rise above it all, turning their minority status into a unique identity that allows them to play the game as no one else can. This never happens. Most of these guys turn themselves into stool pigeons for the first brassy female who gives them her blessing, usually a svelte take-no-prisoners blond who bears a striking resemblance to right-wing attack poodle Aim Coulter.

If, like me, you are marginally offended by the formulaic spinelessness of the typical gay male contestants on shows like Survivor and Big Brother, I would like to direct yore" attention to a lesser-known reality show on the A&E network.

Airline, a half-hour reality show about Southwest Airlines and the incredibly furious people who fly it on a daily basis, offers up a bevy of gay male airline employees with Lucite balls. For the most part, the show is an extended commercial for Southwest Airlines and its suspiciously happy employees. But it also portrays gay men as the powerful gatekeepers of a strange and frenzied world we're an dependent upon. Piss them off at your own peril.

These guys are not interested in giving you a makeover. And just because they don't wear that EVERYONE LOVES A JEWISH BOY T-shirt doesn't mean they are obedient civil servants who smile at the oppressors they openly despise. No, the gay boys of Airline are routinely pitted against passengers whose self-righteous anger borders on hysteria.

And they always win.

We might have the show's editing to thank for this. Red-faced fathers unleash volleys of profanity until the gay employee they're assailing cuts a quick but telling glance at the man's pale and horrified children who are standing close by. Father clams up. Cut to commercial.

The show's gay shining star is Mike Carr, a bullish and undeniably sexy Los Angeles International Airport supervisor who moves hell and high water to find lost luggage and helps elderly passengers change their soiled undergarments. But Carr is at his best when he's reining in passengers he has deemed too drunk too fly. His victims usually threaten lawsuits and pound their fists against the ticket desk. They insist that they have only had one drink, even as drool flies from one corner of their mouth and Carr describes the sickly sweet smell coming from their pores.

But Carr never looses his cool. His dire proclamations about the passenger's travel plans typically begin with phrases like "With all due respect" and "Sir, if you could just listen to me for a second."

If things end badly, as they often do, Carr turns to the camera and offers a distinctly 12-step reading of the situation. "I'm sorry it had to get to this point," he explained after preventing two inebriated, verbally abusive--and possibly schizophrenic--sisters from flying to visit a father they hadn't seen in 35 years. "But I'm only in control of my behavior. Not the passengers'."

The stereotype of the gay man who outdoes his bullies with a sharp-tongued quick wit (and a certain stoicism) is not a new one. It is, however, rarely found in the nuance-free world of reality television. Airline gives us gay men in their everyday working environment who react to the volatility and irrational behavior of those around them with a stiff upper lip and an unflappable sense of humor, all without caving in to the absurd demands placed on them. It may be a stereotype, but in the current political climate, it is an inspiring one.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group