The art of the possible
by Stephanie Piper
I have a new guilty pleasure, and it seems I'm in good company.
Every week, I join the hordes of devoted fans tuning into Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. It's the number one cable TV hit, and I'm here to tell you why. The show is irresistible because it's all about hope.
It's also about eyebrow waxing, loafers-to-die-for, high thread-count sheets and homemade sushi, but those are the props. The real commodity here is possibility.
The premise is simple. Clueless guy living in semi-squalor shapes up, thanks to the ministrations of five fabulous helpers. In the space of one 60-minute episode, they take him from desperate to dazzling. He gets new clothes. He gets a clean, well-lighted place. He gets a life. It's a 21st century spin on an ancient theme: the transformation that lies at the heart of stories like the Frog Prince and Beauty and the Beast. Somewhere in there, under the ankle-deep underbrush of dirty laundry and discarded pizza boxes, a nobleman waits to be discovered.
Queer Eye focuses on the axiom that to be better, you have to know what better looks like. You have to rip up the stained shag carpeting and ditch the polyester tank tops before you can envision a world of hardwood floors and natural fibers.
Anyone who has ever cleaned out a garage or an attic or a teenager's bedroom understands this principle. There is something transcendent about establishing order where chaos once held sway. It's a kind of creation, but like all creation, it requires some heavy lifting. Enter the Fab Five, armed with paint brushes, gourmet groceries, and unerring fashion sense. They swarm in like an Armani SWAT team, bagging up the detritus of domestic sloth and banishing lava lamps and Legos to the nearest storage locker. Clutter is a sign that you have lost control of your life, chides a Fab. By the time they're through, less is undeniably more.
The final effect is all clean lines and tranquil colors, neat cabinets and knife-edge pleats. It's not so much a finished product as a base of new, more hopeful operations. A person could sit at that polished wood table surrounded by those pale taupe walls and consider the possibilities. A person could sip a cup of Earl Grey and turn on some Charlie "Bird" Parker and imagine real, life-affirming change.
Self- improvement is not all about the material world, or even mostly about it. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, said the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, and he'll get no argument from me. But our spirits reside in temples of flesh and bone, and those temples need upkeep. Those temples need a look. They need a concept. They need a cleansing routine that works. Sometimes, they need five guys in a black SUV on a mission. The before may look hopeless, but stay tuned. It's better to light one really good, genuine beeswax votive candle than to curse the darkness.
January 2, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 1
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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