Before I type anything else, let it be said: A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila was a thing back in 2007. However, that reality dating show centered on Tequila’s being a bisexual woman with both males and females vying for her affection and, in the end, she chose a male as the winner of the first season of the show – and then never spoke to him again. Additionally, in season 2, when Tila did select a woman, said female winner rejected her (e.g. an odorous publicity stunt at its worst). Finally, Tequila is also just sort of a horrible person, so let’s keep in mind that she is almost all that LGBTQ folk knew of our people openly searching for “love” on TV until now.
Naturally, Finding Prince Charming, a first cousin clone of The Bachelor, is a big deal; it has all of the trappings of a successful heterosexual dating show. Charming offers a prototypical TV host whom pretty much everybody can agree on, in the form of Lance Bass. Its featured bachelor in question, a Mr. Robert Sepulveda Jr., is a bougie interior designer who appears to be a pretty decent guy with washboard abs that the show can commercialize with ease. Updates to The Bachelor DNA include: contestants representing a cornucopia of men from different ethnic backgrounds (Sepulveda Jr. himself is from Puerto Rico) as well as medical statuses. In fact, to nearly universal acclaim, it was recently revealed that one contestant is HIV-Positive.
Both Bass and Sepulveda claim that Charming is bound to be “educational.” And by all means, this is a good thing. However, this joint statement ignites a burning question. What things do modern gay men need to be educated about? HIV? Check. Rejecting Grindr protocol so as to sustain a romantic openness to men of all ethnic backgrounds? Check. These topics, in particular, are heated, categorical subjects drilled in the modern gay male psyche. But what else?
Charming has a golden opportunity to break dating show stereotypes in a number of ways, but not all of these ways are immediately obvious. As a viewer, I want to see the show use its homosexuality as a reason to reject the superficiality of its predecessors; I want changes that reflect the inside as opposed to the outside, the mental as opposed to the physical. So, here’s what I don’t want to see on this show.
Masc vs. fem. This is the premier elephant in the room when we’re talking gay dating, and I’m going to be very disappointed if Charming refrains from commenting on this issue. It appears that Sepulveda is more on the masculine side, which is somewhat expected. However, I remain hopeful that this competition doesn’t turn into one of those “masc for masc” testimonies where the final three contestants are all bears in training. One of the tender insecurities I’ve witnessed in many friends throughout my short time in the gay dating ring involves somebody preferring one or the other. Personally, I think it would be really satisfying to see some criticism on the supposed superiority felt by a more masculine presenting contestant, for example, perhaps even by Sepulveda himself. If Finding Prince Charming is the first Bachelor to be colorblind, it must avoid any masculine-leaning supremacy as well.
And I’m not saying that a feminine guy needs to win for me to consider this show a success. All I’m suggesting is that each guy is judged on his individual merits as opposed to whether or not he applies mascara before a dinner date.
Now, let’s talk body type. I can’t help but roll my eyes when the trailer for any dating show – gay or straight – markets the bachelor’s abs as if they’re a college degree. This is, in my view, a boring Hollywood thing. If TV has learned anything over the last ten years, it should be that real people are what sell. With the rise of Netflix, HBO, Showtime, and the likes, it appears that viewers are more interested in television that courageously reflects the blind monotony of everyday life. So, why is the typical bachelor, this one included, sold as someone sexually intimidating as opposed to intellectually stimulating? As it turns out, research links high sex drive to high IQ. Maybe if Sepulveda were talking about his favorite novels or at least his top movies in the trailer, we might be more inclined to think that the winner of this show will be taking home some kind of tangible prize, in addition to a healthy sex life post-program.
Ratings aside, would it really be so awful to have a gay dude as the bachelor who is just an everyday good-looking kind of guy who also happens to be an astrophysicist? Either way, one’s body shouldn’t always be the central characteristic worth promoting, especially in a trailer.
Lastly, Finding Prince Charming is the first all-gay dating show, and it should reflect the gay experience. I don’t want to watch a straight dating show with a gay cast. Finding Prince Charming has the opportunity, along the lines of one cast member’s purported HIV-positive status, to really dissect each person’s history with his own homosexuality. For instance, when did Sepulveda come out? Are any of these cast members still dealing with any internalized homophobia? There are signature elements of being a gay male that typically cut beneath the skin and allow us an intimate, abstract human connection with one another. It’s not that we’re all survivors, but most of our journeys have involved hurdles that color our experience in contrast with straight counterparts. I hope Finding Prince Charming isn’t afraid to look like Weekend.
But alas, I guess that didn’t work so well for Looking.