a closet, using a pair of cooking tongs to retrieve each item. Kressley suddenly finds a dirty jock strap and confirms its lack of laundering by holding it to his face and smelling it. He then carries it into the kitchen and places it in a pot to be boiled. One of the other men suggests they stir-fry it, but with the addition of soy sauce. Another says it looks like there already was soy sauce on it. “Was it soy sauce, or boy sauce?” one of the men asks. “Come on,” Mann exclaimed after we viewed that portion of the show. “And you know, it’s a good 12 seconds (worth of content).” Another scene depicted one of the men being overly anxious to unbutton
Schepel’s pants while they’re trying on clothes. In yet another portion of the show, Schepel emerges from a spray-on tanning booth. Kressley remarks that it looks like he missed a spot and starts to rub Schepel’s buttocks. At the end of the show, having successfully transformed Schepel in time for the opening of his art exhibition, the five men raise their glasses in unison and toast, “Cheers, queers.” Mann said he was also concerned about the term, queer, and consulted with a representative of GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) on her feelings about the word. Mann said Chalee Snorton, Southeastern regional media manager with GLADD,
“If ‘Will and Grace’ showed Will sniffing a dirty jock strap and we knew about it in advance, we would most likely make the same decision.” — John Mann, general manager of WAGT-TV Channel 26.
told him that queer was known as a “reclaimed” term. That is, homosexuals might refer to each other as queer, but it might be a problem if a straight person used that terminology. “In other words, if one of our news anchors said, ‘Five queers were arrested today in the park,’ that would not be a nice thing,” Mann said. Snorton, who has family in Augusta, acknowledged telling Mann that the South has probably been slow to catch on to the reclaimed usage of queer and that it might be offensive to some in the region. However, Snorton said she called back Mann after being told the show had been pushed to 2:35 a.m. “In speaking with John Mann again,” Snorton said, “I encouraged him that if he receives another segment from NBC, to run it at the 9 o’clock slot or the slot that was allotted and let the viewers decide for themselves whether that was appropriate for Augusta.” Snorton said she had received some protest e-mails concerning the matter from gay and straight people in the Channel 26 viewing area. Mann said that any future episodes of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” assuming there are any, will be approved for airing on a “case-by-case basis.” He said this wasn’t the first time that a decision was made by station executives to cancel or push back programming. Several weeks ago, a program created by the men’s magazine Maxim, called “Maxim Hot 100,” was to air immediately after “Fear Factor,” a show with a
roughly 60-percent child/teen viewing audience, Mann said. “And it was an incredibly sexually gratuitous show, primarily heterosexual,” Mann recalled. “And we opted not to air that show, period.” Mann said the biggest outcry came in October when Jay Leno had invited members of an act called “Puppetry of the Penis,” on the “Tonight Show.” “Literally, it was little penis puppets,” Mann said. “But they didn’t actually do it (on the show); they just talked about it.” Mann said the station received 2,800 emails imploring it not to run the program. But Mann opted to run it anyway, and heard little criticism for it afterward. Asked why “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” was perceived to be worse than its lead-in, “Will and Grace,” which also frequently contains sexual innuendo, Mann replied, “You know what? First of all, ‘Will and Grace’ isn’t titled ‘Queer Will and Grace.’ ‘Will and Grace’ is scripted comedy. The other show is allegedly reality. Now the critics have both praised it and some have panned it ... Again, we’re not passing judgment on the quality of the show. There were three content issues ... If ‘Will and Grace’ showed Will sniffing a dirty jock strap and we knew about it in advance, we would most likely make the same decision.” “We didn’t censor,” Mann added. “If we censored, I would have blown the show out (of the programming lineup).”
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