Though it’s been around since 1980, Bravo didn’t become a household name until the early part of this century, when it shifted to a reality-TV format with breakout shows like Queer Eye, Top Chef and The Real Housewives franchise. And the network has been so successful at attracting LGBT viewers, it has essentially forced Logo to drop its gay-centric programming directive.
But now, as seven new Bravo series have been announced to the press, it looks like the “Watch What Happens” network might be aiming for a more hetero demographic itself.
Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva reports the new series in development (all with working titles) still hew toward Bravo’s tried-and-true areas of food, fashion, real-estate, relationships and pop culture—but none have the queer quotient of a Project Runway or Flipping Out.
On 10 Things That Make Me Happy, various celebrities wax romantic about the tchotchkes that they love and give a tour of their homes. We loved Cribs but we’re not sure if, in this depressed economy, viewers are gonna wanna look at $300 T-shirts and gold-plated steering wheels. Ditto Property Envy, in which real-estate experts profile the homes that make them week in the knees. Heck, most of us are just happy to make the rent each month. Of course, Property Envy is coming from super-gay producers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey of World of Wonder, so there’s some hope there.
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Alumni Project reunites high-school classmates from America’s top schools after 15 years after graduation. Sure, there might be a cute coming-out sequence in one or two episodes, but we’re pretty sure this is gonna be more along the lines of Romy and Michelle.
Two new shows are aimed right at straight women: Female Entrepreneur Project, a sort of Apprentice on estrogen and Sex and the Kitchen, which sounds like The Real Housewives meets The Restaurant . But just in case those series sound to feminist, Bravo is also working on MD: OC, which sees Orange County cougars speed-dialing their plastic surgeons for another nip and tuck. We never liked Dr. 90210, so we don’t have high hopes for this one.
The one new show that sets our gay hearts soaring is Fashion Stories of NYC, which follows four up-and-coming designers working on make-or-break collections under tutelage of fashion maven—and Top Model diva—Andre Leon Talley (above).
Save us, Andre Leon, your our only hope!
Evan Mulvihill
LOVE ANDRE. He can do NO wrong.
CBRad
@Evan Mulvihill: You only love him because he graduated from that same dumpy Durham school as gay icon Crystal Mangum.
Kyle
Good for Andy Cohen and gay visibility.
Jack J.
You’re, not your. sheesh.
RLS
Kyle, how is this good for gay visibility? None of these shows are gay.
No-Obot
It’s the equivalent of gentrification in urban areas. On cable TV, it’s de-gayification after we’ve made the place trendy. First Logo and now Bravo. We move in and clean up a lackluster network by making the place chic and cutting edge enough to appeal to straight Yuppies with a larger disposable income than older, conservative, run-of-the mill heteros. Soon afterwards, we’re kicked to the curb in order to make more room for that larger demographic viewership. And the predictable pattern continues.
The message being: “Just because you showed us how to decorate our homes doesn’t mean we want you to live in our neighborhoods too. Now, buzz off!”
Gays are still slaves living on the Creative Plantation, but never asked to live too close the Master’s house.
No-Obot
Correction: (that is) Gays are still slaves living on the Creative Plantation, but never asked to live too close to the Master’s house.
If gays think that total assimilation is possible in a heterocentric society, then they are fooling themselves. Anthropologically speaking, whenever a smaller group of people merge with a larger tribe they become defuse, divided, and lose influence. Gay ghettos,even former Gay TV Ghettos, on the face of it appears to segregate us from the large society, but, on the other hand, by concentrating the GLBT community in district “villages” that subset of society maintains its identity and more political influence.
Blacks and Hispanics make up roughly twenty-eight percent of America. Imagine if every neighborhood were to be composed of let’s say every fourth home as either Black or Hispanic. What influence would they have on a school board, a neighborhood association, or even in an election in their district if they were so “assimilated” and diffused throughout a larger community composed mainly of a non-Black and a non-Hispanic majority?
Ghettos, TV or otherwise, may isolate but they also concentrate the strength of any given minority; as well as preserve their cultural identity. We just need to support our Gay-owned businesses, civic centers, and media a little more to make this a viable reality.
Ted
Gay or Straight…reality TV has been done. Can’t they come up with something a bit more original?
Aiden
@No-Obot: Did you really just compare being gay to slavery?