‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’ Helped Change A Generation Of Gay TV Viewers

“When we made Queer Eye, we never saw ourselves as important or as activists. We were proud of being out. We were the first television show, that I know of, that had an entirely openly gay cast… I’ll never forget the first time I watched Matt Lauer try to say the word ‘queer’ on TV. I mean, it’s not a word people threw around a lot, and it was a very political word. I didn’t like the title at the beginning. I’ve come to realize I was wrong, because I think the provocative nature of it was balanced with the sweetness of the way the show ran most of the time. It worked out… The main thing about Queer Eye that I will say is that, in an era before the Internet was everywhere, we heard from hundreds, probably thousands, of gay kids who said, ‘Thank you for putting some gay people on TV that my parents can actually like. Firefighters liked us, cops, marines. I mean, it was a very good show.”