A few weeks back I wrote a blog post about The White House clown show of influencers and tyrants. This of course was inspired by one particular video of a flamboyant gay influencer parading about in dresses and over-the-top outfits, which the left in our country thought was fun, while the rest of us felt creeped out. It made me reflect on something though, the left loves these kinds of showy, cringe-worthy performances. And so I had the concept to write this article, which unfortunately got delayed with my work for the Baltimore Republican Party. But now over 2 weeks later, I have finally gotten the time to sit down and write this composition.
Now the title of this post should pretty much sum up the subject matter for those well educated in American History, but for those who actually have a life outside studying the in’s and out’s of our country’s past woes, I should probably explain exactly WHAT a “Minstrel Show” is. Minstrel Shows were a form of entertainment developed for Democrats in the early 19th century. The actors were usually white men in black face, although there were occasionally black actors or even all-black groups that would put on these Minstrel Shows. The reason this became such a popular form of comedic entertainment among the Democrats is that Minstrel Shows always portrayed a stereotype of black people as happy, lazy dimwits who were ignorant of the world around them. Later on, some of these performances began to criticize slavery and other aspects of society at the time, but for the most part, the Minstrel Show was eponymous with the white Democrat mockery of slaves and later black freedmen. It was so much a part of the racist culture of the Democrats, a Minstrel Show character named Jim Crow became the namesake for the laws they used to oppress and segregate black people before the Civil Rights Era. And as I outlined in my first book, like the rest of the Democrat’s behaviors this trend never died out, they just found new ways to do it and new targets that would willingly accept the attention.
This brings us to the start of the 21st Century. Now that the black Minstrel Show is by and large unacceptable, who can the Democrats mock now? Who was it acceptable to mock, and who would willingly make a spectacle of themselves? Well at some point someone it was the gays, especially gay men. And so the Gay Minstrel show was born.
Now to be fair, there were mocking depictions of gays in television before the 21st century. In one Episode of the Sitcom “Married With Children”, a gay man visited Al Bundy when he was concerned his “Husband” was going to run off with Peggy Bundy, who had taken to going out to dance clubs with their neighbor Marcie. And in an episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer Simpson thought his son Bart might be gay, he takes him to a steel mill only to find out it is a “Gay Steel Mill“. These were not very flattering depictions (well the guy from Married with Children was depicted as pretty masculine even though he cleaned and cooked for his husband), but we KNEW they were jokes, and this was the era of irreverent TV Humor that gave birth to shows like “South Park” which took target at everyone. But as the last decade of the 20th century came to a close, the mocking depiction of gay men went from being a joke in one or two episodes of a sitcom to a whole sitcom of its own.
Enter “Will & Grace”, a show so “woke” that when its stars reunited for a “get out and vote (for Hillary)” ad in 2016, they revived the show for another 3 years. It was initially criticized upon its airing in 1998 for its over-the-top stereotypical depiction of gay men. The show depicts a gay lawyer by the name of Will Truman sharing a New York Apartment with an interior designer by the name of Grace Adler, the two frequently visited by characters such as a flamboyantly gay actor named Jack McFarland. The show was immediately panned for relying on gay stereotypes, including two of the main characters. One of course was an anal-retentive lawyer who enjoyed interior design and was “shy” about his sexuality, the other was a flamboyant and fickle gay man who changed occupations and sexual partners freely. These depictions are shockingly similar to the Minstrel Show characters of the stuck-up Dandy and the ignorant slave. Of course, as I mentioned, Will & Grace received high ratings on NBC as it catered to the left-wing crowd as well as parts of the Gay Community that freely emulated these stereotypes.
As an added bonus to prove my point about the toxic depiction of gays in this show, I should point out Joe Biden once claimed it was a positive influence that “did more to educate the American public than anything anybody else had ever done”. In a way he is right, Will & Grace did more to spread a perception that all gay men were this Minstrel Show stereotype its creators came up with to entertain leftist bigots like Biden and the majority of NBC viewers. And like some of the Minstrel Shows featuring an all-black cast, one of the writers who framed gay men as effeminate, neurotic airheads to an entire generation was a gay man himself. Max Mutchnick and the shows other co-creator David Kohan are credited with opening the floodgates for other shows which further paraded over the top flamboyant gays and extreme fetishists as “the norm” as far as gay people go, and of course, they did it with a straight man as one of the headline stars which adds that extra bit of a Minstrel Show theme to the whole affair. And once the proverbial dam broke, networks with left-leaning executives began spitballing pitches for more “LGBT” themed shows with the premise being a parade of effeminate or over-the-top gay males.
In 2003 the cable network Bravo released a reality TV show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”, a show which eventually spawned a few different spin-offs with the same premise of a group of over the top effeminate gay man giving people makeovers. The show was almost immediately spoofed by the writers of South Park, but also drew serious criticism as well over its portrayal of gay men. An LGBT Author by the name of Gustavus Stadler said that the show is an example of an unrealistic world where all gay men are fashionable, hip, and witty. Of course, this unrealistic depiction of gay men lasted for 5 seasons till the show ended in 2007, but it would later see spinoffs and revivals in the 2010s. It also paved way for the next major Gay Minstrel show which is still going strong today.
In 2009 an LGBT marketed network called LOGO released Ru Paul’s Drag race, a competition where a renowned drag queen Ru Paul holds a competition of other drag queens to decide who the best drag queen was (or something like that, I never really watched that show), and this show was also instantly considered a hit on its respective network. Now to the showrunners credit, the show seems to derive most of its popularity from viewers who are Gay or Transgender, however, the entertainment blog Thrillist labeled it as the closest thing gay men have to sports, despite the fact, there are many sports leagues that play soccer, football and polo which are exclusively for gay men. Shows like Will & Grace and Ru Paul and the others depict an image that straight liberals are comfortable with of an effeminate, emasculated gay man who doesn’t play sports or sip beer, choosing instead to play with makeup and sip appletinis. But in the case of Ru Paul, it seems like the objective is equally to make gay men comfortable with the stereotype.
Along with shows that focus solely on gay people, the depiction of gay people in episodic sitcoms and dramas has changed too. On the one hand, it is rarely humorous jokes about Steel Plants that transform into gay clubs. Instead, just take a look at American Horror Story: Murder House. Two of the characters from that season were a gay couple that was murdered in the house. The one was a catty effeminate interior designer and the other was a gym buff who were at each other’s throats. The catty effeminate one was bossy and controlling and wanted a kid, while the gym buff was unfaithful and formerly “straight”. Once again, another depiction of stereotypes that all gay men are either effeminate or unfaithful or even both and that the masculine ones have issues with their sexuality.
In fact, the only TV Series I can name off the top of my head that doesn’t rely on these stereotypes, the only one I am aware of with a depiction of Gay men occupying masculine roles is Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star”. This show depicts two first responders who are both gay men, in a relationship, with normal relationship troubles. The couple is TK Strand, a firefighter who later becomes a paramedic, and Carlos Reyes, a police officer with the Austin Police Department. Again, this is the only depiction of gay main characters who do not fit every single gay stereotype, and predictably it was produced by Fox, a network that for the most part has focused on catering to normal people instead of amusing left-leaning audiences and parroting their viewpoints. But while it is a small push against the left-wing culture of the Gay Minstrel Show, it is only a drop in the bucket.
But of course, I can’t finish this article without paying brief lip service to the many online “influencers” who pollute the internet with their Minstrel Shows. Of course, there is Benito Skinner and his offensive prancing around the White House. That in itself is creepy and offensive to me, but not as offensive as the “Makeup Influencer” James Charles. Now before his scandal, he was bad enough, placing somewhere between Queer Eye and Drag Race on the Minstrel Show scale with his videos instructing girls on how to wear makeup. His popularity was so great he even partnered with a makeup company to release his own line of makeup. Then the scandals about him broke with accusations of him hitting on and sexually harassing younger gay men who were not of legal age. So he went from just being the catty effeminate gay character in the left’s Minstrel Show to the catty effeminate cyberbully who preyed on young men, once again hitting stereotypes both true and untrue and painting a horrible picture of what gay men are like.
So by and large, the depiction of gays in the media still is meant for the amusement of left-wing bigots and effeminate gays who gladly emulate these stereotypes for the approval of the aforementioned leftists. I don’t see that changing anytime soon sadly. The left just loves their Minstrel Shows, and even if there were not a willing supply of left-wing gays who were so eager to please them they would still have plenty of straight men willing to play the part and mock gays as useless, effeminate idiots or predators. The best thing we as a society can do is to be aware of where all this comes from, what it is, and to promote and encourage the positive depiction of gays in the media. Or maybe also be part of making these positive depictions. If together we encourage and promote the positive depictions of gay men while rejecting the left’s Minstrel Shows, maybe at the very least our younger generations may reject them as well and embrace a more realistic, masculine depiction of gay men. At least that is my hope anyway, and more often than not I find myself being a person with high hopes.
William Hellmann 