This article considers the theme of the Channel 4 show 'Playing It Straight' (2005), a variation on the 'dating show' genre in which a female contestant must select the man of her dreams from 10 suitors. However, the twist in the show's format is that not all of the men are heterosexually identified. The article contends that the show's narrative is not homophobic but effeminophobic. Second, the article analyses how the show positions all the male contestants, both gay and straight, within the matrix of New Lad style homosocial bonding. Finally, the article considers how the show mobilises one of the dominant cultural themes in contemporary popular culture: the 'safe eroticism' or 'queer' friendship that can develop between a straight woman and a gay identified man.
Baker, Paul (2003) `No Effeminates Please: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Masculinity Via Personal Adverts in Gay News/Times 1973-2000', in Bethan Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines, pp. 243-60. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
2.
Battles, Kathleen and Hilton-Morrow, Wendy (2002) `Gay Characters in Conventional Spaces: Will and Grace and the Situation Comedy Genre', Critical Studies in Media Communication19(1): 87-105.
3.
Benwell, Bethan (2003) `Introduction: Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines', in Bethan Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines, pp. 6-29. Oxford : Blackwell Publishing.
4.
Berila, Beth and Choudhuri, Devika Dibya (2005) `Metrosexuality the Middle Class Way', www.genders.org (online journal) issue 42.
5.
Bersani, Leo (1987) `Is the Rectum a Grave?', October43: 197-222.
6.
Bersani, Leo (1995a) Homos. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
Bersani, Leo (1995b) `Loving Men', in Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson (eds) Constructing Masculinity, pp. 115-23. London and New York : Routledge.
8.
Bordo, Susan (1999) `Gay Men's Revenge', in Susan Bordo The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private, pp. 153-67. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
9.
Bray, Alan (1982) Homosexuality in Renaissance England. London: Gay Men's Press.
10.
Bristow, Joseph (1989) `Being Gay: Politics, Identity, Pleasure', New Formations9: 61-81.
11.
Butler, Judith (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London and New York: Routledge.
12.
Callaghan, Dympna (1996) `The Terms Of Gender: `Gay' and `Feminist' Edward II', in Valerie Traub, M. Lindsay Kaplan and Dympna Callaghan (eds) Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture: Emerging Subjects, pp. 275-301. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Corbett, Ken (2001) `Faggot = Loser', Studies in Gender and Sexuality2: 3-28.
14.
David, Hugh (1997) On Queer Street: A Social History of British Homosexuality 1895-1995. London: Harper Collins .
15.
Dollimore, Jonathan (2001) Sex, Literature and Censorship. Cambridge: Polity Press.
16.
Dreisinger, Baz (2000) `The Queen in Shining Armour: Safe Eroticism and the Gay Friend', Journal of Popular Film and Television28(1): 3-11.
17.
Dyer, Richard (1984) `Stereotyping', in Richard Dyer (ed.) Gays and Film, pp. London: Zoetrope.
18.
Dyer, Richard (1993) `Seen to be Believed: Some Problems in the Representation of Gay People as Typical', in Richard Dyer The Matter of Images , pp. London and New York: Routledge.
19.
Dyer, Richard (2002) `Gay Male Misogyny', in Richard Dyer The Culture of Queers, pp. 46-8. London and New York: Routledge.
20.
Edwards, Tim (1997) Men in the Mirror: Men's Fashion, Masculinity and Consumer Culture. London: Cassell .
21.
Edwards, Tim (2003) `Sex, Booze and Fags: Masculinity, Style and Men's Magazines', in Bethan Benwell (ed.) Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines, pp. 132-46. Oxford : Blackwell Publishing.
22.
Foucault, Michel (1978) The History of Sexuality: Volume One (trans. Robert Hurley). London: Penguin.
23.
Gerhard, Jane (2005) `Sex and the City: Carrie Bradshaw's Queer Postfeminism' , Feminist Media Studies5(1): 37-49.
24.
Healy, Murray (1995) `Were We Being Served? Homosexual Representation in PopularBritish Comedy', Screen, 36(3): 243-56.
25.
Healy, Murray (1996) Gay Skins. London: Cassell.
26.
Heller, Agnes (1996) `The Beauty of Friendship', South Atlantic Quarterly97(1):
27.
Herman, Didi (2005) `"I'm Gay": Declarations, Desire and Coming Out On Prime-Time Television', Sexualities8(1): 7-29.
28.
Hole, Anne (2003) `Performing Identity: Dawn French and the Funny Fat Female Body', Feminist Media Studies3(3): 315-28.
29.
Irigaray, Luce (1985) This Sex With Is Not One (trans. Catherine Porter and Caroline Burke). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
30.
Lucas, Ian (1998) OutRage: An Oral History. London : Cassell.
31.
Medhurst, Andy (1992) `Carry on Camp', Sight and Sound10(3): 16-19.
32.
Medhurst, Andy (1997) `Camp', in Andy Medhurst and Sally R. Munt (ed.) Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction. London : Cassell.
33.
Mercer, John (2003) `Repetition and Construction of the Generic in the Iconography of Gay Pornography', Paragraph26(1-2): 280-90.
34.
Meyer, Moe (1994) `Under the Sign of Wilde: An Archaeology of Posing' in Moe Meyer (ed.) The Politics and Poetics of Camp. London: Routledge.
35.
Nixon, Sean (1996) Hard Looks: Masculinities, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consumption. London: UCL Press.
36.
Nixon, Sean (2001) `Resignifying Masculinity: From "New Man" to "New Lad"', in David Morley and Kevin Robbins (eds) British Cultural Studies: Geography, Nationality, and Identity, pp. 373-85. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Padva, Gilad (2005) `Dreamboys: Meatmen and Werewolves: Visualizing Erotic Identities in All-Male Comic Strips', Sexualities8(5): 587-99.
39.
Parker, Andrew (1996) `The Construction of Masculinity within Boys' Physical Education', Gender and Education8: 141-57.
40.
Pascoe, C.J. (2005) `"Dude, You're a Fag": Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse', Sexualities8(3): 329-46.
41.
Plummer, Kenneth (2003) `Gay Cultures/Straight Borders', in David Morley and Kevin Robbins (eds) British Cultural Studies: Geography, Nationality, and Identity, pp. 387-97. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
42.
Pronger, Brian (1990) The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality and the Meaning of Sex. London: Gay Men's Press.
Richardson, Niall (2003b) `The Queer Performance of Tilda Swinton in Derek Jarman's Edward II: Gay Male Misogyny Reconsidered', Sexualities6(1):3-4.
45.
Richardson, Niall (2005) `Queering a Gay Cliché: The Rough Trade/Sugar Daddy Relationship in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio', Paragraph28(3): 36-53.
46.
Richardson, Niall (2006) `As Kamp as Bree: The Politics of Camp Reconsidered by Desperate Housewives', Feminist Media Studies6(2): 158-74.
47.
Russo, Vito (1981) The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies . New York: Harper & Row.
48.
Rutherford, Jonathan (1988) `Who's that Man?' in Rowena Chapman and Jonathan Rutherford (eds) Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, pp. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
49.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1985) Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.
50.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1990) Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press.
51.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1993) `How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay: The War on Effeminate Boys', in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Tendencies, pp. 154-64. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
52.
Shugart, Helene (2003) `Reinventing Privilege: The New (Gay) Man in Contemporary Popular Media', Critical Studies in Media Communication20(1): 67-91.
53.
Simpson, Mark (1999) `Gay Dream Believer: Inside the Gay Underwear Cult' , in Mark Simpson (ed.) Anti-Gay, pp. 1-12. London: Cassell.
54.
Sinfield, Alan (1994) The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment. London: Cassell .
55.
Sinfield, Alan (1998) Gay and After. London: Serpent's Tail.
56.
Stein, Arlene (2005) `Make Room for Daddy: Anxious Masculinity and Emergent Homophobias in Neopatriarchal Politics', Gender & Society19(5): 601-20.
57.
Thompson, Deborah (2004) `Calling all Fag Hags: From Identity Politics to Identification Politics', Social Semiotics14(1): 37-48.
58.
Trumbach, Randolph (1987) `Sodomitical Subcultures, Sodomitical Roles, and the Gender Revolution of the Eighteenth Century: The Recent Historiography' , in Robert Purks Maccubin (ed.) `Tis Nature's Fault. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
59.
Trumbach, Randolph (1989) `Gender and the Homosexual Role in Modern Western Culture: The 18th and 19th Centuries Compared', in Dennis Altman et al. (eds) Homosexuality, Which Homosexuality?London: Gay Men's Press.
60.
Warner, Michael (1999) The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
61.
Waugh, Thomas (1995) `Men's Photography: Gay vs. Straight', in Cory K. Creekmur and Alexander Doty (eds) Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian and Queer Essays on Popular Culture, pp. 307-27. London and New York: Routledge.
62.
Whelehan, Imelda (2000) Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism . London: The Women's Press.
