MatthewLouwrens
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From MSNBC News
Bravo starts new gay reality show
‘Bachelor’-like ‘Boy’ to mix hetero-, homosexual suitors
NEW YORK, May 27 - NBC-owned Bravo will court viewers this summer with American television’s first primetime gay-themed reality dating series. Similar in format to ABC’s “The Bachelor,” “Boy Meets Boy” features an eligible man looking for love in a pool of 15 potential mates. But in a twist worthy of the bogus baron on Fox’s “Joe Millionaire,” some of the suitors are actually heterosexual men who were paid by the program to pretend to be gay - unbeknownst to the eligible bachelor.
“I THINK THIS will be truly groundbreaking television,” said series executive producer and co-creator Douglas Ross. “One of the reasons we decided to take the basic dating format and throw in this twist is that we wanted the show to appeal to a broader audience.”
The six-episode “Boy” will premiere on Bravo in July at a date and time to be determined. In each episode, the bachelor will interact with the other men on group and one-on-one dates and gradually eliminate those he isn’t interested in until one winner remains.
While the actual sexual orientation of at least one contestant will be disclosed at the outset to viewers - but not the bachelor - the identity of some of the others will not be revealed until the bachelor himself finds out. The exact number of heterosexual suitors was not divulged by Bravo, nor was the sum the network paid.
Any sexual intimacy beyond kissing was strictly prohibited on “Boy,” which was shot from May 9-17 in a pair of homes in Palm Springs.
The bachelor was identified as a 32-year-old from southern California who works in the human resources division of a law firm. “Boy” is hosted by Dani Behr (“Extra”).
Ross believes “Boy” is a fun but serious sociological exploration of male stereotypes that enlightened the show’s participants and will do the same for viewers. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)
“Several of the straight men have very intense experiences,” he said, declining to divulge specific behavior. “We anticipate a lot of both gay and straight viewers will have their assumptions challenged about what it means to be gay and what it means to be straight.”
Homosexual dating has been featured in segments on several syndicated dating series, but there has never been an exclusively gay dating series in primetime.Wasn't the whole reality TV bubble supposed to have burst, and all the stations are returning to scripted entertainment? Apparently not.
I've never been a fan of reality TV, and find the whole phonomenon generally distasteful. When I hear about shows like this, I am just so grateful I never got hooked.
I especially love the way they try to dress it up as though it actually has some redeeming merit - "the show is really all about challenging assumptions about sexuality". Yeah, right.
EDIT: In response to some comments in this thread, the offensive idea in this show that causes me to call this a new low is NOT the fact that it is a show with a gay bachelor. Rather, I found the total notion of deception to be offensive. For further explanation of this, including why I consider this to be different from still-offensive-but-not-quite-so-offensive shows like Joe Millionnaire, see post 32 of this thread.