Queer Eye: Queer Eye Season 4 (Full Season)

July 19, 2019 4:58 PM - Season 4 (Full Season)

The Fab 5 visits Illinois and Missouri to work their magic. As one does!
posted by Anonymous (18 comments total)

"Stoner Skates By" might be peak Fab 5 Glee, between Antoni and his corgi surprise, and Jonathan meeting Michelle Kwan and getting to inform a young girl about the history of Olympic skating.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:50 PM on July 19, 2019 [7 favorites]

Kathi's episode underwhelmed me a bit because she clearly did not love her haircut and missed her mullet (it was hers!) and I wish they'd gone for something longer for her, but the follow-up said she had grown to like it and more importantly, took the self-care message to heart and finally took time off to get HIP SURGERY she'd put off for more than two years after the show aired, and was happier and healthier.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:25 AM on July 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

The episode with Wesley Hamilton, from "Disabled But Not Really", wasn't even halfway over before I was Googling him to learn more and that's the FIRST time that's ever happened.

What a remarkable man.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:40 AM on July 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

I really like this season so far. I really appreciated their sensitivity around Wanda's traction alopecia and not insisting on showing it "before". You could tell she was already extremely uncomfortable with what they did.

I do sometimes give a side-eye to Jonathan on how he deals with textured hair though. It's great that he's really pro-natural, but he doesn't seem to really embrace curls? It seems like he's always going for the blow-out. And I think black women especially should be encouraged to embrace whatever makes them most comfortable, if that's sew-ins, wigs, or natural. If you don't like someone's wigs, then get them better wigs, you don't have to throw them out entirely.
posted by Anonymous at 6:01 AM on July 20, 2019

I've seen the first three episodes so far. Kathi and Jonathan were amazing together, Wesley was an such an incredible human being I think he even affected Karamo strongly, and replacing the #hiptip to showcase Jonathan's newly learned skill at the end of the Stoner episode made me sob. Lucy Stoner is a charmer and her dad struggling to admit that he suffers from depression hit me really hard. I love this show.
posted by ceejaytee at 9:29 AM on July 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

He also pointed it in that interview it was a three hour conversation - they enter at daylight, leave at night.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:48 AM on July 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

I am still not feeling great about the pass that crappy dads are getting. I want to see them help a mom in similar circumstances with the same support. Queer Eye feels like it has a structural class and gender blind spot.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 12:50 AM on July 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yeah, Queer Eye provides the babiest of baby steps in introducing conversations about tolerance, diversity, etc to people who either never think about that stuff or actively reject it. They aren't where you're going to find in-depth, firey criticism of the kyriarchy. It is the kind of show where the client can say "Can you belieeeeeeeeve I am hanging out with five gay guys" fifteen billion times throughout the episode and nobody punches him in the face because they're about meeting people where they are, no matter how absolutely buck-wild that place is. I also think that they're not just about introducing people on the right to those concepts above. They know very well that a big chunk of their audience is on the left and they're choosing to humanize people on the right anyway. On the one hand, you can say this is a marketing strategy to ensure the show appeals to everybody. On the other hand, given how uncomfortable this can make both sides you could also argue they're trying to challenge everyone in a relentlessly positive format.
posted by Anonymous at 11:50 AM on July 21, 2019

When it comes to meeting people where they are, I think Karamo has the hardest job in that respect. Because it's one thing to encourage someone to find a better hairstyle/clothing/home decor, it's another thing to address some fundamental negative aspects of a client's identity and psychology and get them to start thinking about addressing those issues. Which is not to denigrate what the other guys do, because there are definite messages built into their recommendations: learning to love your body by dressing it properly, encouraging someone to embrace an alternative version of fatherhood and masculinity by teaching them to make pancakes for their kids, getting someone out of their shell by building a more guest-friendly living space. But Karamo gets directly in it.
posted by Anonymous at 12:04 PM on July 21, 2019

I want to see them help a mom in similar circumstances with the same support. With the stoner episode especially, I was thinking that in some cases the moms are getting an indirect but potentially significant lift - because their partners are being encouraged to cook more, show up more, take better care of themselves, take on some emotional labor. That is, of course, not at all the same thing as being directly helped and celebrated. Deanna is a mother of 4 but the kids were not the focus of the episode.

The Kathi episode makes me want a QE spin-off to do this for ALL the teachers, every where. OK, all the teachers but especially those with crap salaries doing too much with too little.

I love that their work in helping Wesley have a more independent life meant that his mom could also enjoy more freedom and independence. And that they got him to say thank you.

With the "never even talked to anyone gay before!" guy, I kind of wanted someone to say "Seriously, if you really think you've never met a gay person before, it's because they didn't feel safe letting you know. Let's talk about that."

All of the featured individuals this season are doing some sort of significant work in their communities and struggling to balance that with the rest of their lives; in the first season we saw more people who were just every day folk trying to make it through life - the dump truck driver and the app builder. I don't necessarily have a problem with that shift in focus - I don't think? Right now I'm just noticing it.

All that said, I really loved this season. I started off thinking "can it really be as good as the past seasons?" but if anything, it was better. Not a single episode fell flat for me.
posted by bunderful at 1:37 PM on July 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

I am really, really worried for poor little Lucy Stone. She's so mature and articulate at such a young age, and her Dad seems really depressed and absent from her life. Watching her cook her own breakfast and get herself ready for school was a bummer.
posted by all about eevee at 9:28 AM on July 23, 2019 [7 favorites]

Stoner*
posted by all about eevee at 9:50 AM on July 23, 2019

all about eevee, agreed. I spent that entire episode cringing at how parentified that poor kid was and how the show depicted it as "cute."
posted by zenzicube at 6:45 AM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

I didn't think the show depicted it as cute. The Fab 5 seemed fairly horrified, or as horrified as they're allowed to show publicly.
posted by Anonymous at 8:26 AM on July 26, 2019

Yeah I remember the horrified look on Bobby's face when he made a joke about getting Lucy her own Lyft account and her Dad said that was something that he had wanted to do before being vetoed by his wife. [!!!]

I do hope this guy gets a clue. The ending gave me a bit of hope but I know old habits die hard.
posted by M. at 8:59 AM on July 26, 2019 [7 favorites]

Liquorice - you've hit on something. I was noticing before that all the "heroes" this season seemed to be people starting new businesses or doing things in their communities .. as you point out they're also a collectively a little higher up the economic/social status rung and less in need than the heroes of prior seasons.
posted by bunderful at 6:04 AM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

With the "never even talked to anyone gay before!" guy, I kind of wanted someone to say "Seriously, if you really think you've never met a gay person before, it's because they didn't feel safe letting you know. Let's talk about that."

A-MEN. He legit said it 40 times throughout the episode, and I thought they gave him a pretty big pass by not calling it out. I thought Karamo was about to have that heart-to-heart when he was getting him drunk, but unfortunately they made a joke about dressing him in drag.
posted by knownassociate at 12:14 PM on August 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

Agreed, I was also weirded out by the farmer episode and how they never really confronted him about his homophobia or dealt with his divorce (where are his children? what happened?)
I did love JVN giving his mom hair cutting tips though.
And...wow, Bobby did a LOT with the “hey look we live on a FARM” decor. It was like he’d been saving up all those ideas since he left the farm he grew up on, and just decided to use ALL of them at once.
posted by exceptinsects at 11:08 PM on September 2, 2019