ive been watching the bi/pan season of Are You The One? with my neighbor and oh my god the messy queer drama is delicious. Also the most desired person in the house is the trans guy, who is like, unbelievably toxic and its just a lot of fun. I did not realize how much seeing myself represented on reality TV, seeing queer kisses and (blurred out) sex and just queers hanging out and being flirty with each other would hit me, too. Like, is it good representation? No! But it is about as real as reality TV gets.
Why is reality TV so afraid of queers. There should be 8 seasons of this show that are all queer seasons. Straight ppl's reality TV dating drama is so repetitive and cookie cutter. Why are tv execs afraid of casting queer shows when we can provide literally everything they want and need for messy drama. There are so many other genres of reality TV where the whole point is letting boring straight americans in flyover states gawk at people who live lives very different from what they are used to. This is like, barely, a tiny bit, happening right now in that there is exactly one (1) show about opening up monogomous relationships to a 3rd person, but even that is so limited and structured and leaves out like, 99% of actual queer and poly experiences. Its following to the letter the exact phenomenon that has gained a small level of mainstream awareness among boring straight married ppl in flyover states, rather than exposing those ppl to the infinite diversity in infinite combinations of real, unmediated queer poly drama. The whole point of the genre is spectacle and sensationalizing! I will never understand reality TV execs shooting themselves in the goddamn foot by excluding queer people.