Tyra learns a new phrase, “Gay for Pay”

This is old news, but let’s face it- of the perhaps 13 people who read this blog on any given week, 0 of them have the either the time or lack of brain activity to sit through an episode of The Tyra Banks Show. So chances are, you haven’t seen this

I really don’t want to be a hater. I really want to love Tyra Banks. She’s beautiful black woman (so like an old Michigan admissions officer I give her 10 points off the bat), and she’s managed to survive the decline of the fashion model era of the 90s. Compare her to say, Naomi Campbell who achievements after the height of her career include beating the help. (I love you too, Naomi, but keep your hands to your self.) I digress. Tyra has the fundamentals, but her show takes on issues that extend beyond her complexity as a hostess. That, and she’s always taking up valuable air time to layer on some peripherally relevant personal experience. We love you; we love America’s Next Top Model (the first two seasons, at least) We think you’re beautiful. But let’s face it, you’re not that interesting. And neither is some story about a random straight bartender hitting on you in a gay bar. Again, I digress. Like Tyra’s take on quasi-social issues, this blog suffers from a serious lack of focus.

You can pretty much find the whole episode in pieces on YouTube, but this gist of it is that Tyra basically asks the same questions over and over again, while her bemused audience oohs, ahhs, noos, and claps at all the right moments.  The whole thing was quite homophobic on many levels- but subtle all the same.  First there’s the audience full of catty single women who are visibly disgusted by the thought of seemingly straight men getting it on for a couple thousand bucks a pop on camera.  Then there are the guest themselves, some of which includes bartenders who bragged about how leading gay men on led to good tips.  Then finally, the only actual gay on the show, Sean Kennedy, admonishes the entire porn industry because it’s completely and utterly destructive and causes meth use.  Really? I believe lack of self-esteem or  direction might lead to drug use, not porn.  All the while, Tyra is clueless.  Like most occasions when I dare to watch daytime television (or catch it on the internet), I was left thinking, what is the point of all this? The show’s only success is in making a mockery of straight men who bugger each other for pay, the gay men who get off to it, and the silly girls in the audience who are dumbfounded by the whole thing.  At least I got a good quote from out of the show.  From the one allegedly heterosexual man in the entire audience, “No.  I don’t do nothin’ strange for a piece of change.”  In this economy, you may want to reconsider.