Tuning in, queering all

What if mainstream television was queer and the hets had a speciality channel? We asked you to tell us about your favourite shows.

Lesbians were almost unanimous in their identification of “Married by the Queer Nation: The Lesbian Show” as their number one pick. The show features a hapless lesbian in need of a life partner whose friends and family interview prospective possibilities. Once the friends and family have narrowed the candidates down to two lucky lesbians, the television audience is asked to vote for the most appropriate bride. The “winner” proposes to the hapless lesbian from behind a door-like divider with a hole big enough for them to hold hands through. The audience can see everything but neither woman has ever seen the other. Once the proposal is accepted and the lesbians commit to a lifetime of emotional processing, potlucks and pets, the door is lifted and the happy couple is presented with their own U-Haul trailer. We watch over the next three months as each couple makes a go of it. And let us tell you: it’s not pretty.

Why the appeal? “After all,” one dyke said, “it’s what we do anyway: make a lifetime commitment to someone we don’t really know at all and then have the relationship and our self-esteem go up in smoke in front of all of our friends. It’s what we do and what we like to watch.”

We didn’t expect to hear fags speak so highly of their version of “Married by the Queer Nation”, thinking the gender gap regarding sexuality and relationships would really show up. But they did. We were surprised, until we viewed the divider with the hole in it between the prospective couple in a different light and then watched the happy couple skip the proposal and the U-Haul and get right down to the naughty bits only to part ways moments later without ever having seen each other’s faces. Ain’t it glorious? Ah love, in all its queer forms! Married by the Queer Nation: our number one show this season.

Of course, there were lots of votes for histories of queer culture, gardening and home-decorating shows, how-to sex shows and a range of queer porn and sit-coms with token straight people being used for cheap laughs. A few particularly fair-minded folks claimed to watch Straight as a Nail every Monday night at 10 pm just because they wanted to know what heterosexual sex was really like (we regret to inform you that just as this column was going to press the show was cancelled due to lack of interest). But what do queers watch on Saturday night before hitting the bars? Wrestling, of course! What?! Well, it’s not exactly WWF. It’s actually QWW: the Queer World of Wrestling and it features a glorious array of wrestling celebrities.

QWW is filmed on location at GM Place. The “Garage” is packed to the rafters with queers of all shapes, sizes, colours and dispositions. But they all want one thing: to see their favourite queer wrestlers duke it out in the ring. One section of the arena screams in a pandemonium of support as Self-Appointed Lesbian Police Chief bounds into the ring. Thumping her chest and cursing contemptuously at all but the small band of supporters who look and think exactly like her, she vows to take on all comers. First to challenge her is Queer Feminist Educator who goes down fast, mouthing words such as “contextuality” and “exchange.”

It isn’t pretty but the crowd wants more carnage. And that’s what they get as Transgender Warrior and Notorious F.A.G. stride and sashay respectively into the ring, a tag-team duo like no one’s ever seen before. Self-Appointed Lesbian Police Chief is dumbfounded by their arrival and they waste no time in capitalizing on her inertia. They challenge her to a game of rock/paper/scissors. Foolishly, she chooses paper while her challengers sharpen their blades. The sight and sound of the snipping is more than many viewers-at home and in the live audience-can stand. But QWW promises to push the boundaries and this week, as always, they deliver. With her lifetime membership card to the Lesbians Against Penetration and Naughtiness of Any Kind (LAPNAK) scattered in pieces at her feet, the Police Chief retires from the ring (“for now!” she proclaims with a feeble fist-pump).

Next week’s combatants include the King of Value Village, Baby Dyke, Dr Davie, Binary Buster and the infamous Steambath Queen. Don’t forget to tune in! What the fuck!

* For our next column, we ask you: Why can’t dykes go into fag steambaths and what would happen if they did?