I have just finished watching the premier of Gay, Straight or Taken, featuring Jenner (the unsuspecting girl), and Mike, Chris, and Luciano (the guys who are all trying to play it straight). [Reviews for Kara & Marisa are also available]

For those of you who aren’t aware, this is a new reality show on Lifetime, and if the girl chooses the straight and available guy, they get a big trip. If she chooses the gay man, he and his boyfriend win the trip…if she chooses the taken man, he and his gf/wife get the trip. Therefore, all three guys want her to pick them, and so all three guys are trying to act as straight and single as possible.
Sound like fun? Hell yes.

So Jenner, the dumb blond who actually isn’t dumb at all. She seems very with it, despite the blond hair, and she even makes fun of herself because of it. She asks a lot of questions, spends alone time with each of them, and finally comes to her conclusion.

During the course of the show, there were some excellent quotes:

• Jenner: “I feel like I’m at Toys-R-Us. You get to pick out which favourite toy you want!”
• Jenner: “So now I have to play detective!” - said after she receives a phone call from a girl, telling her that one of the guys is her boyfriend, then receives a call from a guy, telling her that one of the guys is his boyfriend
• Mike: “What straight man wears a speedo and shaves?”
• Mike: “Opera is gay.” - said after Chris completely butchers an opera song

The first alone-time challenge was with Luciano. Jenner had him give her a massage, and right away I knew he was gay. A gay man would be the only one who could be totally comfortable giving a woman an intimate massage - especially the facial massage he gave her. She should have known right away that he was the gay one…but alas, her gaydar was on the fritz.

The second alone-time was with Chris, doing Yoga. She thought Chris was gay because the yoga instructor paid more attention to him and not her, and Chris didn’t seem to mind.

The final alone-time was with Mike, doing salsa. Mike was visibly uncomfortable with this, including the instructor getting very close to him. Mike is a promoter, and promotes gay events, so he must have been putting on the uncomfortable front because he’s around gay people all the time. We learn this later when Jenner decides to rumage around in everyone’s cars to find out secret clues to their orientation. Mike gets very worried that she will find some promo material he has in his car, for a gay event. It becomes obvious that he does not want her to think he is gay, therefore he’s not the gay one - he wants her to pick him, therefore he’s the straight one.

We come to the end, and we’re all in a field and Jenner is ready to make her choices, when oh my, the girlfriend and boyfriend show up! They remind her once again that if she chooses incorrectly, she loses the trip and they win it.

Jenner’s choices:

• Mike - taken
• Chris - gay
• Luciano - straight

Of course, we soon discover that:

• Mike - straight
• Chris - straight and taken
• Luciano - gay and taken

Sorry Jenner. Try hanging out with more gay men next time so you can tell the difference :-).

[ratings]

This sarcastic entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under GLBT, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.