Carson Kressley on the moving impact of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy 20 years later -TGN

Carson Kressley on Queer Eye for the Straight Guys’ 20th anniversary. (Getty)

Carson Kressley has spoken about the long-lasting impact of Strange eye for the straight manon the show’s 20th anniversary.

Today, Kressley is best known as a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Racebut before he started criticizing the looks of queens on the runway, the TV personality inspired an entire generation of queer people in Bravo’s groundbreaking reality series Strange eye for the straight man.

Over the course of five seasons, the award-winning show, which first aired on US network TV in July 2003, saw the original Fab Five – Kressley (fashion connoisseur), Jai Rodriguez (culture vulture), Thom Filicia (interior design doctor), Ted Allen (food and wine connoisseur) and Kyan Douglas (grooming guru) – transform the life of a straight man.

The show, which positively portrayed LGBTQ+ lives in a way rarely seen on TV at the time, was a huge success, so much so that Netflix launched a reboot in 2018, starring an all-new Fab Five (Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, and Bobby Berk), which has just completed its seventh season.

As the original show celebrates its twentieth anniversary, Kressley has said he believes the much-needed rendering still resonates with queer viewers.

“We’re constantly meeting people who are probably in their 30s now who said, ‘I came from a very conservative family, we were very religious. Homo wasn’t something that was ever talked about in our house, and your show at least allowed us to have that conversation, if not, it made it easier for me to come out,” Kressley told CNN.

“For many people, we were the first real, living, real gay people they actually encountered. I’d get on a plane and someone would say, ‘Oh, my God, I love your show. You’re the first gay I’ve met.’

“And I was like, ‘Wait, you’ve never had highlights? What? Of course you met gays’.”

As the show took the world by storm, the original Fab Five were catapulted into the spotlight, appearing on primetime talk shows such as Oprah and The tonight show.

“I think we did a great job considering it was 20 years ago, (and) we didn’t really know what we were doing, we were all newcomers to television really,” Kressley continued. “I’m still very proud of the show.”

The series changed the game for LGBTQ+ reality shows and maybe even paved the way for it RuPaul’s Drag Racethe great success.

Kressley also stressed that the show had no “political agenda” when it first came out.

“I’m sure my intention was to get rid of pleated kakis and mullets,” he joked. “But there’s so much power in visibility, and we were a very innocent group of five gay guys helping a straight guy get the job, or the look, or the girl.”

While notable strides have been made for the LGBTQ+ community in the US over the past two decades, such as the introduction of same-sex marriage equality, LGBTQ+ rights have come under attack in recent years from right-wing politicians such as former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

It makes Kressley’s ongoing mission to bring queer visibility to the small screen all the more important.

Talk about Drag race to the Star Observer in March, Kressley said, “Sight is so important. You could be in Malaysia or Milwaukee and you can see people Drag race celebrated for who they are.

“Often they are people who have not had an easy time getting to where they are now. They may not have been celebrated much before, but a light has been shone on them and their craft.

“That is very powerful for young people to see. It says, “Hey, I feel different or I feel marginalized, but I see people being celebrated for being exactly who they are.” I can also be proud of myself.”

Strange eye season seven is now available to stream on Netflix.