I don't know if you saw the first season of “The A-List: New York.” If you didn't, here's the series in a few words: it's a group of gay men in Manhattan with too much time on their hands and altogether too much attitude. It's just another “Real Housewives,” in the last analysis.
But then again, no it ain't.
Just as with “Housewives,” it's all about the personalities. We have Reichen, big and nice-looking and very self-important, who's very talented, except that – then again – no he's not. He's certainly no actor; he's certainly no singer. His great accomplishment is that he won “The Amazing Race” a few years ago, which ain't nothing, but then again . . . But he has tons of self-confidence. There's Austin, a smirky pudgy little former male model who likes making trouble. And Rodiney, the painfully handsome Brazilian model who's in a very unsteady relationship with Reichen. And Mike Ruiz, who's actually a moderately successful professional photographer, and who's a bit older than the others; the series doesn't use him as much, because he seems to be less likely to make a fool of himself in public. And TJ, and the blond one, and the other one.
We watch them drink, and backbite, and infight, and gossip, and cry.
What's not to love?
Season Two just began in late July, and we are once again mesmerized. The Times recently ran a funny article about how this show is the guilty secret of gay men all over the country: it's awful, the people are awful, the behavior is awful, the situations are contrived – but we're all watching. My friend Tab is entranced, as are Partner and I, but Tab's boyfriend forbids him to watch. But somehow, deviously, he manages it anyway.
My favorite bit in the NYT article was the observation that these guys are not A-list by any reasonable definition of the term. They're comfortable, perhaps even affluent, but they're not celebrities. (The show has probably propelled them to a kind of pseudo-stardom far beyond anything they've enjoyed before. Partner and I saw Reichen's face in the poster for “My Big Gay Italian Wedding” when we were last in New York – we are talking off off off Broadway – but we knew from the TV show that he sings like your Uncle Sidney, so we gave it a pass.) If you ask the guys on the show, however, they will assure you that they are A-list. “A,” Reichen pontificates, “is for Achievement.”
And for Absolute Assurance, and for Absolutely Absurd, and for Abysmally Awful.
And, maybe, Amazingly Awesome.
I'm not just watching these shows. I'm recording them.
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