How Do You Make the Perfect Gay Reality Show?

Had the show addressed Sepulveda's escort past, rather than letting the internet run wild with it, or even exploited the possibilities of a house full of horned-up attractive gay men, it would have been far more compelling television. It still would've been trash, but compelling trash. However, Finding Prince Charming couldn't figure out what it wanted to be. If it wanted to be a gay Bachelor, guess what?--the best thing about The Bachelor are the absolute trainwrecks the show attracts, many of whom don't care about finding love so much as finding a few minutes of screen time and an Us Weekly insert.

Being the first of its kind--not including the disastrous Boy Meets Boy or a few episodes of MTV's Next--Finding Prince Charming had to aspire to something higher, because, by default, it was representative of the LGBTQ community. Whether we wanted it to be or not. And we, as a rule, are very sensitive about how we are portrayed in the media--for good reason, namely, decades of being murderers, best friends, and living scenery on film and on TV. While shows like The Bachelor and Bachelorette can show contestants in a terrible light, the light always has to be slightly more flattering in a gay version. Which drains all the fun out of a reality show.

Any reality show that feels to scripted or too contrived has already failed. A great reality show should never treat its subjects like sacred cows, nor should it be mean-spirited or overly exploitative. It's a thin line to traverse, and most shows trip and fall at one point or another. Whether it's Kim Richards's public descent into alcoholism on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or, really, anything on TLC. If there's a bar, TLC slid under it years ago. So what else makes a great reality show? Besides great editing, you need a great cast--a cast that gets it, full of people who have a sense of self-awareness but a lack of self-consciousness.

Gay men can find it difficult being unself-conscious because our lives are often spent being very conscious and guarded about something that sets us apart, fueling a need to conceal it. So there's not only a problem in being unself-consciousness but also in being vulnerable, which is also required of a great reality star. Drag Race finds a neat way around this, as the drag alter egos of its contestants--as well as their ceremonial, and deeply symbolic, shedding of the makeup after each challenge--provide a sort of mirror to the truth. Painting and subsequently peeling away at the layers of their makeup finds the queens at their most vulnerable and their most philosophic. Just think of Dorian Corey, sitting eternal at her vanity in Paris Is Burning, espousing truth after truth after truth.

But the queens also get what the show is, they know the formulas, and they know their roles. They're not here to make friends because this isn't RuPaul's Best Friends Race. Drag Race season five was perhaps the show's best season--although the recent All-Stars gave it a run for its money, largely for the same reason: it came with pre-manufactured drama. Coco and Alyssa were already enemies by the time they saw each other for the first time in the work room and the shade descended like manna from heaven.

Drag queens make perfect reality show stars because they're performers by nature. As are the best Real Housewives. They both come prepared with beef and catchphrases--and with their faces beat for the gods. The men on Finding Prince Charming, on the other hand, were earnest to the point of coma-inducing--amateurs!--with the exception of Robby, a flamboyant queen who knew exactly what she was doing. In the first episode, he comes in screaming at nothing and no one, immediately setting himself apart from all the other contestants by daring to have a personality. Logo's latest attempt to fill the gay reality void, Fire Island doesn't look like it will fare much better.