What the Hell Happened: ‘Queer Eye’ Takes Tokyo

The Netflix hit “Queer Eye” has tasked the Fab Five, a group of gay professionals specializing in food, culture, fashion, interior design, and personal grooming, with transforming lives (while producing tear-inducing content) in Georgia, Missouri, and now… Japan? On Oct. 7, Netflix released a trailer for “Queer Eye: We’re in Japan,” a special four-episode season based in Tokyo set to be released on Nov. 1.

The very premise of such a venture raises a myriad of questions beyond “Can I afford to spend four hours on November first watching ‘Queer Eye?’” The show previously released a 20-minute special filmed in a town called Yass, Australia, on Youtube, perhaps due to the similarity between the town’s name and the slang phrase “yass queen” (number of a’s and s’s variable), but even that international experience is far from a full mini-season in Japan. It doesn’t seem like any member of the Fab Five has any particular familiarity with Japanese culture or language. Throughout the trailer they speak to the nominees in English while nominees respond in Japanese. The trailer introduces their Japanese guests Kiko Mizuhara and Naomi Watanabe, and the show’s team surely has plenty of translators, but the constant interruption of deep, personal conversations with translation ruins their gravity.

Further, cultural elements like fashion, beauty, and certainly food would differ significantly. There are also real differences in the norms of personal expression, interpersonal norms, and societal values. Certainly a lack of effort and self esteem (which is often the problem) is a universal phenomenon and Tan’s infamous French tuck could make anyone look good, but it would also strike the wrong way if the Fab Five gave the same advice to a young Japanese man in Tokyo as they would to a Caucasian man in Kansas City. The trailer makes a point about “connecting cultures,” and the potential for cultural exchange and mutual growth that already takes place on the show is extraordinary. Hopefully, the show will be able to strike a balance between highlighting cultural differences and celebrating the more universal pieces of the human experience while “transforming” the lives of their four nominees.

It will also be interesting to see how/whether the show will bring up discussions of LGBTQ+ acceptance in Japan, a country that has not legalized gay marriage. Part of the original premise of “Queer Eye” is to bring queerness to spaces in which it often isn’t well represented and to prompt humanizing conversations to deepen understanding and empathy. The trailer doesn’t show any hint of these dialogues, but once again, the potential is extraordinary and it would almost feel like a copout not to have them.

All this said, the mini season does look like it will be an adorable, emotional ride like every other season of the show thus far. Sure, the opening in which Tan asks if the other guys are ready in Japanese is just a little more cringey than the multiple shots of them dancing through an intersection, but with just a few brief glimpses into the lives of the nominees, viewers are already invested. After all, you had me at, “I want to transform from a rock to a psychedelic flower” (which, honestly, don’t we all?).

—Staff Writer Jenna X. Bao can be reached at jenna.bao@thecrimson.com.