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At the same time, the inequality in the relationship between the straight men and their fairy godfathers is often very apparent. Watching the queer guys carefully help the straight guy to propose to his girlfriend in the most romantic set-up possible - and then rejoice for him when she says yes--one wonders: How about a program where the straight people help the gay people get married? The gay people are, after all, the ones who face a slightly more significant obstacle in this area.

The queer guys of Queer Eye have endeared themselves to mainstream America by making straight people's lives even easier than they already are. They enable heterosexual marriages, without ever demanding similar rights for themselves. In other words, they reinforce the status quo.

Not all stories dealing with gay male/straight male partnerships have shown such an unequal relationship, however. And not all stories have focused on the straight man's romantic life while the gay man stays single.

The 1984 film Another Country starred Rupert Everett and Colin Firth as students, and best friends, at an elite British public school in the 1930s. Everett's character, Guy Bennett, is based on real-life gay British-citizen-turned-Communist-spy Guy Burgess. Focusing on his schooldays, the film seeks to explain Bennett's turn to Communism through a combination of the homophobic discrimination he experiences from the school authorities, and the influence of his heterosexual Communist friend Tommy Judd (played by Firth).

Judd's heterosexuality is established when we learn that he has never been involved even with the situational homosexuality common at his same-sex boarding school. There is a suggestion that he may be meeting a local girl, but we never see her. What we do see is Bennett's burgeoning affair with another student, James Harcourt - and the problems it causes as the school prefects start to catch on. Judd is mildly sarcastic about Bennett's infatuation when he thinks it is just a phase. And he is initially slightly taken aback when Bennett tells him, near the end of the film, that it is his nature.

But the two have been consistently supportive of each other as outsiders, and this never really wavers. As Judd responds scathingly at the end of the film, to a prefect who has succeeded in shutting him and Bennett out of the school's elite groups, “All problems solved for life. No commies and no queers.”

The 1994 film Priest goes a step further, suggesting that a straight man could be more accepting of his gay friend's sexuality than the gay man is himself. Linus Roache stars as Father Greg Pilkington, a young and idealistic Catholic priest who has arrived to share a parish with Father Matthew Thomas (played by Tom Wilkinson).

The two clash early on, with Father Greg's apparently rigid traditionalism contrasting against Father Matthew's liberal practices and socialist beliefs. Matters aren't improved when Father Greg discovers that Father Matthew has been breaking his vow of celibacy, conducting a live-in relationship with his pretty housekeeper Maria. But Father Greg's uptightness masks a secret about his own sexuality. One night he removes his collar and goes off to a gay bar, where he meets a man called Graham (played by Robert Carlyle of The Full Monty).

In the uproar that results when Greg's relationship with Graham is discovered, Greg is sent to stay with a gloomy Latin-spouting retired cleric, where he will be looked after more strictly. Father Matthew, coming to visit Greg at the retreat, reacts incredulously when Greg tells him that they can't be left alone together, that the housekeeper is eavesdropping outside the room. He suggests that they bang on the door and pretend they are making love.

Later, and more seriously, as they go for a walk, Greg reveals his own shame and loathing over his sexuality. When he says of Graham “I despise him. Temptation comes in many forms”, Matthew is outraged: “This is the man who gave you his body--how dare you speak of him like that?”

Greg's internal contradictions and struggles with his own sexuality are not so easily resolved. He is scornful of Matthew's liberal platitudes, saying “That's it, is it? I'm reconciled to my true nature, cue the uplifting music?” At the end of the film, he faces an uncertain future. He and Graham are no longer together, he has spoiled his record with the church, and most of his parishioners view him with contempt.

But he does have the unfailing support of Father Matthew, who will not abandon him and who is adamant that they should say Mass together.

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