"Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys" Review – "He & She Haw"

The cast of Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys Season 2
(all photos courtesy The Sundance Channel)

Sundance Channel's Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, which this Friday launches its second season, is a reality show about relationships where the connections are durable and have been forged over years, not developed between commercial breaks.

This is a show set in Nashville where you'd expect conservative, Bible Belt attitudes to be on display. But actual people with those views are rarely encountered in the living rooms, coffee shops and bars of our protagonists.

This is a show about a stereotype: straight women who form strong attachments to gay males. But don’t be expecting to see toxic traces of Will & Grace – or even Karen & Jack. With one or two exceptions, these women have full, emotionally-satisfying lives that make room for a best friend who happens to be gay.

Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys has a high pedigree. It’s produced by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, the gay producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Fabulous Beekman Boys – not to mention Inside Deep Throat and this year’s gay film fest favorite Gun Hill Road. We’re talking quality productions.

Though GWLBWLB looks like a documentary (because it is shot that way) this is a dramatic reality show. Like all reality programs, the GWLBWLB producers edit hours and hours of material down to the necessary moments that provide the strongest arc of a story. There are times when it feels as though the participants are putting a little extra “oomph” into their performances to give the producers the video they need, but in general the show feels natural and unforced.

Friends Tenisha and Jared in a heated argument

The four pairs of straight women/gay men that have been recruited are attractive, young, upwardly mobile and possess the necessary verbal skills that TV mandates. (Oddly, the cast is rarely seen using mobile phones or computers for conversations or texting, probably because that’s visually boring).

In the first two shows that were provided for review, the four straight women’s lives are presented, in snapshot form, to include husbands, children, co-workers and friends. Though there was no equivalent visual or voice-over evidence provided to show if the four gay men have such significant relationships, one man’s ex-boyfriend popped up (with face digitally blurred) to explosive effect.

Kristin and Peter met through an online dating site and enjoyed their first date until their first passionless kiss convinced them otherwise. He came out shortly after. Kristin is pregnant with her first child; her husband is serving in Afghanistan. Peter works as a stand-up comic (though the bit we’re shown from his act isn’t funny) and is the father of three children from a prior marriage to a woman. Peter may not be very funny, but is he adorable.

Kristen and Peter

Sherrie and Shane are Nashville singer-songwriters who are collaborating on launching one another’s performing careers. Individually, they’ve written songs for Tim McGraw, George Straight, Jordin Sparks and Lady Antebellum. Photogenic and beautiful, they seem to sparkle. Rarely do you see this on reality TV: Shane professes a deep religious conviction and unabashedly displays the self-designed “Jesus = Fun” t-shirts he wants to sell online.

Shane and Sherrie