TV Tuesdays Free Talk

We're Here (2020)

My husband and I have watched through the first season.

It's basically HBO's version of Queer Eye, except instead of the Fab Five doing makeovers, it's three different drag queens (Shangela, Eureka O'Hara, and the long-time favorite of my husband and I: Bob the Drag Queen). They help people put on a local drag show in small communities around the US that are often not particularly welcoming to LGBT people.

It hits the exact same highs and lows that Queer Eye does. I cry pretty much every episode, as the portraits of everyday queer people and their experiences hit very close to home. On the other hand, the show can stray too far into trying to force a "moment" for TV that can make it feel disingenuous.

In the first episode, there is a young girl who was disowned by her mother after coming out. Her pain is so raw, fresh, and deep, and the show tries to have the mom's performance in a drag show be the "quick fix" for that. It was hard to watch for me, as I felt like that girl did when my parents disowned me, and it took years of processing and change for me to get past my own hurt. I felt like the show didn't honor that, and I just ended up feeling devastated for this poor girl who needs so much more than a "television episode resolution" to her "storyline". If someone had tried to force a quick reconciliation for me when I was in that place of extreme, devastating, all-encompassing pain, it simply would have done more damage. I hope that wasn't the case for her, but I fear it might have been.

That said, for every low point like that, the show hits far more highs. I pretty much always want more queer representation on my screen, and this show gives me that in spades. The best part of the show is the people they highlight in the communities they go to, and the show hits a high bar for inclusivity. Drag, and especially television drag, often highlights a very narrow slice of queer culture -- especially if you stick to something like RuPaul's Drag Race (from which the three queens in the show made their names) -- but this show makes sure to convey of a broad range of queer and straight people alike, as well as the connections that make us inseparable.

The bad in the show is basically a criticism I have of television in general (a push to make internal conflicts externally visible; a need for simple and digestible story arcs), but I'm able to look past it because I feel there's a real value in broadcasting and raising the profiles of everyday queer people and the relationships and experiences they have within their own communities. Like I said, I cry nearly every episode, and it's not because the show is trying to manipulate me into that outcome but because the subjects of the show remind me of myself, the people I know, and the experiences that we've had.