In this paper I will examine the relationship between Ronnie Kroell and Ben DiChiara, two participants on the Bravo reality contest, Make Me a Supermodel, and the way the network played up the on-the-air friendship between the two men...
moreIn this paper I will examine the relationship between Ronnie Kroell and Ben DiChiara, two participants on the Bravo reality contest, Make Me a Supermodel, and the way the network played up the on-the-air friendship between the two men into a " bromance " – a male/male friendship that has taken on the characteristics of a romance – that became the talk of the internet. Since the show was filmed and aired in " real time " (from January 3 to April 3, 2008), Bravo and the producers of Make Me a Supermodel clearly began to play up the sexual tease of this bromance when it became obvious that there was an attraction between openly gay student Ronnie and straight married prison guard Ben to which fans of the show were responding, especially in online blogs and fan groups. While other mainstream networks might have been afraid of offending a presumed heteronormative audience (Bravo is, after all, a cable pendant of mainstream network NBC Universal, which is owned by General Electric), not to mention sponsors, Bravo not only followed the lead of their viewers by embracing the relationship, but began focusing the show, and perhaps even manipulating the contest results, in order to showcase the entity fans, and eventually the network itself, referred to as " Bronnie. " I believe an examination of this show and Ronnie/Ben as an officially canonized " slash " pairing of a gay man and a straight man at this particular moment in television history is extremely enlightening in regards fan reception, both straight and gay, and in the official recognition of different kinds of desire among these viewers, especially identification by gay men and the slashing of male pairs by female fans. Bravo History The Bravo Network went on the air in 1980 as a performing arts cable pendant of NBC. For two decades it languished on the margins of cable, featuring a mix of concerts, documentaries, independent films, and reruns of NBC shows such as The West Wing. Bravo's most notable original program was the James Lipton-hosted Inside the Actor's Studio. In the early 2000's Bravo and its now defunct sister network, TRIO, began to show programming that featured gay themes, including on documentaries on gay animals, Log Cabin Republicans, and a short series called Gay Weddings. These shows catered to what Bravo and TRIO had identified as one of their strongest demographics: gay men. Along with females between the ages of 18 and 49, gay men were attracted to the networks by a mix of arts and popular culture, as well as a perception that the two networks, virtually alone among cable outlets at the time, were gay-friendly. NBC eventually phased out TRIO, moving it to an online-only site, to focus on Bravo, which found its true niche in the summer of 2003 when it began to air a show that had been ordered and then rejected by Bravo NBC: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Queer Eye, along with the gay dating contest Boy Meets Boy, premiered in July and immediately became the buzz-show of the summer, the first episode attracting the highest ratings Bravo had ever scored. Openly gay Andy Cohen, who had won a Peabody Award at TRIO, became Bravo's Senior Vice President of Production and Programming and began to build on the popularity of Queer Eye to create a distinct identity for the network that was both cutting-edge in terms of reality programming and queer-inclusive. Project Runway, Top Chef, Work Out, Shear Genius, Flipping Out, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, and Top Design are only a few of the shows that featured gay men and lesbians in prominent positions as hosts, mentors, contestants, and stars, winning Bravo the designation of most gay-friendly American company in a survey of both gay (52%) and straight (28%) consumers done by Prime Access and PlanetOut in early 2008, beating out more well-known companies such as Apple, Showtime, and HBO. Andy Cohen has become the virtual " face " of Bravo, writing weekly blogs at the network website and The OutZone, a special area for gay Bravo fans, and hosting Watch What Happens!, Bravo's streaming vlog (video blog), as well as the popular reunion shows that conclude each run of their reality series. As Cohen told gay website AfterElton in 2007: " I think the fact that I am 38 and gay and kind of urban also happens to be kind of duplicative of a lot of our viewers... or the sensibility of a lot of our viewers. So I think it's also sort of a nice fit " (Juergens). But as important as the gay viewership is to Bravo, much of the network's success lies in a balance between the gay and straight elements that appeal to both their key demos of gay men and straight women. As Alessandra Stanley wrote in the New York Times in 2006: " Bravo... has a gay identity and a strong following that reaches beyond gay audiences... (it) provides an arena where gays and straights interact, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict, but almost always with flair and a sense of humor " (Stanley). Bravo's focus on the popular culture, fashion, and romance that attracts gays and straight women alike is also at the heart of the drama of Make Me a Supermodel – and the " Bronnie Bromance. "
