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Funny farm: Sexuality, neoliberalism and the refashioning of American rural life

European Journal of Cultural Studies

Published online on

Abstract

This essay examines the operation of neoliberal logic in The Fabulous Beekman Boys, a reality television show that premiered on the now rebranded Planet Green network during the summer of 2010. The essay’s analysis focuses primarily on the way the protagonists’ homosexuality is figured proleptically as something like an explanation for both their atypical successes as small-scale farmers and their inevitable failures. It also draws attention to way the show mobilizes stereotypes about gay men’s inherent tastefulness, and their penchant for taste-making, as a moralizing homily regarding the virtue of personal sacrifice, the nobility of risk-taking and the economically redemptive potential of niche marketing under conditions of late capitalism.