‘Queer Eye’ shines again at the Emmys

“Queer Eye,” a show born of a vision to inspire change, is celebrating once more. On Sunday, Jan. 7, the feel-good Netflix series clinched the prestigious Emmy Award for Outstanding Structured Reality Program. The victory marks a staggering sixth consecutive win in this category for the show, marking it as a titan of reality TV programming. The award was particularly significant for OHIO alumnus and executive producer David Collins, B.S.C. ’89, who has nurtured the show's success through 35 Emmy nominations and 10 wins.

Collins holds a bachelor’s degree in television production from the Scripps College of Communication. In his Spring 2023 commencement remarks as the morning's undergraduate keynote speaker, he talked about the show’s origins and the remarkable moment he and his partner witnessed at a networking event that inspired the concept for the "Queer Eye" series. A woman was publicly berating her male partner for his appearance, Collins said, when something striking happened.

“Three of the most unbelievably handsome, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed men came walking across the floor. They threw their arms around the man… They said ‘No, no, no ma'am. That is not what we do.’ And they started… fixing his hair and tucking in his shirt, shining his shoes and [saying], ‘You’ve got this, you’ve got this.’”

“I don't know why, but I turned to my partner without thinking, and said, 'Did you see that? That was like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,'” Collins said. “My partner looked at me and said, 'That's going to be something.'”

Indeed it was. The original “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” ran for five seasons on Bravo!, scoring the Outstanding Reality Program Emmy in 2004, before a rebirth of the show was picked up by Netflix in 2018 and its moniker shortened to “Queer Eye.”

Collins and the show’s team of longstanding producers weren’t the show’s only winners this time around. For the first time, the charismatic quintet at the heart of the series, a.k.a. The Fab Five, also celebrated victory as producers. The seventh season saw Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, and Jonathan Van Ness serving as producers, earning each of them a coveted Emmy trophy.

This year's win reaffirms "Queer Eye's" place as a trailblazer in the reality TV landscape. Its seventh season made it the longest-running reality series on Netflix. More than a show, Collins’ brainchild is a movement that champions love, acceptance, and transformation.

In addition to his success with “Queer Eye,” Collins has executive produced multiple series, including "The Hype" for HBO Max, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning with Amy Poehler" for Peacock, "Merpeople" for Netflix, and an investigative documentary series on megachurch Hillsong with Vanity Fair for FX.

Speaking about the show’s Sunday win, an ecstatic Collins said, "So humbled and grateful to be honored by the Academy. Go Bobcats!"