The Fab 5 Argue About Making Over the Masterpiece Cakeshop Baker

In a recent interview with Vulture, Antoni, Bobby, Jonathan, Karamo, and Tan from Netflix's popular Queer Eye reboot sat down for a hotpot dinner, but the wagyu beef wasn't the only thing heating up at the table.

While Queer Eye has been celebrated in homes across the world, the first season faced criticism for pandering to straight people, and even a few Trump supporters, for acceptance. In one of it's most cringe-worthy moments, Episode 3 (entitled "Dega Don't") begins with the Fab 5 getting pulled over by a police officer in rural Georgia. Tensions rise when Karamo, the only black member of the group, is asked to step out of the car for seemingly no reason. As the anxiety of the moment climaxes, the officer reveals this is all a prank and he's actually there to escort them to Cory, this episode's makeover subject and an unapologetic Trump-supporting police officer. The moment left a bitter taste in many viewer's mouths. Even Karamo looks visibly uncomfortable for most of the episode—until a car conversation with Cory about police brutality that ends in a half-baked kumbaya on how understanding both sides can heal the world. 

Vulture's E. Alex Jung might've had this moment in the back of his mind when he asks the Fab 5 if they would hypothetically makeover Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cakeshop baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple and effectively took his homophobia all the way to the supreme court.

Antoni quickly says that he would in an effort to understand Phillip's background. Bobby offers up the story of Jeremy, another one of their makeover heroes whose Christian community was apprehensive about appearing on the show, but upon meeting them realized gays weren't as scary as they imagined. Karamo recalls meeting Mike and Karen Pence, and says he puts himself in those uncomfortable positions so he can personally try to change minds while acknowledging this isn't the best tactic for everyone. When Jonathan points out the impact these acts of homophobia can have in small towns and why he's conflicted over how helpful their reaching out would actually be, he and Antoni bicker over the enoki.

Here's the full exchange: 

AP: I would. I want to know what that’s about. I want to know about who your parents were, how you were raised. I want to know, if this person were vetted, if there’s a willingness. Then I want to know about where that willingness is coming from.

BB: So Jeremy, firehouse season one. We received a text from him talking about how he’s received a lot of flak for going on Queer Eye from his religious community. Before the show, he was almost reluctant to do it because he felt the same way. And then after meeting us, we were humanized in his eyes. It was very easy for him to judge an entire group of people that he had never interacted with, and he said that if the world would do the same thing — interact with those groups of people that they hated — most people wouldn’t hate anymore.

KB: That, to be honest, is exactly why I always feel like I have to put myself in those rooms. What I will tell you is the majority of the people in there, even the ones who were liberal, had never experienced a black, gay man…

JVN: What liberals were in the room at Karen Pence’s?

KB: Other celebrities. They had never experienced a gay black man who’s raising children as a single father and who came from immigrant parents. The more I was exposing them to my story, it was like, 'Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!' Does it mean I’m changing hearts and everything is going to change right then and there? No. But it’s like Queer Eye — we’ve spent months with Trump supporters. Does it mean that all of a sudden they’re going to change their votes? No. But it does mean that we put ourselves in a position where we said, 'Maybe by exposing ourselves, things can change.'

JVN: Personally, where I come from, I have had people my entire life tell me to my face, 'I don’t agree with your lifestyle. You should never be able to be married. You’re a faggot.' Pushed down the stairs, 'faggot' spray painted on my car. When I say chased around with pitchforks, I’m halfway kidding. So when you close the door [and] walk out of that room, I’m pretty sure I know the type of language that was used to describe what you’d be doing in a place like that. When I walk out of a room with someone like that, I know very clearly the thoughts that are going through their head. Would they say it to my face? No. They’ll shake my hand with a smile on their face, and then they’re going to go and take your mom’s health care, take your children’s health care, and they’re also going to try to take food stamps from people and make sure women need to qualify how much work [they] can get so they can feed their children. So to the baker, this is someone who is fighting for the extreme right to win something on principle that the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against —

AP: I think we’re making a lot of assumptions about the baker.

JVN: No. I’ve actually done a lot of research on this. I’m very well-versed in this case.

AP: No, no, no —

JVN: I’m not making too many assumptions. I let you finish your point on the baker and wanting to work with him, so I’m going to finish mine. This is someone who has led a charge from the fanatical wing of the U.S. to disenfranchise gay people and further feed the flames of the right, who says we’re evil and shouldn’t have the right to marry. Exactly what’s going on with Roe v. Wade will be the case for gay marriage if these same people continue to win Supreme Court decisions like they just won. So by legitimizing them, especially the person that has stoked such an intense case against marriage equality, that also presents such a big bone in the side of furthering marriage equality. Because even though this decision was close and it didn’t reverse the decision of the Ninth District and the Colorado board that decides the governing ethics that this baker reversed, that Supreme Court decision wasn’t super-duper clear because it didn’t reverse the initial …

Vulture: It was very narrow.

JVN: It was very narrow. But once you’ve lived a struggle that is not the struggle you’d have growing up in Montreal or Houston or a bigger city, and really had those people’s policies affect your local life, you have to be very careful. Especially given the opportunity the five of us have been given. To have this platform and have these followers, to be taking interviews and to say lightly that you’d take him [put the baker on the show], I don’t know. That’s why I don’t know if I’d want that episode. I really don’t. And I sure as hell couldn’t legitimize someone like Karen or Mike Pence. But the thing I love about us is that we can have this conversation. [To Karamo] You will hold my hand, we will cuddle up — not with our tops off, don’t be awkward.

AP: I’m not talking about the Pences’ views, but the idea of the baker. Cory [a contestant from season one], when I first met him and he had a Trump banner on his thing, I wanted to get the hell out of there.

JVN: Right. But this is someone who was vetted and okay to be around us, and the baker of the fucking baking shop that has spent his life’s mission … I’m telling you. Are you kidding me? Have you read the story?

AP: No!

JVN: So you’d know, if you did, that I’m not making a lot of this up.

AP: I just want to go and talk to the guy, because you hear so much shit …

JVN: Well, good luck to you. Read the article.

AP: Look, we’ve made mistakes as well. I’m not … [sighs]

JVN: Next question?

Families disagree, and the Fab 5 are no exception. But after reading the exchange, one can't help but wonder if Queer Eye is as progressive as they would like to seem. One of the reboot's first taglines was, "The original show was fighting for tolerance. Our fight is for acceptance." But in today's political climate, aren't we beyond just wanting to be received as adequate or suitable. As Indirewire points out, "Is that all queer people can hope for in 2018? Acceptance?"

Read the Fab 5's full interview with Vulture here.