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Cribb: Carson Kressley applies queer eye to the hopeless guy

Carson Kressley says his admittedly superficial changes are useful in helping dislocated lives get back on track.

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

As the camera reveals Jon Marshall standing in the spartan rental apartment where he now lives — after 17 years of marriage, three children and an impending divorce — the lens captures the physical manifestations of expectations lost.

His shoulders slump, his eyes are sunken, his movements tentative.

“It’s been hard for me. I feel bad for my kids,” he tells the cameras in a soft, breathy voice. “To see the pain they go through, it’s hard. . . I’d like to feel good about myself.”

Marshall, a high school girls’ basketball coach in rural Utah, is among those that TV press releases call “real characters” inhabiting the world of  a “make-better” reality show.

In the role of Marshall’s dream-maker is Carson Kressley, the flamboyant style maven who you may know from his sartorial expertise on the makeover show Queer Eye For the Straight Guy.

In a single frame, we see the 37-year-old Marshall, a Mormon and dishevelled sports coach with child support payments and a heinously brownish living room, standing beside the perfectly poofed, gay New York TV style guru.  Read More…