The Southern Gays Are the Best Part of ‘DeMarcus Family Rules’

Trust and believe—you will struggle to think of a show that’s straighter than DeMarcus Family Rules. Netflix’s new reality show follows the day-to-day shenanigans of Rascal Flatts bassist Jay DeMarcus, his high-powered beauty queen wife Allison, and their precocious pair of kids. So yeah, the show is really straight—like, really straight. I’m talking golf-buddies-razzing-you-for-wearing-a-polo-with-pink-flowers levels of straightness. All the men are in camo and Under Armour, and all the women are dressed to impress—even if they’re just making a run to the fabric store. How straight is this show? Well, it’s as straight as a reality show about a country music superstar and Miss Tennessee set in Nashville.

And y’all—that is why the gays of DeMarcus Family Rules give me life. They punctuate episodes with pockets of persnickety fabulousness, a specific southern strain of gay sass that I don’t see enough of on TV, and they make the show for me.

The gays in question are Chris and Mickey, a family friend and the family chef, respectively. We’re introduced to Chris as the assistant/best Judy of Allison DeMacus’ fabulous mother, Jane. He’s constantly by her side, carrying her spare pair of shoes in a Gucci bag (not Michael Kors) and indulging all of her rascally ideas. Like instead of showing up to a family camping trip on time, Chris suggests they maybe just… drive a little slower. And maybe, y’know, stop off for a drink at what looks like a combination man cave/church basement, but is—I guess—a restaurant. And if he wants to cattily comment on a stranger’s ponytail or tell a man to loosen up his shirt collar, he’ll do so.

And if he wants to serve drinks to the girls in the shortest robe imaginable? Honey, things are about to get lit.

Then there’s Mickey, the DeMarcus family’s beloved chef—even though, as Allison reveals, he doesn’t really have formal training and he spends way more time preparing colorful uses of expletives than actual meals. My favorite? When he’s driving family friend Paige to the camp site and tells her that he’s “mad enough, I can spit a goddamn bucket of nails!”

Mickey has zero patience and suffers no fools, which makes him what we call “a mood.” He yells at Jay for doubting fluffernutter’s place in a s’more, he gripes about the arrival of approximately a million balloons at Madeline’s birthday party, and I love every single minute of it.

Now, just to cover my bases: the show doesn’t explicitly get into the personal lives of either of them, although Chris does flirt with a man at a cozy restaurant between coquettish sips of a beverage. Maybe Mickey isn’t actually gay and I’m relying on (completely endearing, delightful) stereotypes. But whatever—Mickey, at the very least, brings a biting gay wit that would make Paul Lynde proud. That’s the energy that I, as a gay southerner myself, am here for.

I’ll be frank: Chris and Mickey are goals. They’re a beacon of gay light cutting through a dense, heterosexual fog. They remind gay southern expats like myself that we’re still holding down the fort in Nashville, living loud and living large—and low-key taking charge.

So to all my fellow southern gays out there, there’s precisely one correct way to binge watch DeMarcus Family Rules: follow Chris’ example and put on your shortest robe, mix up the fruitiest cocktail, and y’all start streaming.

Stream DeMarcus Family Rules on Netfilx