adj. flamboyant: (of a person or their behavior) tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness … [from NOAD]
Last Saturday I made the acquaintance (in the first Crooked Media show on MS NOW) of this exemplar of masculine flamboyance, presenting himself in this IMDb photo as an impish hunk:
Jon Favreau (advertising Crooked Media’s Pod Save America show)
Inexplicably, I seem not to have noticed JF before, though he’s someone of great substance. Meanwhile, his performance on the show was hugely entertaining — cutting criticism of our overlord Grabpussy and his administration, flamboyantly delivered. The deep moral commitment of Stephen Colbert performed in a wildly expressive style.
About JF. Brief background from Wikipedia:
Jonathan Edward Favreau (born June 2, 1981) is an American political commentator, podcaster, and the former director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama.
Crooked Media on MS NOW. From the Hollywood Reporter on 2/17/26, in “MS NOW Inks Deal With Crooked Media to Air ‘Pod Save America’ and More on TV”:
In a notable video podcast pact, highlights from Crooked shows such as ‘Pod Save America’ and ‘Lovett or Leave It’ will air Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET.
Now it turns out that the show is generally available only by subscription, so I am unable to play this first show. But with the assistance of Opal Armstrong Zwicky, I was able to get a YouTube broadcast of the Crooked show: Pod Save America “Tr[**]p’s Weakness EXPOSED After Epic Losing Week for Republicans” from 3/6/26. This particular show was offered free, apparently as a sales pitch for subscription.
The 3/6 MS NOW show. A two-person show, with Dan Pfeiffer and JF — both offering passionate snarky criticism of our overlord Grabpussy, but with a cool, restrained presentation of self from Pfeiffer, a warm, highly expressive presentation from Favreau.
JF on this show. Much expansive smiling; some wry smiles, with one corner of the mouth raised — the mouth counterpart of his frequent eyebrow raising; lots of wide eyes, occasional eye rolling; accompanied by hand gestures punctuating and amplifying his talk.
All very flamboyant: not a gay performance, but what I think of as gay-adjacent: fully masculine (these are two dudes collaborating to dump on Grabpussy with gusto), but with JF freely borrowing some elements from gay presentations of self. Tremedously enjoyable. But, yes, also dead serious. (I have occasionally posted about gay men who engage in projects of various kinds with deep commitments, but present themselves as some variety of the flamboyant cultural type the queen. Notes on them below.)
(Then since I am the person I am, though there’s every reason to think JF is uncomplicatedly straight, I find him seriously hot. This is entirely a judgment of taste; I also find Brad Pitt hot (in a different way from JF), and I have straight male friends I find hot (in various ways), and nothing whatsoever follows from any of that.)
JF is entirely capable of doing long solo shows in which he gravely eviscerates the administration’s policies as a threat to democracy and civil morality. With no ornamentation.
Queens. There are gay men who are flamboyant (in any way) and are also effeminate (in their presentation of themselves). Stereotypically, these two bundles of characteristics are manifested together in the cultural type the queen
From my 6/30/22 posting “Ultimate Queen Day”
For several years, my department chair at Ohio State [Robert Jeffers] was a good friend who presented himself as what I now think of as an ornamental queen: full of amiable laughter, warm companionship, and energy, with the gay gestures, the gay voice, all the gay eye stuff (side-eyes, wide eyes, eye rolls), all of that dialed up to about 150% of normal. He had a fine conventional three-piece suit that he wore when one of his students defended their PhD dissertation (the suit was a mark of respect for them), but mostly dressed flamboyantly. He went to Humanities College Executive Committee meetings (with the deans and the other department chairs) in very worn denim short shorts that showed off his gym-developed lower body, plus an equally worn Mickey Mouse t-shirt that showed off his upper body. Vibrating energy and enthusiasm.
And it all worked. Well, he was an able administrator, a solid scholar (in Indo-European historical linguistics!), a wonderful teacher, and a tireless, thoughtful adviser. And yes, a treat to look at and a hell of a lot of fun to be around.
In my 9/30/25 posting “Peter Paige”, an inventory of various queen personas: the tough queen [Emmett in Boys in the Band], the ditzy queen [Randy Rainbow], and then the ornamental queen [Robert] … [and in a role of Peter Paige’s] the convivial queen, the queen with the gift of friendship. Just as there are many ways of being butch (note JF), there are many ways of presenting yourself as a queen.
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