I’ve been watching gay TV since Stephen Carrington was the “mo” of “Dynasty.”I cried when my gay son died of AIDS “Early frost” When you are happy Jack slipped Ethan on his tongue Melt in “Dawson’s Creek” Patrick married David Other “Creeks” — Sits.
Then there was “Queer as Folk”.I grew up as a gay man watching two versions: the original of the first 10 episodes aired In england 1999 and 5 seasons American remake It premiered at Showtime a year later.
I have never seen anything like that. Some actors were gay, others weren’t, and people argued whether it was good or bad. (They still do.) The American version was at major cable outlets. Both versions had an ensemble of gay characters in their late twenties like me. We had a great date with gay, urban, terrible guys and had a tough sex life.
The new “Queeras Folk” debuted at Peacock earlier this month, but it’s not a rethink because it’s been billed. It is a reboot. Set in New Orleans, characters include transgender, non-binary, and disabled. Out, almost unknown actor Of many colors. Kim Cattrall and Juliette Lewis play mom.If necessary, Episode 1 also has a pulse-style nightclub massacre More trauma plots On your TV diet.
Reviews are mixed. “It’s a fun attempt to research a queer story and explore everything of value,” he said. AV club.. He argued, “I’m having a hard time finding humanity.” Vanity Fair..
I couldn’t get into it. Because the creators didn’t fully understand how to complicate the character beyond the contours of identity. (Friends couldn’t determine which was the better title, “Queeras Woke” or “Woke as Folk.”) The show’s TV friends group has the emotional depth of strangers for freshmen. Actors believe in their lines, but he doesn’t always act in a believable way.
In that sense, this new “Queer as Folk” joins the ranks of other major queer and queer-friendly revival and reboots. — People whose gender identity matches the gender assigned at birth.
Similar criticisms surround “The L Word: Generation Q,” a resurgence of the hit Showtime series “The L Word.” In the critique of Season 2. Los Angeles Times wrote “The optics of expression can do much only if the story is one-dimensional, shattered, or guided by an outdated metaphor.” “And just like that.” The resurrection of “Sex and the City” made a related mistake seeking approval from Queer Bushwick.
“Diversity Performance”: Julia Himberg, an associate professor of film and media studies at Arizona State University, explained what happened with “AndJust Like That” and “Generation Q.” (She had never seen the new “Queer as Folk”.) Lesbian Himberg “New Pay Gay: Sexual Politics of American Television Production”
“Expression is important,” she said. “But if it’s separated from the deeper storyline, or if the deeper investment in the character or the quality of the writing isn’t good, it affects the viewer’s ability to connect to the show.”
I accept. We believe that it’s no longer enough to have a quier show with characters like you. Diversity should be at the baseline, not the finish line. And what began as a recent report assignment to New Orleans for the taping of the new “Queer as Folk” began with a deeper investigation, including conversations with friends, scholars, and others outside production. It changed to.
The good news is that if you’re a weird person who eventually sees himself on TV with a new reboot, it may not matter whether it’s good or bad-seeing means the world .. If you don’t like the show, you’ll have the luxury of watching a new original queer series like the new hit Netflix show “Heartstopper,” which has been created for decades. -in — You can work together.
Pain vs puppy love
“Heartstopper” provides an accessible and ambitious story. This is a combination that seems to work. (Netflix has already updated for two seasons amid declining earnings and layoffs.) Many people now want a romance about puppy love, not a weird pain memorial. I understand.
Based on Alice Oseman’s best-selling graphic novel, this is a minimalist escapist series that can be enjoyed by the whole family depending on the family. It integrates black, Asian, and transgender, richly drawn characters, and their identity is not a traumatic issue, but a factual issue.
Its distinctive Heart Melter is an animated butterfly that surrounds the main (white) characters Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke). I know those butterflies — are there any strange people who don’t know? —Because they sat down on my shoulders when I fell into a (heterosexual) best friend in high school. They are the same butterflies that Will has for Mike in “Stranger Things”, but neither boy yet fully understands it.
Viewers made similar choices when Showtime took the risk with “Queeras Folk.” It took two years to run another groundbreaking show, NBC sitcom “Willand Grace,” for 11 seasons.
Talk about two gay America. The assimilated “Will and Grace” held the American hand and whispered. Everything will be better. “Queer as Folk” barked at us showing his ass: look out.
Openly gay characters were already on TV Dating back to 1971In “All in the Family”, Archie Bunker learned his friend Steve (Philip Carey) Was gay.. On youtube I saidBrothers“A showtime comedy that was overlooked without a gay character (1984-89) — a brave gay display of the nasty attitude and cruel virus of the previous era.
I don’t remember the show, but I remember growing up in the closet in the 80’s and growing up in the 90’s. At that time, I was watching a show featuring gay characters. I saw it even when there were few choices. Of course I saw it.
He was also watching over the new “Queeras Folk” creator (and executive producer, writer and director) Stephen Dunn. At the age of 12, he remembered squinting at his family’s home in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on a scrambled broadcast of the British “Quia’s Folk” on Canadian television late at night. ..
“It was electrical to see these bodies and these people kissing,” said Dan, who directed the gay adult film. “Goodbye, my monster” (2016). “It was my first encounter with a queer person.”
Dan taught me this during the “Queer as Folk” tour set in March. Earlier, I saw actress Jesse James Katel filming a scene in a T-shirt that said, “A woman without a penis is like an angel without wings.” However, the word was not “penis” but a vulgar understudy.
I thought “Badas”. A transgender actress who co-stars with other transgender and non-binary actors who play transgender characters in a transgender show by Jacqueline Moore, a transgender woman, executive producer and writer.
The transgender bend may have been a welcome sign that this is not my old “queer as folk”. Dan couldn’t and couldn’t make the show all for all queer people, but he and his writer said, “To see the shiny, perfect and safe depiction of the queer people. I’m sick of it, “he told me.
It was exciting to see a new generation calling it “Queer as Folk”, white, cisgender, male, and gay, unlike the queer television landscape around Y2K. Keitel later had the opportunity to play a transgender woman in a full-front nude scene where her character Lucy, a former party girl and new mother, described her as “a powerful, sexy, vulnerable moment.” Told me that he gave me.
“This is the body I walk around every day,” she later called. “Too often, the stories around the transbody are rooted in shame and negative. It was thrilling.”
Devinway, who plays Jockheart Breaker Brody, said, “There was no way to cast people with color and perspective. No It has shifted. “
“Eric, I don’t know what you look like,” said gay Way. “But if you’re not a southern interracial man, our lives will look quite different. If you’re not focused on one group of people, it will radically change everything. “
I called Russell T. Davis, the outcreator of Queer as Folk in the UK, and asked why he blessed this version. (He’s an executive producer.) He was partly because the show was very politically concerned when “everything we established was under active and intelligent threats.” I said there is. US “Don’t Say Gay” Bill..
“No one talks too much about straight content or measures straight material on TV,” he added. “Queer stories can be as diverse as the people of queer.”
Good kind of privilege
I wish I liked this “Queer as Folk” more than I did. The creator asked himself, “What has’Queer as Folk’not done yet?” And I made the show. However, in my eyes, borrowing a word from essayist Chuck Klosterman’s new book “The Nineties” suffers from “the unsightlyness of working hard.”
Still, I hope “Queer as Folk” will change the life of a 12-year-old boy in St. Johns. If not, the “Heartstopper” will probably do so. Or, it’s part of many nuanced, easy-to-stream portraits of “Orange is the New Black,” “Looking,” or queer characters and stories that have appeared in the last decade.
Or whatever next.I’m looking forward to “Disconnected” Coming to Netflix on July 29, Neil Patrick Harris is a wealthy New Yorker in his 40s, living single after being abandoned by a longtime partner.
It doesn’t change my life, and I’m beyond talking about rich white men, gay or straight. But it’s great to see Netflix not forgetting that there are gay men over the age of 30.
Talk about privileges: Access to so many quier shows and lack of time. I watched “Queer as Folk” in the UK to watch it anytime, anywhere, not on pirated VHS tapes. To connect with other queer fans of all colors and genders on social media.
Seeing with friends at home rather than in the hospital where many young gay men spent the night a while ago. “It’s a sin,” Davis’s tragic AIDS-themed series reminds me of missing friends and lovers last year who would have had too many queer televisions to want at home for only one night. rice field.
How different their lives and my lives would have been if we had the luxury of changing channels.