Earlier, I watched the actress Jesse James Keitel shoot a scene wearing a T-shirt that said, “A Woman Without a Penis Is Like an Angel Without Wings” - except the word wasn’t “penis” but a vulgar understudy. “It was my first exposure to a queer person.”ĭunn told me this during a tour of the “Queer as Folk” set in March. “It was electric to see these bodies and these people kissing,” said Dunn, who directed the gay coming-of-age film “Closet Monster” (2016). He recalled being 12 and squinting at scrambled broadcasts of the British “Queer as Folk” that came through Canadian television late at night at his family’s home in St. Stephen Dunn, the new “Queer as Folk” creator (and an executive producer, writer and director), watched, too. On YouTube I’ve been catching up with “ Brothers,” an overlooked Showtime comedy (1984-89) with out gay characters - a brave display of gayness in a previous era of spiteful attitudes and a cruel virus. Openly gay characters had already been on television as far back as 1971, when on “All in the Family,” Archie Bunker learned his friend Steve (Philip Carey) was gay. “Queer as Folk” showed us butt stuff and barked: Look out.
The assimilationist “Will and Grace” held America’s hand and whispered: Everything will be fine.
They’re the same butterflies Will has for Mike on “Stranger Things,” but neither boy fully understands that yet.Īudiences had a similar choice when Showtime took a risk with “Queer as Folk,” arriving two years into the 11-season run of another groundbreaking show: the NBC sitcom “Will and Grace.” I know those butterflies - is there any queer person who doesn’t? - because they perched on my shoulder when I fell for my (straight) best friend in high school. Its signature heart-melters are animated butterflies that circle the leading (white) characters, Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke). ( Amid slowing revenue and layoffs, Netflix has already renewed it for two more seasons.) It turns out that what a lot of folks want right now isn’t a commemoration of queer pain, but a romance about puppy love. “Heartstopper” offers an accessible and aspirational story - a combination that appears to be working.
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If you don’t like the show, you have the luxury, decades in the making, of watching new and original queer series like the new hit Netflix show “ Heartstopper,” an example of how diversity and good writing - thoughtful, complex, lived-in - can work together. The good news is, if you are a queer person who finally sees yourself on television in the new reboot, it may not matter whether it’s good or bad - being seen means the world. And so, what began as a recent reporting assignment to New Orleans for a taping of the new “Queer as Folk” turned into a deeper inquiry, including conversations with friends, academics and others outside the production.
I believe we are at a place - please, let us be at a place - where it’s no longer enough that there’s a queer show with characters who look like you on it diversity must be the baseline, not the finish line. “But when it’s disconnected from a deeper story line or a deeper investment in the characters or the quality of the writing isn’t good, that has an impact on audiences’ ability to connect to the show.”