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Village Voice
January 17-23
Leaning from Queer As Folk
So it's not The Pizza Boy: He Delivers. But Queer as Folk, Showtime's new series about gay life set in sultry Pittsburgh, is a much needed antidote to those sitcoms and -drams in which the homosexual gentleman (that's a faggot who's just entered the room) is a sensitive companion to the female lead whose sex life consists of affection lavished upon a small dog. This pay-cable series goes as far toward a frank encounter with gay sexuality as any movie outside the adult video section ever has.
True, the critic's tape I received was more explicit than the show that actually aired (thanks to a rating system much harder on gay films than on comparable straight stuff). Still, there's enough of the old in/out to keep this pervert's pecker up. Itching to see the fabled rimming scene in its entirety? Stay tuned for the deluxe video edition. For sex addicts who just can't wait, word is that those unexpurgated critics' tapes are being auctioned on eBay.
Meanwhile, as the actor who plays Brian, the show's big throb, reaps the rewards of his perfectly symmetrical smirk, he's already given interviews boasting that his girlfriend is "very cool" about his walk on the wild side. Attention agents: Not only is this actor STRAIGHT!!!! but he's out to appeal to that niche of women hip enough "to deal with me as a gay man." Move over, Rupert Everett. This dude's every bit as willing to have a kid with Madonna and much more likely to call her a bitch in the morning.
As for Justin, the dewy demon who falls for Brian and won't let go, the fact that he's 17 (two years older than his counterpart in the British series on which this version is based) seems to have gone by all but unremarked. But there's been plenty of buzz about the show itself. Though HBO's prison drama Oz shows lots of male nudity—not to mention rape—violent images of homosexuality are far more acceptable than what frightens the horses most: relationships. This series is not just about gay sex; it's about the bond gay sex creates. This unique aspect of gay life has been all but forgotten in the age of AIDS.
Among its many casualties, AIDS has squelched the potential of erotic attraction to cement group solidarity. But this powerful force in human behavior—sublimated in straight male society as the basis for teams, military units, and music combos—was once the central element of gay liberation. These days, it's fashionable to think of gay sex as a binary act rather than a tribal one. But Queer as Folk recalls the older—and never really repressed—gay model. This is what makes the show groundbreaking, despite its stilted characterizations and flimsy sitcomic reflexes. Unlike The Boys in the Band, whose characters expressed their sexuality entirely outside the group, this drama shows how the ramifications of desire can form the gay equivalent of family.
Consider Brian, whose lust (and more importantly, respect for his lust) makes him the leader of the pack. Not the alpha, mind you. Brian doesn't measure his macho by the ability to subordinate others; in fact, Brian has no authority at all. But this band coheres around his free-floating desire, and once someone connects with Brian, he—or she—becomes part of the fold. Then the pack expands as each member brings lovers into it. Everyone lives by the unspoken erotics of longing, anger, and love.
While the show delves (not always subtly) into the notorious gay fear of intimacy—which is really a male fear writ queer—it doesn't surround this issue with the usual patina of imminent doom. Yes, gay life can be cruel, but there is also what Jackson Browne calls "tenderness on the block." And while Brian's promiscuity certainly springs from terror, it is also presented as a source of nurturance. His feelings for his child and its lesbian mother are no less genuine—and no less alienated—than many a husband's affections are. When Brian gets hooked, reluctantly, on young Justin, the result is a snarling devotion that's not so different from what often passes for fathering.
What's missing from Queer as Folk is that old trope of gay drama meant for a "general" audience: mixed company. Straight society is an intrusive, if not hostile, presence here, mitigated only slightly by each character's parents. Though the fathers are either absent or abusive, the mothers remain loving, mirroring the scenario of many gay men's lives. These moms serve as guides to the netherworld and points of identification for female viewers (who are likely to form a large part of the audience). The gay-friendly mother who can't wear enough pride buttons is the show's most insufferable creation, but one thing you can count on from Queer as Folk is that she will prove to be richly paradoxical. That's the way life is, and verisimilitude is the signature of this series.
Sex isn't what makes the show provocative; it's the distinct society created by gay desire. But the bonds between these men resemble their relationships with their parents in all sorts of refracted ways. So what ultimately comes across is that gay life is the template for a new kind of family: a lot more flexible than the traditional model, but no less painful or binding.
But about the sex! It's only slightly more raunchy than those softcore gay porn films with buff boys greeting the sunrise in each other's arms. Think Last Tango in Pittsburgh and you'll get the drift. But just as Last Tango was notorious not only for the sex but for the relationship that enclosed it, Queer as Folk draws its power from infusing the kinky with the interpersonal. This show blows up the balloon of porn, so that the players are full of life itself. Once the distancing conventions of porn are shattered, sex resonates with all the hidden dilemmas that actually make it dangerous—and irresistible. Though safety is the name of this game (and the action affirms that AIDS is spread by semen, not promiscuity), the show preserves the riskiness of sex by demonstrating that what's at play in every roll in the hay is not just the body but the self.
There are many lessons to be learned from Queer as Folk. One of them is that universality can only be rendered by being faithful to the particulars of life. Another is that sexual explicitness has enormous power to deepen a story and convey character. Novelists have long known this, and fought for their right to party. Yet our visual novels—films and TV shows—have been deprived of this crucial narrative device. At the same time, we have created a separate genre for erotic works, in which sex is stripped of its interpersonal vitality. The dichotomy between porn and other dramatic forms is a testament to our abiding puritanism, which insists that you can't be pornographic and profound. This show points to a future in which the forced segregation of the erotic and the emotional is overcome.
Are you ready for Johnny Depp in flagrante or Jennifer Lopez getting rimmed? I know I am. But then, I'm queer as folk.
Vancouver Sun
January 20, 2001
Small screen, same sex
C.E. Gatchalian
Next week's Canadian premiere of Queer as Folk, the controversial new TV series documenting the lives of a group of gay men and lesbians living in Pittsburgh, marks the culmination of a 30-year struggle to bring gay life out of the television closet.
Some will argue that it's already been out of the closet, what with the legendary coming-out of Ellen Degeneres's character on Ellen and the critical and ratings success of the Emmy-winning Will and Grace.
But while both shows and several before it can be credited for opening the closet, Queer as Folk goes one step further by dragging all the hitherto unshowable aspects of gay life out of it. The show, based on the controversial and acclaimed British series of the same name, makes no overtures to political correctness and no concessions to the straight world. Queer as Folk features characters who are neither villains nor victims, eunuchs nor clowns, but selfless, self-centred, naive, jaded, flawed, vibrant and, yes, sexual human beings.
It is, of course, the sex that has all of America -- where the show has already aired -- in a fury. For in its uncompromisingly frank treatment of the homosexual proclivities of its characters, Queer as Folk is testing America's tolerance the way no show ever has.
Having okayed Will and Ellen in the form of Emmys and high ratings, will audiences do the same for the characters of Queer as Folk, who are as complex -- and unsanitized -- as any heterosexual character?
The controversy surrounding the show is the pop-cultural manifestation of a larger debate: are audiences ready to cross the threshold from tolerance to acceptance?
It's just a show, some will say.
Yes it is. And yet it isn't.
For television, easily the most mainstream of art forms, can influence, shift and challenge public attitudes in a way no other art form can. If something taboo makes it on television, the taboo is in effect lifted. A societal change has taken place.
And there is little more taboo than the sight of men having sex -- until now.
No matter that Queer as Folk is airing on cable and not network TV -- the fact that it's on TV at all is a momentous achievement. The journey to Queer as Folk has been an arduous one, one that parallels the journey of gays to the greater public tolerance they enjoy today.
With the Stonewall riots of 1969, homosexuality was freed from what was until then its usual dwelling-place -- the world of masks and codes, where gay identity, forbidden open expression, was sublimated in, among other cultural phenomena, a witty, boldly subversive style of writing and speaking, and a reverence for entertainers like Judy Garland, in whose pull-out-the-stops emotionalism gays saw a parallel to their own suffering.
The riots, which, appropriately enough, began on the day of Garland's funeral, marked the death of the old gay culture and the birth of the new one: in-your-face, guiltless, and altogether uninhibited. Politics and free love ruled gay life in the 70s.
Homosexuality's new brazenness was reflected in 70's television, which for many remains TV's golden age, marked by gutsy, socially relevant entertainment.
In shows like All in the Family and Maude, homosexuality was a lightning rod for fierce yet funny debate -- the episode in which the bigoted Archie discovers that one of his longtime drinking buddies is gay, and the episode in which the liberal Maude confronts her own anti-gay prejudices are triumphs of both social commentary and comedic art.
Eventually, Willie's best friend would come out in the drama series Family; Jack would try to pass as gay so that he'd be allowed to live with two girls in Three's Company; and Billy Crystal would create what still remains one of the most fully fleshed gay TV characters ever: the flamboyant and scene-stealing Jodie Dallas in Soap.
In concert with the relative openness of '70s society, homosexuality for the first time was being talked about in pop culture: though much was still left to the imagination, its existence was acknowledged and, in the sense that it was accepted as legitimate subject matter for TV, embraced.
But two things changed the social and, in turn, pop cultural climate in the '80s. First was the ushering in of the Reagan administration, which without a doubt was a contributing factor to 80s television tastes. Family sitcoms upholding traditional values were the flavour of the day, with homosexuality scarcely mentioned in shows like The Cosby Show, Family Ties and Growing Pains. If gay characters appeared at all, like Steven Carrington in Dynasty, they were bland bit-players, several steps backward from Jodie Dallas.
But homosexuality, as always, proved its ineradicability even in this hostile era. A cultural byproduct of the new conservatism was the re-emergence of camp, the aesthetic style that dominated gay culture in the pre-Stonewall days of sublimation. Dallas, Dynasty, The Golden Girls, Designing Women -- although none could accurately be called "gay shows," the repartee and over-the-top sufferings of their female characters certainly courted -- and was likely even the result of -- a gay sensibility.
There was, of course, something else that defined the 80s: AIDS. The epidemic had the curious effect of winning the gay cause unprecedented public sympathy -- it seemed that people were willing to support gay rights so long as gays were dying of an incurable illness.
Accordingly, television, in its noble attempts to foster homophilic understanding, entered into a protracted phase of portraying homosexuals as martyrs: An Early Frost, about a young gay lawyer dying of the disease, was the most talked-about TV-movie of 1985; and numerous shows, including St. Elsewhere and Designing Women, were obliged to churn out episodes featuring AIDS-afflicted gay characters who were virtuous, infallible, and dead by episode's end.
This phase ended in the 90's as the social climate once again changed: Democrats regained the White House, and, with medical advances turning AIDS into something more of an ordinary disease, gay activists shifted their focus back to questions of sexual identity and civil rights.
Television mirrored this shift, as the number of recurring gay characters dramatically increased -- and most did not have AIDS: we saw them in, among other shows, Roseanne, Melrose Place, Friends, and Chicago Hope. And TV made its first forays into presenting the SEX in homosexuality: same-sex kisses in Roseanne, L.A. Law and the TV movie Serving in Silence (all woman-to-woman, as man-to-man still created too many willies) generated headlines and sparked acrimonious debate.
But none of this compares to the firestorm that greeted the coming-out of Ellen Degeneres and her TV alter-ego in 1997, an event so pivotal that other events in gay pop cultural history are now referred to as either "pre-Ellen" or "post-Ellen." Degeneres was, after all, the first major TV star to avow her homosexuality, and her character the first ever gay protagonist on a continuing TV series. Homophobes had a fit, and Jerry Falwell baptized her Ellen Degenerate: the coming-out episode scored gigantic ratings and an Emmy for Outstanding Writing.
But the show subsequently struggled in the ratings and was canceled the following year, and the Religious Right saw it as proof that the public would never accept gays as leading characters on TV -- an argument that would have had more legitimacy if the show didn't also turn into an extended public service announcement, sacrificing comedic brilliance for self-righteous sermonizing.
Fortunately, another sitcom arrived to carry Ellen's torch, and was successful in being both socially relevant and uproariously funny. Will and Grace, about two gay men and their straight female friends, premiered in the fall of 1998 to instant critical acclaim, and by its second season had garnered TV's highest honour: an Emmy for outstanding comedy series. It now occupies NBC's marquee timeslot -- Thursdays at 9 p.m. -- and has become one of the highest-rated shows on television.
And yet, despite the fact that Will and Jack are the richest gay characters American TV has yet produced, there are still places that Will and Grace refuses to go -- namely, Will and Jack's sex lives, which, though often referred to, are never shown.
Enter, then, Queer as Folk, which takes us to such places with uninhibited zeal.
Some of the noisiest criticism of the show is coming from gay people themselves, who claim that the incessant clubbing and sexual promiscuity of the characters fail to represent the reality of most gay lives, and, worse, perpetuate negative stereotypes.
But others counter that when a gay show feels no need to be "representative," or to whitewash homosexuality for mainstream viewing, it's nothing less than a sign of progress.
Most controversial -- and revolutionary -- of all is the show's Lothario-like central character, Brian Kinney, whose libido, unlike Jack's in Will and Grace, is not played for laughs -- it is a potent, often threatening force, driving him to bed just about everything that moves. His sexual escapades, including his anal deflowering of a 17-year-old
boy, are depicted with an explicitness that some have deemed pornographic. To boot, he is manipulative, self-centred and arrogant, the polar opposite of well-mannered, easy to swallow (no pun intended) Will Truman.
But the biggest difference between the two shows is that Will and Grace is a comedy, which one can argue is the primary reason it sells in mainstream America: it's much easier to laugh at gays than to take them seriously. Queer as Folk is a drama and poses a bigger challenge to Americans: to accept the fact that gays are as complex, imperfect, and desire-driven as heterosexuals. At the same time, it does not dish out the woolly shibboleth that we are all exactly the same; it courageously tackles the differences, and expects us to be sophisticated enough to respect them.
So are audiences really ready for a show like Queer as Folk? Or is this just the entertainment industry foisting its liberal values on the public?
Conservative Republicans are right: the entertainment industry is more liberal than society-at-large; and the increased liberalism of society's views on explosive matters such as race and sex are due at least in part to pop culture, especially television (recall how, in the 60s and 70s, TV did its part in the civil rights movement by presenting more positive images of African-Americans).
But television is also a business, and the bottom line is simply this: gay shows are making money, creating buzz and winning the ratings wars. Queer as Folk arrived because it was the logical next step after Will and Grace. Why has TV gone this far? Because audiences asked for it.
Which recalls the old maxim: beware of what you ask for. Because Queer as Folk is unlike anything most people have ever seen. If the show fails, then perhaps the public is not as liberal as we'd like to think; but if it succeeds, then perhaps society has come of age, and perhaps, just perhaps, we've become adults when it comes to sex, and the 30-year struggle to enlighten the public on the diversity of sex and love has not altogether been for naught.
Vancouver Sun
January 20, 2001
They're here, they're queer, they're on TV
C.E. Gatchalian
On Monday, Showcase will being broadcasting the much-hyped American retread of the groundbreaking British series Queer as Folk. Chronicling the intertwining lives of a group of gay men and lesbians living in Pittsburgh, the Toronto-filmed show promises to create the same kind of firestorm in Canada as it has in the United States.
To gauge what general viewer reaction might be to this show, we brought together seven TV watchers of various sexual orientations -- three gay men, two straight women, a straight man and a lesbian -- for a private screening of the show's two-and-a-half hour pilot.
All agreed on one thing: the babe-liciousness of the cast. "Hot," "cute" and "beautiful" were words frequently bandied about during the screening. The gay men in the group -- Tim, 37, Martin, 37 and Ricardo, 33 -- were particularly smitten with Hal Sparks, who plays Michael, the show's geeky but appealing narrator, while heterosexual Carol, 35, preferred Gale Harold, who plays the smouldering gay Lothario, Brian. Jocelyn, 27, one of many straight women who saw and loved the British original (it aired on Showcase last summer) remarked that the American cast, guy for guy, muscle for muscle, body part for -- well, you get the idea -- was more attractive than the British one.
Most concurred that the show was a breakthrough in its often explicit depiction of the love lives of gay men, that nothing like this could have possibly been shown on television 10 or 15 years ago. "It means, yes, we're out there, yes, we're becoming more mainstream, yes, we're becoming more acceptable," said Ricardo.
But a couple of the viewers expressed concern that the show's club-going, bed-hopping, recreational drug-using characters reinforced negative stereotypes about gay men. "You walk away from this [show] going, 'Well, every night of the week you go out and do drugs and you bring someone else home and then you start your day'" remarked Tim, adding that he feared the show "may be a step back rather than a step forward."
That fact that most gay men don't live their lives this way may elude viewers who are already hostile to gays. "If my parents saw this show they'd think that that's what every gay guy does," said Jocelyn. Could homophobes and Christian conservatives watch this show? "Maybe," said Martin. "For ammunition." (It's worth noting that the show's producers seemed to have anticipated this reaction and have decided to end every episode with this disclaimer: "Queer as Folk is a celebration of the lives and passions of a group of gay friends. It is not meant to reflect all of gay society.")
As for the much talked-about sex scenes, not surprisingly, the gay men in th group were enamoured with them, but the straight women were equally laudatory. "There's something very attractive about seeing any two people -- in this case it's two men -- but they're really into each other, and I think that is very sexy," said Carol.
Neil, 36, the token straight man in our group, was cool about the sex scenes. "I thought they'd be a lot racier," he said. But he was critical of the show's almost complete emphasis on sex, as was Alex, 31, a gay woman. "The actual idea of drama in this show...has been for the most part 'And now we go to the club and now we f---- and now we got to the club and now we f----,' and we get 10 to 15 minutes interspersed...of somewhat intelligent, real commentary on what it's like to be gay....But the rest of the time it's just relentless sex, clubs, sex, clubs, sex, clubs, drugs." The show also received criticism for its lack of racial variety -- all the lead characters are white. But most agreed that the show was a refreshing alternative to that other gay show, Will & Grace. "The men in that show are caricatures, whereas the guys in this show seem much more real," said Carol, who also saw potential for crossover between audiences of Queer as Folk and Sex in the City. "The women in Sex and the City grapple with sexuality and the role it plays in their lives, and Queer as Folk definitely covers the same terrain, albeit with gay men."
DRAMATIS PERSONAE OF QUEER AS FOLK
MICHAEL (played by Hal Sparks): Late 20s, comic-book geek, closeted supermarket manager, the show's narrator, secretly in love with his best chum Brian.
BRIAN (played by Gale Harold). Ad executive, 29, smouldering and sexy, shagging champeen of Pittsburgh.
JUSTIN (played by Randy Harrison): 17, fresh out of the closet, hungry for experience, deflowered by Brian.
TED (played by Scott Lowell): Early 30s accountant, unlucky-in-love, the Average Joe in a world of Adonises.
EMMETT (played by Peter Paige): Late 20s flamer, campier than Christmas and completely proud.
LINDSEY and MELANIE (played by Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie): Lesbian couple, parents of Gus (conceived with the help of Brian).
DEBBIE (played by Sharon Gless): Michael's mother, a waitress at a gay diner, gregariously gay-friendly, a dead ringer for Sharon Gless-made-up-to-look-like-Tyne Daly.
Joey Magazine
Winter 2000, no. 4
AMERICAN FOLKTALE:
Randy Harrison Bares All in Showtime’s Queer As Folk
By David Beebe
"You’re always reading about everyone saying that the American version is not going to be as extreme. That’s bullshit, absolute bullshit. It’s going to be just as [extreme], if not more," says Randy Harrison when asked about the amount of sexual content in Showtime’s provocative new series, Queer as Folk. This December, you can see exactly what Randy is talking about as he plays the role of 17-year-old Justin in the edgy series that is filled with boys, sex, parties, clubs, hard bodies, loud music and late nights. Based on the widely popular British series, the story line centers on the everyday lives of seven gay men and women, and is a mature, truthful and often explicit exploration of the gay experience. Randy’s character is often the target of controversy because of his age, and because of the explicit acts that happen in the course of his character discovering his own sexuality.
Most likely this is the first time you’ve heard of Randy Harrison, but the blonde cutie has been acting since seven. "Acting is the first thing I remember doing, and I just never stopped," recalls Randy. Born in New Hampshire, Randy and his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was ten. It was there, at 16, that he made the tough decision to tell his parents and close friends that he was gay. "It went pretty well, and it was pretty ideal, but difficult as well, just like it is for everyone else I imagine." After high school, Randy left for the University of Cincinnati’s Conservatory of Music College, where he studied theater and performing arts.
After graduation, he moved to New York to work in theater, where he had already landed an acting job at The St. Louis Municipal Theater and performed in many plays, including 1776, Grease and Anything Goes. "I just started pursuing theater, I assumed that’s what I would do, since that was where I had all my experience," he says.
But life as Randy knew it was about to change, and quickly. After being in New York for only a month, his agent sent him to the Queer as Folk audition in L.A. About two weeks later, and in the middle of his theater work, Randy got the call that he had been picked to play Justin. "I was so excited," says Randy. "It took a while to sink in." He realizes that it all happened pretty quickly for him and how fortunate he is. "I really didn’t have the typical ‘New York-starving-actor’ experience."
In the series there are three main characters, which are nothing alike, all different ages, and all at various points in their gay life. Gale Harrold, plays Brian, an arrogant 29-year-old advertising executive who is self-absorbed and filled with attitude. Hal Sparks, who is one of the most recognizable names in the cast, plays Michael, an assistant supermarket manager in his late 20s, who is also Brian’s best friend. And then enters Justin, the naive 17-year-old who's just coming out and loses his virginity to Brian, only to fall in love with him, but doesn’t find the same feelings coming from Brian. Through the twenty-two episode series, we follow the twists and turns of the trio's lives as they spend their nights in the blue collar Pittsburgh gay scene and their days trying to figure out what being gay is all about. "Of course, the characters are in no way role models," says Randy, "but I think that Justin’s balls-e-ness, un-bashfullness, and complete lack of shame are something that young people will cling onto and learn from."
As lucky as Randy is, he’s not quite sure of the impact that this role will have on his acting career or life. "Before this, I really had no acting career, and it’s exciting to be part of something different. It’s a great job, I just graduated, and this is the hand I was dealt. I’ll have to deal with the repercussions of it afterwards." The down-to-earth actor seems to have control of everything so far though, and is only really looking to pursue a successful career without having his sexuality become a major part of it. "I’m totally willing to talk about it, but I’m not marketing my sexuality," asserts Randy. "I just want to play really good parts and work with people I can learn from."
Randy isn’t much like the character he plays, though. "Even though my character is gay and I’m gay, he’s still really different from me. I’m not a club boy and really never have been. I’m a homebody," admits Randy. "I like to sit around and read (his favorite author is William Faulkner), go to movies (his favorite being Fight Club) and go out to eat (whatever there is). But I like to have fun too. I throw good parties. People dance. I just feel more comfortable where I know most of the people, and we can just get down." For all you Top 40-music-haters out there, you and Randy may have something else in common as well. He admits that he listens to a little bit of everything and that he will occasionally indulge in some Britney Spears, ‘N SYNC and those other types, but that he "doesn’t own any of those CDs" and he always "hates [himself] for doing it afterwards!"
When Randy completes the filming of Queer as Folk in Toronto, he will return home to New York, where he and his boyfriend live. Randy met his boyfriend, who is also an actor, when he was 19. "We’ve been together now for three and a half years. It’s been really good. Sometimes it’s frustrating to be apart, but he comes up and visits all the time" admits Randy.
When asked if people recognize him yet or not, and if he is ready to handle the fame that is associated with a successful acting career, Randy said, "Once in a while, I get noticed here because a lot of the extras are locals. They just stare at you and follow you around, and you get paranoid. But fame is not a goal of mine, I just want to act in good parts, and if fame is associated with that, so be it."
After this job, Randy hopes to take some time off and travel to Europe and Switzerland. Most importantly, Randy and the rest of the cast are hoping that the gay community will embrace and appreciate their work this December. "I just think this is the thing that the gay community has been waiting to see for a long time. And for once, this will give everyone what they want."
Variety
December 4, 2000
SEXUAL POLITICS HAVE NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTTS
OK, SINCE POLITICS is hopeless, let's try to figure out where this country is heading on a more interesting issue --sex.
Our politicians and opinion polls stridently tell us standards should be tightened in film and TV. We don't want all this smut intruding upon our pop culture.
Sure. That's why porn is booming on the Internet, why the covers of women's magazines are emblazoned with headlines about sex toys, and why our major cable systems have just started carrying hardcore channels. That's also why Showtime launched a promotional blitzkrieg last week to support its new series "Queer as Folk," which intends to do for gay sex what HBO's "Sex and the City" has done for the straights.
Do you sense some ambiguity here?
Starting with de Tocqueville, the pundits have been telling us that this is a nation of mixed messages, and the elections have certainly dramatized this phenomenon.
Voters, we are told, feel strongly about the issues, yet cannot decide between two boring, middle-aged white patricians who share a strong sense of familial entitlement. Presidential politics has become the opposite of so-called meritocracy -- it's a demeritocracy. So are we trending right or left? Again, mixed messages.
THE POLITICAL GRIDLOCK has spilled over into our pop culture. We have compliance officers at the studios policing marketing policies. A "get tough" message has been delivered to the ratings office. Sex is out. Only "Grinch" is a cinch.
Do people want to know what's suitable for children? Yes, but they also want to learn what's hot for adults.
Take cable: Five of the top eight major cable systems now carry the hardcore Hot Network, with AT&T signing on most recently, according to an update in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal. The Hot Network is the brainchild of Vivid Entertainment, which itself has become a hot company that plans to go public shortly.
Vivid's message is that people don't want all this "T&A" softcore stuff any more -- they want the real thing. Their success has influenced Playboy to augment its relatively tame Spice channels with Spice Platinum, which, ads suggest, "will get exxxactly to the point." We get the message.
The Journal reminds us that Vivid has penetrated the billion porn industry through savvy strategy. It gives cable operators an 80% cut of every dollar, compared with a 50-50 split on Hollywood films.
It's also unique in that it signs top talent to exclusive contracts, a throwback to the old Hollywood studio system. No one suggests that the "Vivid Girls" will remind anyone of Hepburn or Lombard, but they've given the company a certain branding.
Vivid's shows are formulaic -- people talk a little and then they fuck -- but it seems to work. On pay-per-view their shows are purchased at up to four times the rate of softcore.
NEEDLESS TO SAY, this formula flies well in Europe as well. Vivid's shows are distributed in 40 countries overseas, with Vivendi's Canal Plus predictably ranking as a major pipeline.
But Europe has always been more open-minded about sex than the U.S. -- or at least than that loud-mouth Puritan sector of the U.S. Now American programmers are testing how far the envelope can be pushed.
The networks are transplanting so-called "reality shows" like "Chains of Love" to the U.S., while removing much of the sexual innuendo. Hence "reality" U.S.-style is about people struggling to survive without having much fun along the way.
"Queer as Folk," the new Showtime series, will try to take this a step forward. The much-hyped show will depict guys mating, kissing and getting it on -- albeit not as explicitly as Vivid might show it.
Surely the remarkable success of HBO's "Sex and the City" propelled Showtime on its expensive new adventure, but some believe Showtime's deep thinkers may be misguided.
Audiences, they reason, may be ready to accept hard-core action, but not gay action. They may embrace the Vivid Girls, but not the Vivid Boys. Listening to the "Sex and the City" girls on HBO talk about anal sex may be titillating for that audience, but actually observing it on "Queer as Folk" may prove a turnoff.
But then again, who knows? All that's certain is that social attitudes, like voting habits, are both ambiguous and unpredictable. That, indeed, may provide the strength of our pop culture, if also the weakness of our politics.
Daily HeraldChicago area paper
December 1, 2000
Lots of go, but no show
"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex," says Hal Sparks' Michael in the very first line of the new Showtime series "Queer as Folk."
So don't say you weren't warned.
"Queer as Folk," which begins with a two-hour premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday on the premium-cable channel, is based on the British series of the same name. That show has already created something of an underground stir overseas as a program that is utterly unapologetic and fairly graphic about gay life.
Not that there's anything to apologize for, as even a mainstream hit like "Seinfeld" was ready to admit years ago. Still, if it's not exactly news that gay men have sex lives too, it is unusual to see them depicted this openly, and it's going to be up to the viewer to get over it.
Or not, as the case may be, because get past the sex and there isn't a whole lot else here. If the original "Queer as Folk" earned praise for depicting gay men in working-class Manchester, England, in all their all-too-human glory, Showtime's new version seems to think that the way to Americanize a TV show is to populate it with recognizable TV types. So the new "Queer as Folk" comes off not as a daring exposé of gay life, but as a "Sex and the City" set in Pittsburgh and aimed at gay men instead of single women.
Again, there are four basic characters, with Sparks' Michael at the center as the conventional sheep in the randy goat's clothing. He can be goaded into a one-night stand, but what he really pines for is a relationship - preferably with the hunky playboy Brian, played with free-spirited abandon by Gale Harold. Peter Paige's Emmett is the flamer from central casting, and it doesn't help to have Michael try to explain him away in the pilot.
"Emmett can be a little campy," he says, "OK, a lot campy, but you've got to admit it takes real guts to be a queen in a world full of commoners."
So much for being unapologetic.
Scott Lowell's Ted is the mousy accountant who is afraid of contact and favors, instead, gay porn. Between them, they set up the same sort of dynamic as the four main characters in "Sex and the City." Throw in Randy Harrison's lisping 17-year-old blond Justin as Brian's obsession of the moment - hey, somebody has to be not just talking about sex but actually having it - and the show is ready to go.
And it goes right down the tubes.
"Sex and the City," for all its flaws, manages a very delicate balancing act. As assertive, self-reliant women, the characters serve as role models to some, while also serving as illustrations of what not to do for others. A young professional woman can look up to them, even as a married mom might look down on them (with a glint in her eye, the show hopes). Along the way, they also double as fantasy objects for men. (What upstanding heterosexual guy wouldn't want a lover like Kim Cattrall's Samantha?) At very least, they present an image of female solidarity that has never been seen before on TV.
Yet, by switching both sex and sexual orientation, "Queer as Folk" puts itself in a much more difficult position. First, the characters are men, so of course they're assertive. They're gay, so they're expected, rightly or wrongly, to be flamboyant. So there is nothing surprising there, nothing new, nothing to make them either positive or negative role models. As for solidarity, male bonding is the glue of beer commercials, and it's only when it starts to involve gay sex that it gets risqué by TV standards.
As for the fantasy angle, let's just agree that there are more men genetically programmed to be attracted to Kim Cattrall than there are women - or men, for that matter - who are attracted to guys having sex with each other.
The real problem, however, is that these guys never cross over from being character types to identifiable individuals. If it's undeniably true that gays are people too, it's also true that TV characters often fail to become real people. The dialogue is stiff throughout, full of pompous, self-defining lines such as Brian saying, "There is no such thing as enough."
Tripping on drugs after becoming a father (he contributed semen to a couple of lesbian friends), Brian climbs out on a ledge and says, "I could end it tonight."
"Oh, that's dramatic," Michael replies. "Just like 'ER.' Birth, death in the same episode."
Yet just because "Queer as Folk" mocks TV conventions doesn't mean it succeeds in transcending them. In fact, if the first thing it sets out to prove is that gay men have sex lives too, the second is that gay characters can be every bit as vapid and insipid as anyone else on TV.
"You sound like my parents fighting," Justin tells Michael and Brian.
And every other couple that has ever quarreled on television.
The only place where "Queer as Folk" actively sets out to violate stereotypes is in Michael's mother, played by Sharon Gless as someone who is actually proud of her gay son.
It's not enough. Take away the graphic sex - everything just short of full frontal nudity - and "Queer as Folk" wouldn't be worth commenting on. It is a marketing tool intended to bolster Showtime's subscriber rate among gay men, just as "Resurrection Blvd." was supposed to pad its rate in the Hispanic community and "Soul Food" was supposed to do the same in the black community. The sad fact is, none of those shows is very good, all traffic in stereotypes and excuse me if I'm unapologetic in thinking so. When it comes to mediocre television, equal treatment is the last thing any minority group should strive for.
E! Online
December, 2000
"Queer as Folk": Not Your Typical TV Show
"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex."
So says Michael Novotny, the comic book-lovin', discount store-workin', sexually repressed and hopelessly-in-love-with-his-best-friend character played by Hal Sparks (yup, the post-John Henson former Talk Soup host) in the opening of Showtime's racy new series Queer as Folk, which premieres Sunday (10 p.m. ET/PT).
But, in our Jerry Falwell-outing-Teletubbies world, the subject isn't so much that the American adaptation of the British TV hit contains a lot of sex--it's what kind of sex it contains. As in, hey, what is that guy's legs doing over that other guy's shoulders?
Got it? Good. But even viewers accustomed to the type of raunchy talk and graphic sexual content of shows like Sex and the City may be in for a surprise when they get a load of Queer as Folk (QAF to fans), with its frank depiction of the sex lives of five gay male Pittsburgh pals and their lesbian friends.
Need more examples? Well, there's the aforementioned legs-over-the-shoulder scene between the very randy twentysomething Brian (Gale Harold) and 17-year-old (up from the 15-year-old in the British original) Justin (Randy Harrison), which also includes a shot of a tongue boldly going where no man has gone--at least, not on another man--before on American TV.
Want to sample the dialogue? Here's a quip from Sharon Gless' Debbie, the über-accepting waitress mom of Michael, as she waits on her son's gay friend Emmett (Peter Paige): "Em, honey, you should try and get some of your protein off the plate."
Still, like Sex and the City and other cable series that feature saucy language and people gettin' nekkid, being bawdy alone does not a show make (outside of that infamous public access channel in New York, anyway), and since Showtime's QAF stretches the British version from eight episodes and one two-hour sequel into 22 weekly episodes, there's definitely more character development and soap opera-ish twists and turns to keep viewers hooked.
Like the fact that irresponsible Brian has fathered a baby for lesbian couple Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill); that Michael is desperately in love with best pal Brian, a successful ad exec who lives only to shag as many and as often as possible, including a client in the men's room at work; that co-workers at Michael's Kmart-ish place of employment think he's straight, including a woman with a huge crush on him; and the situation with uptight and shy accountant Ted (Scott Lowell), who relies on sneaking glances at online porn on his computer at work to get his jollies.
And then there's the underage Justin, who not only loses the Big V to Brian, but mistakes his first sexual experience for love. Oh, and about that underage business...
"There is no drama in political correctness," Russell T. Davies, the creator of the original QAF, tells New York magazine. "Whatever you're writing about, you've got to get under the skin and get to the heart and look at the stuff that no one likes to look at."
And what about the potential protests (which HBO-trailing Showtime, with roughly two-thirds of HBO's 36 million subscribers, would probably welcome for publicity purposes) from conservatives or charges from some members of the gay community that the show's promiscuous characters do little more than promote or reinforce gay stereotypes?
"We've never had a gay or lesbian drama on TV before, only comedies, so it's a welcome addition to primetime," says Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "Yes, it is a graphic depiction of one subset of the gay community. And some gay and lesbian viewers may recoil at seeing this depiction, while others may applaud it.
"But this is not the only place [the community] is represented in the TV landscape of the year 2000," Seomin continues. "If QAF were the only portrayal, GLAAD would absolutely have a problem with it. But not every gay person is as polite as Will Truman on Will & Grace, and it's important that we show the flawed side as well."
Washington Blade
December 1, 2000
Queer As Folk
The UK’s hugely popular and controversial Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, which unflinchingly portrayed the intertwined lives of three club-crawling Gay men in Manchester, made waves across the Atlantic.
Gale Harold, Hal Sparks, and Randy Harrison play the lead characters in the American version of Queer As Folk, premiering Dec. 3 at 10 p.m. on Showtime.
Its popularity proved so potent in the States that Showtime stepped up to produce an American version -- the first episode of which premieres Sunday night, Dec. 3.
But will this American series live up to its no-holds-barred British predecessor?
"We’re not doing the British series -- we’re doing an American version based on the British series," emphasizes Ron Cowen, who produces the show with Tony Jonas, and with his partner of 25 years, Daniel Lipman. "But no one was interested in doing a watered-down version for American television, and we said, ‘If we can’t do what they did, then why do it?’ Showtime agreed and told us to go as far as we wanted, and some of the people who have seen the show have actually said we’ve gone a little further, which is good."
Further? Indeed. In the original UK series, created and written by brilliant soap scribe Russell T. Davies, the first episode famously boasted a pair of explicit love scenes between a 15-year-old, Nathan (played by Charlie Hunnam) and 29-year-old heartbreaker, Stuart (Aiden Gillen). In the U.S. version, we see even more of such antics as 17-year-old virgin Justin learns about rimming and bottoming from Stuart’s U.S. equivalent, Brian.
Not exactly an episode of Will and Grace, is it?
"We’re used to seeing, at least on TV, a lot of stuff that to me doesn’t reflect the reality I know," Cowen says. "Gay people portrayed either as safe, having no sex, or as objects of laughter, which I think is despicable. On Queer as Folk there are no eunuchs or clowns."
Transplanting its setting from working class Manchester to working class Pittsburgh, Showtime’s Queer as Folk stars Gale Harold as Brian, a wealthy fellow with looks and charm enough to seduce anyone in his gaze … for now. Just a year away from his 30th birthday, and having fathered a baby with a Lesbian couple, he’s even more aware of the hours ticking by. Talk Soup’s Hal Sparks plays Michael, his cute albeit neurotic best friend, who has forever harbored an unrequited crush on Brian. And Randy Harrison plays Justin, the teenager who stumbles into their world and falls for Brian, changing their lives forever. A host of other characters round out the ensemble, including the Lesbian couple Lindsay and Melanie and various other roommates, boyfriends, and family members.
The first episodes follow the UK series’ plots (and dialogue) closely, with the birth of Brian’s child, Justin’s ingratiating himself into Brian and Michael’s universe, and the group’s sometimes tragic, sometimes funny experiences with sex, drugs, and family members. Of course, there’s more than enough new material and fleshing-out to distinguish it from its UK inspiration – just ask Russell T. Davies.
"He did say for the first 10 minutes he thought he was seeing a version of his show," Cowen recalls, "and then he totally forgot his own show and started seeing it as a new show. I was thrilled when he said that, because for him to have let his own vision go is pretty remarkable."
To direct the pilot, Cowen and company enlisted high-octane visualist Russell Mulcahy -- of Highlander and Duran Duran video fame.
"We wanted to hire a director who had muscle, who was macho, because I think it’s a very masculine, muscular world," Cowen notes. "We didn’t want a soft, sensitive director because the material isn’t soft and sensitive."
Nor was the material fit for Hollywood actors, apparently.
"Not one of the major talent agencies in Hollywood sent even one client up for the show. Not one," Cowen notes unhappily. "Our casting director, Linda Lowy, said she was going to agencies and managers and places she had never even heard of or dealt with to try and pull anyone in. I think the level of homophobia not only in this country [in general] but Hollywood [in particular] is sadly underestimated by all of us."
Luckily, there were some actors -- both Gay and straight -- who felt otherwise.
"It’s a tall order and I know that as an actor and as a man," says Sparks. "But I didn’t have any real frightful trepidation about it once we decided to go ahead and take the job. It was like, ‘Let’s go do good work."
One of the cast’s openly Gay members, 23-year-old actor Harrison -- Sparks estimates the cast is about half Gay -- sees his teenaged character as a little naïve, but not for long.
"Justin changes so much throughout the series," says Harrison, "but he definitely begins intelligent and knowing about what’s going to happen but still having not experienced any of it -- but very ready to learn. Slightly naïve, but he quickly catches on and starts to play the game as well as he knows how."
The question many critics are asking is whether America’s sometimes politically correct audiences will embrace such a boundary-smashing series.
"A lot of ‘PC’ Gay people to me are somehow dealing with internalized homophobia," Cowen admits. "We’re afraid for those people to find out what our lives are really like. But I feel Dan and I have tried to tell the truth here, as did Russell T. Davies. If you have a group of 29-year-old single Gay men living in an urban setting, I think it’s safe to say we know what most of them are doing on a Saturday night, or on a lot of nights. We’re not writing about Dan and me as a couple living in the suburbs. If we wrote about ourselves, you’d be asleep in 30 seconds."
Queer As Folk premiers on Showtime Dec. 3 at 10 p.m.
San Francisco Gate
December 1, 2000
The 'Queer' Agenda
Showtime's smart, steamy series puts sex front and center
"Queer as Folk" begins with the camera hopping around a loud, busy dance club, with its laser lights and writhing, half-clothed bodies.
Then comes the voice of actor Hal Sparks, who plays the gay nebbish Michael in this American version of the controversial British drama.
"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex," he says. "It's true. In fact, they say men think about sex every 28 seconds. Of course, that's straight men. With gay men, it's every nine."
Some viewers who happen upon "Queer as Folk" on Showtime will wonder whether they'll ever see any of the eight other seconds.
Light-years past the lesbian cheer of "Ellen," the new pay cable series is an unflinching drama about homosexuals, with a strong and possibly risky accent on the third syllable.
The central figure is Brian (Gale Harold), a 29-year-old Pittsburgh advertising executive and aggressive gay stud whose life revolves around one- night stands -- including one with a 17-year-old high school boy in Sunday's series premiere.
That's bound to raise hackles, not only from the heterosexual right but also from gays who decry the show's heavy emphasis on noncommittal sexual couplings.
Jerry Offsay, Showtime's programming president and the man who's made Showtime the most gay-friendly of all mainstream TV channels, is prepared for at least some negative reaction.
"I think there will be some people who won't like it, and there might be some 10 or 20 subscribers who may want to call their cable operator and drop the subscription," Offsay said recently.
"But I think, like 'More Tales of the City' and 'Lolita,' we're going to have a hundred-fold people who are going to write in and say, 'We're glad you did this, it's about time. Finally we can see ourselves reflected on television.' "
In adapting the British show, which was set in Manchester, England, producers Ron Cowen, Daniel Lipman and Tony Jonas made a deliberate decision not to dilute the initial shock effect of the original.
Fact is, "Queer as Folk" is a smartly written and well-cast TV drama, with shadings of comedy and a blessed absence of self-consciousness.
Perhaps the slyest feat "Queer as Folk" accomplishes is that heterosexual viewers might gradually be lured into glimpsing the straight world, seen through a gay prism, as exotic and queer. It's a clever, though not altogether subtle, twist of perspective.
The show's sexual temperature hovers way above that of network fare of any sexual persuasion, but below the porn threshold. The language and attitudes are explicit. There's abundant but, shall we say, discreet nudity. Drug use is also prevalent, but one early story line delves into consequences.
If "Queer as Folk" were a heterosexual show, its steaminess would be in line with what pay cable subscribers might expect. And that is worth keeping in mind for anyone who ventures into the shock wave.
Besides Brian, the lead characters are his best friend, Michael, the manager of a Kmart-type store who's been frustrated for 15 years by his crush on Brian; Ted (Scott Lowell), an accountant who seems unable to score except in cyberspace; Emmett (Peter Paige), a queenly presence who can be "a little campy," in Michael's words; and Justin (Randy Harrison), the gay 17-year-old who drops willingly into Brian's bed.
Emmy winner Sharon Gless ("Cagney & Lacey") is Michael's earthy mother, Debbie, who waitresses at a diner patronized by gays. There's a lesbian couple,
Lindsay and Melanie (Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie) linked to the gay men because Brian was the sperm donor for Lindsay's baby.
But it's the stamp of Brian, male predator, that leaves the strongest branding mark on "Queer as Folk." Harold, who looks like a cross between Richard Gere and David Duchovny, plays him as a cold and uncompromising being who knows exactly who he is and what he wants.
He doesn't believe in love; he believes in sex. He uses his partners and discards them. His only redeeming features are his intelligence and his brutal honesty. No excuses, Lindsay says of him, and no lies.
If Showtime had a wider circulation, Brian -- based on an Irish character, Stuart, in the British series -- would be one of the most talked-about figures on TV. In every sense of the word, I suppose.
Showtime is filming 22 hourlong episodes of "Queer as Folk," all scheduled for 10 p.m. Sundays. The first two are bundled into the premiere.
NY Post
December 1, 2000
IT'S 'QUEER' AND IT'S HERE, DEAR
Like a gay "Sex and the City," Showtime's very graphic new series "Queer As Folk" may leave you speechless. Not me. I went to the premier with a gay friend, and kept asking him, "You do that?"
I mean, I know for sure that I've never done anything, anyone on "Sex And The City" has ever done, except maybe have brunch with my friends, so I just wanted to be sure my pal wasn't a contortionist in his off hours.
"Queer As Folk," (a copy of a huge British hit) starts out with writing that's as realistic as Tony Bennett's rug, but it gradually improves. So, really, get past the first episode. It's worth it. It's really worth it.
The problem is that they are so busy trying to make you believe that the characters are old friends in Pittsburgh, that the dialog comes off like an amateurish play or a cheesy beer commercial at the beginning.
The premise is that these four guys - Brian (Gale Howard), Michael (Hal Sparks), Ted (Scott Lowell) and Emmett (Peter Paige) are all great pals. The fact that these guys who are so completely different from one another spend all their time together is hard to buy at first.
I mean, Michael works in a K-Mart kind of place (and is in the closet), while Brian is a huge advertising king who is so highly sexed that he seduces clients in the men's room. Emmett is a throwback to a flamboyant Harvey Fierstein character, and Ted is a timid accountant. None of them seems to need sleep.
Little Justin, a 17-year-old kid, falls into the mix as a schoolboy who has his first sex with Brian, and mistakes their sex-a-thon for love.
There is also a lesbian couple, Lindsay (Thea Gill) and Melanie (Michelle Clunie), who have a baby which has been sired by Brian.
Unlike Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher, who picked David Crosby to sire their children, Lindsay and Melanie clearly go for looks, even though Melanie hates Brian's guts. Hey - it's better than picking a fat guy with thinning hair and a substance abuse problem, right?
The women are too stereotyped, which hopefully will also improve with time. If not, the show seriously needs to hire women writers.
The, err, odd woman, out here is Sharon Gless as Michael's mother, a waitress who loves so much the fact that her son is gay that she works in a diner in the gay district in Pittsburgh and is constantly urging him to get some action. Or so it seems.
Anyway, as the series progresses, we get to see Justin's (and everyone else's obsession with Brian), Brian's out-of-control sexual needs (and his sexual deeds) Michael's loneliness and secret love for Brian, and Ted's crushingly lonely life which is relieved with pornography.
The sex is very, very graphic, and very intense. Unlike "Sex and the City," which is oddly un-sexy in its desperateness, the sex in "Queer as Folk" is equally desperate, but sexy nonetheless.
This is not a show for homophobes, nor the highly religious.
It is very well acted, it's got plot twists that rival the best soaps, and the writing improves with each episode (even though they crib some of its best lines directly from the British series).
I'm hooked.
USA Today
December 1, 2000
'Queer' clears way for look at gay life
Will anyone be able to see Queer as Folk as a show instead of a symbol? Fans of the British original are likely to see Queer's transformation into an American series — with its frank and unapologetic approach to gay sexuality intact — as a sign of progress. Others will take all that matter-of-fact coupling as a sign that TV has gone too far, while still others will fear that the show's portrayal of an admittedly narrow slice of gay life will reinforce old sexual predator stereotypes.
While the show's willingness to sacrifice balance for shock value is troublesome, overall, I side with those who see Queer as an important step forward that allows television to capture another color in the spectrum of American life. Where that leaves Queer as a piece of entertainment, however, is a bit unclear. Those who see themselves in Queer's characters — four gay men in their 20s who are obsessed with sex — will be thrilled to finally find a show that reflects their experience. For everyone else, what the series offers is the novelty of a fresh subject and an attractive cast.
Certainly, there's never been anything else like it on TV. (That's part of Queer's appeal to Showtime, which trails HBO in both subscribers and media attention.) Will & Grace presents a better-rounded portrait of gay life, but in its pursuit of popular success, it has sublimated its gay characters' sexual desires into comedy.
Queer as Folk (the title comes from an old British saying that basically means everyone is queer in one way or another) expresses its alternative point of view in the first line we hear: "The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex." And it's not just talk, either. The encounters are often fairly vivid, though the only frontal nudity you'll see is a baby at a bris.
Adapters Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman have moved the story to Pittsburgh, but kept the focus on the same two men: the more romantically inclined Michael (Hal Sparks) and his man-magnet best friend, Brian (Gale Harold). Circling them are their buds Emmett (Peter Paige) and Ted (Scott Lowell); a lesbian couple, Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill), whose baby was fathered by Brian; and Michael's flamboyantly supportive mother, Debbie (Sharon Gless, who seems to have morphed into Tyne Daly).
Into this mix comes Justin (Randy Harrison), a 17-year-old student who catches Brian's eye and shares his bed. Upping Justin's age from 15 in the original to a more socially acceptable 17 is one of the show's best moves: In many states, that two years is the difference between being a cradle robber and a criminal.
In most other ways, Sunday's introductory movie hews closely to the original series. But by necessity, the two shows soon diverge. The British Queer lasted slightly more than six hours in all; Showtime is filling 22.
In the lead roles, Sparks is endearing as the put-upon Michael; Harold is ideal as the irresistible (if not always likable) Brian, and Harrison is convincingly conflicted as the alternately shy and aggressive Justin. In the supporting cast, the standout is Gless, who gives a grandly comic performance with suitably sad undertones.
Yet despite our shared language, something has been lost in the translation. Set here but shot in Canada, the show seems second-hand and displaced -- no longer British, but not authentically American, and not even close to Pittsburgh.
Divorced from a believable social context, Queer too often plays like a voyeuristic tour of gay life that's only interested in the most outrageous sights. It doesn't have to provide an insight into every gay person, but it does have to paint a more believable portrait of these people, which means anchoring them in a real place and expanding their lives beyond sexual encounters.
When that happens, perhaps people will see Queer as just a show rather than as a gay show.
And that will be a real sign of progress.
TV Guide
December, 2000
Introducing Queer's Gale Force
Much of the controversy surrounding Showtime's provocative new gay soap, Queer as Folk, has centered on the character of Brian, a 29-year-old sexual predator who, in Sunday's season premiere (10 pm/ET), seduces a 17-year-old virgin and then discards him like a dirty Kleenex. But it was going to take a lot more than a little statutory rape to scare unknown actor Gale Harold out of taking the role.
"Let's be honest, people are breaking the law in every way, in every state, at every second," Gale tells TV Guide Online, "and it's only a small percentage of people who are getting prosecuted for those crimes or even apprehended by the authorities. My point of view on taking this job is that I'm interested in real work... and it's just something that happens. It's not like we're making it up or doing it to try and say, 'Look at this! Freak out! Feel uncomfortable!' It's a real experience, it's something that goes on. And if people are not aware of it, then it's for a variety of reasons that I can't really be worried about."
Another thing not keeping Harold up nights is concern about Brian being too unsympathetic in the audience's eyes. "I think it would be counterproductive to try and make apologies for Brian in the early stages, because that would compromise his arc as a character," he says. "You don't want to redeem him early because then what's left to do? But I don't think there's any question in my mind that he has redeeming qualities, but those will be revealed to the viewers in time.
"That's one of the great things about the script," he adds, "it doesn't make any apologies. There's no obvious attempts to make him okay to balance out what he's doing that people recoil from, and that's good writing. The integrity of the character is intact — it's not being compromised."
Harold — who believes everyone has a little Brian in them, but "they just don't want to admit it" — has thus far declined to discuss his own sexual orientation in the press. (Randy Harrison, who plays his high school conquest Justin, has admitted he's gay, as has co-star Peter Paige.) "It's not that I'm refusing to say anything, it's that I don't have any interest in talking about things that I feel are irrelevant," he explains. "For me, it's just about the job and maintaining the character."
Chicago Tribune
November 30, 2000
ON THE GAYDAR
SHOWTIME'S HARD-HITTING `QUEER AS FOLK' IS ANOTHER MILESTONE FOR GAYS ON TV
When the new Showtime series "Queer as Folk" comes roaring and snorting out of television's closet Sunday, it will mark an important next step in the medium's presentation of gay people.
The premium-cable series will give America, without apology, a drug-taking, bed-hopping, lead gay character.
And the arrival of Brian, the unofficial leader of the show's central group of Pittsburgh boys looking for love or lust, will signify that TV has taken another of its painfully halting, woefully belated evolutionary steps.
The medium will have, at least temporarily, abandoned the hands-off-homosexuals policy, the one that has meant every recurring gay character, like the sweet slow learner Ellen or "Will & Grace's" boy next door Will, had to be role-model material.
It will, in other words, have begun treating these characters as everyday people, free to be the salt of the earth or its pepper, dazzlers or dullards.
Much of the advance talk about "Queer as Folk," based on last year's popular British series, has focused on its sexuality, unabashedly frank in both word and deed. But it is the fullness of the characters that is most striking, and certainly more vivid than in previous TV depictions of homosexuality.
Roseanne had to face down ABC to get a lesbian kiss aired on her self-titled sitcom in 1994. The American writers of "Queer as Folk," based loosely on a recent British series of the same title, say Showtime encouraged them to take advantage of the freedoms of pay-cable TV, and they responded, just in the first few episodes, by showing Brian enacting a virtual Kama Sutra.
"Here is a show about a group of people who've never really been allowed to be sexualized before," said Daniel Lipman, executive producer and lead writer with his partner Ron Cowan. "I don't feel that even straight characters are sexualized as much as they could be on network television. It's important to be honest, to show sex as it is. And all of the sex comes out of the characters' joy, despair, frustration, love, whatever it is."
But for all the grunting, it is the fullness of the characters that is most striking, the fact that the writers risk you being turned off by Brian's predatory, amoral behavior even as you root for his good-natured best friend Michael to either tame Brian or get over him.
"We need to see more fully realized characters, characters that aren't just there to be the butt of a joke or offer a quick quip because they're there and they're the wacky gay person," said Scott Seomin, entertainment media director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "We're not all as polite as Will [Eric McCormack] on [NBC's] `Will & Grace' or as butch as Butch [Goodman] on [Fox's] `Normal, Ohio.' We're much more diverse as a community and can be shown as flawed characters, not simply flawless."
The "Queer as Folk" theme is the classic coming-of-age story. These characters, although mostly in their late 20s, are, like young single guys in cities across America, still boys showing only flashes of their future manhood.
The series is set, mostly, in the loose club scene and more restrictive daytime world of Pittsburgh, a far more challenging place to be gay than Los Angeles or New York.
Brian (Gale Harold) is a 29-year-old advertising executive, while Michael (Hal Sparks) is an assistant manager of a store that looks suspiciously like a Wal-Mart. Their circle also includes the flamboyant Emmett (Peter Paige) and the repressed, self-loathing accountant Ted (Scott Lowell).
Into their lives come two boys, Justin (Randy Harrison), a 17-year-old high-schooler going through his sexual awakening, and Gus, a baby Brian fathered for the show's lesbian couple. And both, one suspects, will in their own way help lead the characters to maturity.
For all the ground the show breaks in subject matter, however, it is unfortunately over-the-top as drama. Cowan and Lipman were the creators and lead writers on the NBC drama "Sisters," and "Queer as Folk" comes closer in tone to that nighttime soap opera than it does to meeting descriptions of the gritty British original.
"Queer as Folk" (the title comes from an English saying about human oddity, "There's naught so queer as folk") tries to balance comedy and drama, but often goes astray with snappy one-liners that don't snap. "Dawson," Brian says uncleverly to the high-schooler Justin, "how are things down at the creek?" And Michael's waitress mom (played by "Cagney & Lacey's" Sharon Gless) is an admirable character for being supportive of her son, but she nudges support into annoyance, delivering a stream of randy innuendo so steady you'd think she were a high-school freshman.
"Sisters" was often engaging for its mixture of wrought drama leavened by soap camp, but the standard is higher for a show like "Queer as Folk," the need for subtlety and careful dramatic underpinning greater. And in the early episodes of the planned 22 (beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday), the show falls short in those areas.
All of a sudden, Brian is standing on the edge of a building, threatening suicide. Or Michael, under pressure to come off straight at work, is coaxed into a group date with a female coworker, and their group is a caricature of the straight world: all beefy faces and talk about football.
Harold is powerful in demonstrating both Brian's facade of amorality and the desperation behind it, and Harrison, as Justin, memorably shows the boy becoming a man, starting to develop the thicker hide he'll need to survive in the adult world.
But Sparks occupies a key role, the unassuming, lovelorn Michael with whom every audience member is supposed to identify, and there is something forced and distancing in his performance. His attempts at anger come off as petulance.
Still, for all its flaws, "Queer as Folk" remains a fascinating story largely because it is portraying something that has not been seen on TV before. The nightclub scenes here aren't some sanitized trip into 1970s disco nostalgia, but a sweaty, relentlessly hierarchical social world, where looks matters most, casual sex happens and hearts are casually broken.
And although AIDS and safe sex are in "Queer as Folk," they aren't the dominant themes; this is not another network TV presentation of gays as victims or potential victims but as people living, and trying to celebrate, life.
In more general terms, TV has always had an easier time depicting minority groups in comedy than in drama; the latest predominantly African-American network drama, CBS' "City of Angels," was just canceled, lasting less than a full season.
As the first predominantly gay drama, "Queer as Folk" is occupying an important place. "Programmers and network executives overwhelmingly think that homosexuals can be portrayed on television in the sitcom format," said GLAAD's Seomin. "The lives of gays and lesbians are OK as long as they're tempered with humor."
Shows like "Ellen," with its pivotal coming-out scene, and the current "Will & Grace," with its first gay male lead and its widespread popular acceptance, are important milestones. A character like Michael Boatman's Carter on "Spin City" can challenge viewers to see gays as more than their sexuality.
But dramas can introduce gay characters on a deeper level. "I have been asking for the dramatic equivalent of `Will & Grace' for a long time," said Seomin.
In some respects, "Queer as Folk," by depicting not necessarily immediately likable characters, brings the depictions of gays on TV full circle.
After the flowering of gay pride in the late 1960s and early 1970s, activist groups began complaining about a predominant tendency: The few gay characters who did show up were generally destructive to themselves or others, according to the "Encyclopedia of Television," sort of like the "tragic mulatto" stereotype so common in entertainment-industry portrayals of African-Americans. A 1973 "Marcus Welby, M.D." plot saw a closeted homosexual family man learning to repress his sexuality.
The first recurring TV gay character was Billy Crystal's Jodie Dallas on the late-1970s comedy "Soap," and the series sparked protest from both conservative and gay quarters. Some ABC affiliates wouldn't air it; some gay activists thought him too stereotypically "swishy" at first. And when he was toned down, there were complaints that he had been neutered.
The 1980s saw the massively conflicted Steven Carrington on "Dynasty," straight one season, gay the next, and, as the AIDS crisis dominated news, a series of AIDS movies were made. (Cowan and Lipman wrote one of the more celebrated of them, "An Early Frost.")
But resistance to depictions of everyday gay life was still strong. Cowan and Lipman said they originally wanted to make one of their "Sisters" gay, but were told by the network head they couldn't do it on his network.
"I see gay characters handled as either buffoons or eunuchs," Lipman said. "They're acceptable if they're funny and clownish and celibate."
"Or victims," added Cowan.
It wasn't until the "Ellen" coming out, in 1997, some 28 years after the Stonewall Riots jump-started the gay rights movement, that the lead in a network series was identifiably homosexual.
"Will & Grace" and "Normal, Ohio," starring John Goodman, have followed, both comedies that ask mainstream America to take gay lead characters into their hearts.
But "Queer as Folk," says Robert J. Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, "is a whole different thing. `Will & Grace' is interesting but there's a sense that it is always so proud of what it is doing.
"`Queer as Folk' is `Sex and the City' for a different sexual orientation. And it is so un-self-conscious. It is what it is."
That lack of self-consciousness has led to some controversy in the gay community, said Seomin, where some people see the show as telling secrets out of school.
But Cowan writes off that criticism, that fear of honest portrayals of a certain group of characters, as "internalized homophobia," the fear that mainstream America can't handle a promiscuous gay jerk even as it celebrates promiscuous heterosexual jerks.
Whether it will change television is another matter. Pay cable has excelled at pushing creative boundaries and drawing coalition audiences (indeed, Showtime is also running two other network bugaboos, a Latino drama, "Resurrection Blvd.," and an African-American drama, "Soul Food.")
These kinds of shows end up being more influential than their relatively small audience numbers would suggest, Thompson said, because they are watched closely in the creative community. You won't see HBO's "Sex and the City" specifically on network TV, but elements of it are everywhere this season.
"The most important thing that's going to come out of `Queer as Folk' is what shows come after it," Seomin said. "Will ABC put their gay drama on the fast track because `Queer as Folk' did well? Or will they kill it because there's too much controversy about the sexual content?"
Chicago Sun-Times
November 30, 2000
`Queer' series alters details for U.S. tastes
"No sex please," the old farce line has it. "We're British."
While the English had their reputation for prudishness, when it comes to gay life on television, they're nothing compared to their Puritan American cousins.
It was the Brits, after all, who finally brought Armistead Maupin's best-selling chronicle of 1970s San Francisco "Tales of the City" to the small screen. And even that gentle set of interlocking stories was only carried on PBS on this side of the pond.
And it was practitioners of the Queen's English who created and developed "Queer as Folk," the first television series anywhere to deal frankly and openly with the sexuality, promiscuity, and drug use of a certain strata of gay men.
With an opening episode that featured a sybaritic advertising executive on the cusp of 30 seducing a 15-year-old student, "Queer as Folk" made headlines as well as scored rating points when it ran on Britain's intrepid Channel Four. (The title comes from a Yorkshire expression, "There's none so queer as folk," meaning, roughly, that there's not much stranger than people.) U.S. producers looking both to pick up on a trans-Atlantic hit and to capitalize on the success of HBO's racy hetero hit "Sex and the City" acquired the rights. Now, after spending million on production and riding on a million advertising and promotions budget, "Queer as Folk," American-style, will debut at 9 Sunday night on Showtime.
Although "Will & Grace" has become its own phenomenon in the meantime, "Queer as Folk" is the first extended mass-market entertainment that takes the lives of many young gay men as both starting point and reference point. It's not about politics, and it's not (only) about gag lines. It's a mostly honest attempt to explore the human condition through a subculture where sex is upfront and serves as lens and entree into other issues of love, death, friendship and life itself.
Tracking the original British version sometimes line-for-line and shot-for-shot, the series transfers the action from Manchester to Pittsburgh (the idea being that this is neither London, New York nor Los Angeles) and features a cast with more of the body types that predominate in our gym-conscious society. The center of the gang of friends is still a hedonistic ad man, as egotistical as he is irresistible, and his best friend is transformed from a sci-fi junkie to a comic-book fanatic. The lesbian couple raising a child fathered for them by the ad man are given a much greater role in the American series, and one of them is made Jewish (a key move to a new plot angle relating to circumcision). Sharon Gless of "Cagney & Lacey" is the one familiar face in the cast as the gay-supportive mother of one of the characters.
With American mores in mind, the 15-year-old is bumped up two years to 17 (and a story about a childhood experience with a gym teacher has a character talking about being 14 rather than 12). But perhaps the biggest sop to our expectations--and one that points up the American version's tendency to try to tie some things up that perhaps should remain uncomfortable--is that a character who dies in the second episode of the original here only goes into a coma, bouncing back to trick and quip again. We're ready for sex, it seems, just not the killing off of nice people.
And there's still something inherently political at the root of what's best about "Queer as Folk." That the show is frank about sexuality and not judgmental about its characters' morals does not mean that its creators expect audiences to make no judgments of their own. It just means that it asks them to judge these characters and react to them as they would to anyone else that they know: to treat gay people as normal. And if you need any evidence that that's still daring, just look at the way some cast members feel that they must distance themselves not only from their characters, but from homosexuality in general.
Even after a spot-on performance including regular doses of all manner of physical contact over 22 hours of episodes, leading man Gale Harold has given several interviews where he compares kissing a man to "kissing a dog," and former "Talk Soup" host Hal Sparks, his puppy-dog of a sidekick, has spoken of having to wash his mouth out after certain scenes. On the other hand, Peter Paige, who plays the more flamboyant Emmett, and Randy Harrison, 23, who plays the 17-year-old Justin, have both said they'd feel hypocritical if they didn't declare their own homosexuality. Former Chicago actor Scott Lowell is open about his not being open about what he is, citing, among other things, the Pentecostal religious beliefs of his family.
It's all just a further reminder that there really is none so queer as folk.
Salon.com
November 29, 2000
The gayest story ever told
Showtime's hot new soap "Queer as Folk" has wit, wisdom and heartache to spare. And sex. Lots and lots of sex.
Showtime's "Queer as Folk," the Americanized version of a show that set the U.K. atwitter when it premiered on Britain's Channel 4 last year, is the most explicitly homocentric drama series ever seen on these shores. Anticipated as a sort of great gay hope for American television, "Queer as Folk" has an awful lot to live up to. And it does. Proud and loud, the show is payback for every gay character on a prime-time drama who never got any good story lines, for Will and Jack not being allowed to kiss any men except each other, for Ellen DeGeneres being mummified as TV's Lesbian Saint and for the networks asking us to believe that John Goodman is gay but Frasier Crane isn't.
Unlike much of gay-themed American TV, "Queer as Folk" (the title is British slang meaning, roughly, "there's nothing as strange as ordinary people") is neither campfest nor cautionary tale. The most fascinating character on the series is a gorgeous, self-absorbed sexual conquistador who always gets what he wants, never says he's sorry and doesn't appear to be in imminent danger of becoming a made-for-TV AIDS martyr or gay-bashing victim. All of which makes "Queer as Folk" the first American series (sorry, "Ellen") to capture gay life in all its glorious complexity, without preachiness, polemics or self-censorship.
Adapted for American TV by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman (who wrote the first AIDS TV movie, "An Early Frost," as well as the series "Sisters") with the show's British creator, Russell Davies, acting as a consultant, "Queer as Folk" has everything you'd want in a well-oiled -- in every sense of the word -- serial. The show's tangled plotlines about a group of gay friends (and one lesbian couple) in Pittsburgh are instantly addictive, the cast of mostly unknowns is pretty damn fabulous and the show has wit, wisdom and heartache to spare. And sex. Lots and lots of sex.
In fact, "Queer as Folk" is all about the sex. There's so much of it (in bedrooms, bathrooms and back rooms), and so much talk about it, that it's tempting to call "Queer as Folk" the gay "Sex and the City." After all, "Queer" narrator Michael Novotny (played by former "Talk Soup" host Hal Sparks) is as adorably self-analytical as Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw, and the comical parade of Mr. Wrongs encountered by Michael and his friends rivals anything Carrie and Co. have encountered.
Although there are no full-frontal shots (well, except for the dildos, and the nude sketches and photographs that decorate characters' apartments), there are plenty of naked bodies and erotic encounters -- "Queer as Folk" makes Showtime's softcore anthology series "Red Shoe Diaries" look like "Little House on the Prairie." However, one concession to American mores has been made in adapting "Queer as Folk": A teenager who hooks up with a 29-year-old man was 15 years old in the British version, but in the American series, he's 17. (Hey, isn't that the age of consent on the WB?)
The randy, random couplings of "Queer as Folk" might unsettle some people who lived through the AIDS-clouded '80s and early '90s. And the specter of AIDS is present: One of the characters has a middle-aged uncle who is living with the disease. But this is mainly a joyful series about gay men 30 and under -- a resurgent generation, removed from the epidemic, tasting (and testing) freedom. Writers Cowen and Lipman, with co-producer/writer Jonathan Tolins (the play "Twilight of the Golds"), are under no broadcast network edict to impose heterosexual values and romantic ideals on gay characters. So "Queer as Folk" dives giddily and explicitly into something a show like "Will & Grace" is only able to talk about -- the idea that, for a gay man, love and sex, commitment and pleasure, aren't necessarily a package deal.
Showtime, which aired one of the first sitcoms to feature a gay lead character ("Brothers") way back in the mid-1980s, has built up its queer-friendly credibility lately with original programming like "More Tales of the City" (the network stepped in when PBS chickened out of the project) and the Harvey Milk docudrama "Execution of Justice." The premium cable network has pulled out all the promotional stops for "Queer as Folk," organizing screenings in the gay community and advertising heavily in the mainstream media. Lagging behind HBO in turning out buzz-heavy original series, Showtime is hoping that "Queer as Folk" will become a must-subscribe hit, like "The Sopranos" or "Sex and the City." And the engaging two-hour series premiere Sunday does what any successful serial needs to do -- it makes us want to know what happens next.
The first episode begins with Michael and his three best friends cruising the gay strip, Liberty Avenue, and ending up at their favorite dance club, Babylon. Michael is bighearted and puppy-dog sweet; he's a comic-book fanatic who works as an assistant manager at a Kmart-type discount store, where he is deeply closeted. Ted Schmidt (Scott Lowell) is an accountant with self-esteem issues and a taste for cyberporn and opera; he's also closeted at work. Emmett Honeycutt (Peter Paige), who works as a window dresser, is a transplanted Southern belle who, as he says, lets his flame burn brightly.
At the center of their universe, and the show's, is the unabashedly narcissistic Brian Kinney -- cruel, irresponsible and irresistible. Played by Gale Harold, Brian is all boyish full-lipped beauty and feline, almost predatory, sexuality. When he's on the screen, you can't look at anyone else. Brian could easily have been a stereotypical slut. But Harold doesn't overplay Brian's shamelessly seductive antics or his moodiness; he gives an exquisitely nuanced and layered performance that makes you glimpse Brian's better nature and his deepest insecurities.
In a dreamy, erotic flashback, we learn that Michael and Brian were boyhood pals who almost became lovers. They were swooning over a picture of "Dirty Dancing"-era Patrick Swayze in Michael's bedroom and Brian took matters, um, into hand. But they were thwarted when Michael's mother walked in on them without knocking. Michael has never quite gotten over Brian. And Brian, although he won't admit it, has a proprietary interest in "Mikey" (his pet name for him) as well; he jealously scares away (or steals) his potential boyfriends, draws him into lingering, teasing kisses on the dance floor and calls him at all hours when he needs someone to clean up his messes.
An advertising executive, Brian is a master of the come-on and the disposable desire. When he's on the make, Brian drops his studied aloofness and gazes at his prey as if he's the most fascinating person in the world. The word on Brian is that he never has the same guy twice. And he is most definitely a top. Brian represents tantalizing sexual freedom; he does exactly as he pleases and, until now, has gotten away with it. But as "Queer as Folk" opens, Brian's emotional fortress is under attack. He's about to turn 30 and fears losing his edge. He has agreed to be the sperm donor for his lesbian friend Lindsay (Thea Gill) and her partner, Melanie (Michelle Clunie), and the consequences of this are becoming clear to him. And he has just spotted the most delicious prey of all -- a blond, cherry-ripe, suburban teenager named Justin Taylor (Randy Harrison), who adores him at first sight.
The Brian-Justin story line (a source of controversy in Great Britain) is the show's riskiest, and its most compelling. (The openly gay Harrison, who plays Justin, may look 17, but he's 23.) You fear for the innocent boy, wandering into Brian's clutches, especially when the older man takes him home and makes love to him, feeding him that favorite line of older seductors everywhere: From now on, whenever you do this, you'll think of me.
Brian tries to unload Justin after their first tryst: "I don't believe in love, I believe in fucking. It's honest, it's efficient, you get in and out with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of bullshit," he tells the love-struck kid. Michael, of course, ends up taking Justin under his wing and trying to convince him that he's in over his head. But Justin keeps coming back to Babylon, enduring Brian's snotty put-downs ("Hello, Dawson. How are things back at the creek?") or, worse, his indifference. It soon becomes apparent, though, that the bratty Justin can give as good as he gets, and Brian is intrigued. These two are locked in a dance of wills, and when Brian flashes a sleepy smile of sudden tenderness and breaks his rule about having the same guy twice, you wonder, Does he really care, or is he playing with Justin in a self-centered attempt to hold onto his own fleeting youth?
This is the stuff of great soaps, not to mention great romance novels. Which isn't to imply that "Queer as Folk" is a bodice-ripper; it's just that it deals with heavy issues in a nimble way as our heroes variously come out, experience homophobia, struggle with the love/sex dichotomy, develop mad crushes, have their hearts broken, cope with aging and the loss of physical perfection and get over themselves. Lesbians may be less taken with "Queer as Folk" than their gay brethren, though; if there's a major flaw in the show, it's the superficial depiction of Lindsay and (especially) Melanie as boring, scolding mommy figures, always criticizing the boys for being, well, boys.
And the character of Michael's supersupportive mother, Debbie (Sharon Gless), is similarly unflattering, although she's not meant to be. Debbie is a waitress at the Liberty Diner, dispensing condoms and advice along with the meatloaf and java. A fairy godmother festooned with PFLAG and rainbow pins, with a godawful red fright wig on her head (at least, I hope for Gless' sake it's a wig), Debbie is supposed to function as the series' Good Heterosexual. And every line her too-colorful character utters could have come from either an "Afterschool Special" ("It's not who you love, it's how you love") or a gay vaudeville act ("You should try to eat some of your protein off a plate!" she chortles to Michael and his pals, while Michael sinks lower into his booth). And since I'm kvetching, here's a word about director Russell Mulcahy's whooshy music-video camera tricks in the dance club scenes: tacky.
But some of the strongest and most affecting moments in "Queer as Folk" are the ones where Debbie tones it down and tries to comfort Justin's mother, Jennifer (Sherry Miller), who is struggling through a whirl of parental emotions. Jennifer loves her son fiercely and tries to be accepting, but when she spots Justin and Brian together, and sees a sketch her son made of his naked, sleeping lover, her maternal instinct takes over, her eyes narrow and she can barely keep her anger in check.
"Queer as Folk" doesn't sugarcoat these messy emotions, just as it doesn't pass judgment on Brian's recklessness or on what any of the characters do with their personal liberty, which is a very brave position for a TV series to take in homophobic America. The most impressive thing about "Queer as Folk" is that it doesn't seem to care whether it plays in Peoria. Instead of repeating the same well-meaning but vague TV-movie shibboleth that, gay or straight, we are all exactly the same, "Queer as Folk" shows us the many ways that we are not the same. And it expects heterosexual viewers to respect the difference.
Time magazine
November 27, 2000
It's Here, It's Queer. Get Used To It
TELEVISION: 'Queer as Folk,' a daring series about gays, burns down the closet
Halloween may be a gay high holy day in Greenwich Village, but it was business as usual on the Toronto set of "Queer as Folk." OK, almost as usual. Amid various cross-dressers and naughty priests, there was a crew guy outfitted in a spangly cowboy outfit, an assistant director dressed like Cher and actresses Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie — fresh from filming a lesbian love scene — tricked out as "Texas hookers" with red feather boas. Then there was the pumpkin-carving contest, including one jolly squash accessorized with a... well, put it this way: it's not a banana, and the pumpkin is happy to see you.
"It's all about sex," says gay-boy-next-door Michael (Hal Sparks) in QAF's two-hour pilot (Showtime, Sundays, 10 p.m., starting Dec. 3). That is an exaggeration, but just barely. This adaptation of the controversial 1999 British cult hit series about a group of young gay friends is also about challenging gay and straight shibboleths, about relationships and responsibility.
But mostly it's about sex. The adrenaline-charged opening begins in a pheromone-drenched disco on Pittsburgh's gay mecca, Liberty Avenue, then hurtles at 200 beats a minute into an outré lust scene between 29-year-old rake Brian (Gale Harold) and Justin (Randy Harrison), a kid of 17 — count 'em, 17 — years. No conveniently arranged sheets, no angst, no kisses shot from the back: In 10 hot minutes, QAF opens the closet of gay TV sexuality and chucks in a neon stick of dynamite.
"There are more gay characters on TV now, but they're mostly clowns or eunuchs," says Ron Cowen, who executive produces the show and cowrote the pilot with his life partner, Daniel Lipman. The two have battled the networks to get gay characters on the air since they wrote the Emmy-winning "An Early Frost," the first TV movie about AIDS, back in 1985. When they created NBC's "Sisters" in 1991, says Lipman, they tried unsuccessfully to make one of the leads gay. So they were attracted by the British QAF's "unapologetic" attitude — about things like drug use in the gay community and the fact that gay teens, like straight ones, get horny, sometimes for older men. "I don't look at Justin as a child," Lipman says. "He's the predator, not Brian."
The British series was the brainchild of Russell T. Davies, who based it on the lives of his friends in gritty Manchester. (The title comes from the saying "There's naught so queer as folk" — there's nothing as strange as people.) Davies took heat from conservatives and from gays, who called it defamatory and unrealistic. "It's realistic for men who live like that," he argues. "It's not realistic for everyone." Cowen calls such criticism "internalized homophobia."
QAF's controversial pedigree intrigued Showtime, which is gunning for pay-cable giant HBO (which, like TIME, is owned by Time Warner). Showtime sees QAF as its "Sopranos," or at least part of a suite of niche-targeted shows — including "Resurrection Blvd." (Hispanics) and "Soul Food" (African Americans) — that will add up to a "Sopranos." The network set up a new subscription number — 1-800-COMING-OUT — and distributed "premiere party kits" to gay and lesbian college groups. (Though one hopes any self-respecting homosexual would take a pass on party tips from a TV company.)
But Showtime had a hard time recruiting actors from big agencies, fearful of their clients' being typecast as gay. ("Yeah, I can see how that hurt Billy Crystal's career," sneers Showtime president of programming Jerry Offsay, referring to Crystal's groundbreaking role in "Soap" in 1977.) Several fashion designers (of all industries!) even refused to have their products placed in the series. The producers eventually cast almost all unknowns, with the exception of Sparks, a former "Talk Soup" host on E! who concedes he had "some long talks" with his agent, and "Cagney & Lacey"'s Sharon Gless, who pleaded for the part of Debbie, Michael's earthy, almost smotheringly accepting mother.
The unavoidable focus on QAF's sex shouldn't obscure its nuanced picture of gay life. The central characters — Brian, Michael, Emmett (Peter Paige) and Ted (Scott Lowell) — are, like the women of "Sex and the City," a cross section of urban types. Most of them were born after the 1969 Stonewall protests launched the modern gay-rights movement, giving them the choice to stand out or assimilate, flame or simmer. All of them, pushing or just past 30, face the tyranny of age in the "Logan's Run"-like club scene. And Brian, an irresistible, bed-hopping Peter Pan, is suddenly beset with unwanted responsibility: for his new son (he donated sperm to the lesbians); for Justin, his lovestruck, naive pursuer; and for a friend who names Brian his living-will executor, entrusting him to pull the plug because "you're a heartless s___."
The first several episodes, solid and often impressive, borrow heavily from the British QAF, though this version is more of an ensemble. Its style is pleasingly candy-colored and frenetic, even if after a few too many whooshing camera moves, you will think you're watching The Gaytrix. QAF is too funny and fresh to get maudlin, thanks especially to the surprisingly versatile Sparks, whose Michael, a romantic with an unrequited crush on Brian, is the de facto liaison to the straight world: "He's so accessible," says Sparks, "he almost forgets he's gay." Harold's preening-sexpot performance can be stiff (not just in that way) and is hampered by scripts that try too hard to psychologize Brian and make him "relatable." But half his job is to smolder, and he does in scenes like the one with Justin. Says Clunie: "Housewives in Peoria are going to see that and say, 'That's not bad!'"
That may be too optimistic, though there's one sop to mass mores here: the guys use a condom. Still, make no mistake. The sex on QAF is anything but safe.
Beautifulboy.com
November 2000
The Americans have landed and they're Queer as Folk
The new American version of the highly controversial British series "Queer as Folk" makes its American debut December 3rd, on the Showtime cable network.
The original Queer as Folk aired on British TV Channel 4 as an 8 part series. The show starred Aidan Gillen (Stuart Jones), Craig Kelly (Vince Tyler), and Charlie Hunnam (Nathan Maloney). Russell T. Davies wrote the series and the 2 hour series ending Queer as Folk II.
The story revolves around Stuart who needs to be the center of attention, Vince his best friend and Nathan, the 15 year old who desperately wants in on the action.
They cruise Canal Street nightly the hub of Gay nightlife looking for what each other already has. Stuart is trying to hold on to his youth; Vince is looking for true love, and Nathan is just looking for a goodtime.
The question is can this story fly in America? Well Showtime seems to think so and has given the series a 22 hour commitment.
MOVING THE SERIES IS NOT GOING TO BE EASY
The show already has come under fire as major retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch, Old Navy, Perry Ellis, Polo, Ann Klein and others refuse to let their products be seen in the show.
Showtime has already been promoting the show at Gay themed venues around the country, trying to get the word out. Once that has been completed they will move into more mainstream areas.
Ads for the series showing two men one caressing the others bare chest have already started showing up in entertainment periodicals.
LET’S MEET THE GUYS
The 3 main leads are Hal Sparks fresh from his hosting duties on the E! Channel series "Talk Soup" he heads up the cast playing Michael.
Brian played by Gale Harold has a crush on Michael, and Randy Harrison plays the 17-year-old Justin who has a fling with Brian.
Relatively unknown Gale Harold was in the indie film "Mental Hygiene" and Randy Harrison is a new comer from St. Louis.
Sharon Gless the blonde on the TV series "Cagney and Lacy" is the only other well-known star to be cast.
Rounding out the cast are Chris Potter (from the TV series Silk Stockings), Scott Lowell, Peter Paige (from TV series Undressed) and Makyla Smith.
The executive producers of the show, Ron Cowan and Daniel Lipman, the series producer David Donohue and series creator Russell T. Davies.
Set in the city of Pittsburgh PA Queer as Folk will detail the lives of five gay men and a lesbian couple. So, the series that took Britain by storm hopes to do the same here in America.
CNN
11/30/00
Another sort of sex, another sort of city
Showtime unveils 'Queer as Folk'
Do you think "Sex and the City" is graphic? The folks at Showtime have something coming that may alter your perceptions.
On Sunday, the channel debuts "Queer as Folk," a ground-breaking, no-holds barred series based on the controversial, award-winning British show of the same name.
This series leaves nothing in the closet. "Queer as Folk" takes an unflinching look at the contemporary gay lifestyle through the eyes of five gay men and a lesbian couple living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The show deals with all aspects of gay life -- work, family and friends -- but what's really raising eyebrows is the unblinking portrayal of sex.
"It (the sex scenes) was not for shock value. I think it was to tell the truth," co-producer Ron Cowen says. "I think a lot of what we see on TV portrays gay people as eunuchs or clowns, or as victims of AIDS, or being punished for being sexual or tortured teens. We're not doing any of that."
Another first for "Queer as Folk" is that it airs on American TV the first explicit sex scene between a 29-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy.
The scene was no problem for its stars.
"I felt they (scenes) were justified by the text, and I had done sex scenes before in theater. No, I wasn't (uncomfortable)," says Randy Harrison, who plays 17-year-old Justin.
"It's only racy because people are seeing something they don't normally have the opportunity to see," says Gale Harrold, who plays the older Brian. "But I think what's really more the point is that it's a chance for people who've never been able to see themselves and be proud of themselves, because we're not sad and we're not suffering.
Most of the cast members are openly gay, but the ones who are straight make it known.
"I make a really strong point of that only because maybe it'll help the straight audience warm up to this easier, " confesses Hal Sparks, former star of E!'s Talk Soup. "Plus, I don't want to lead anybody on. I don't want to be coy and go, 'Oh, I might be gay,' and then have an audience look for that and go, 'He was bull-----ing us.'"
MEET THE 'FOLKS'
Michael (Hal Sparks). He's Brian's best friend, the boy next door -- with an emphasis on 'boy.' He loves comic books and, though he won't admit it, Brian.
Brian (Gale Harrold). A sexual animal, he is always on the prowl. He enjoys sex and is good at it.
Justin (Randy Harrison). A 17-year-old boy whose life is changed one night when he experiences sex and what he thinks is love, for the first time.
Emmett (Peter Paige). He's the most flamboyant of his friends and wears it with pride.
Ted (Scott Lowell). An accountant with a taste for porn whose fatal flaw is a lust for twenty-somethings who don't return his interest.
Dr. Dave (Chris Potter). The dreamboat chiropractor who makes Michael forget about Brian, for a while.
Debbie Novotny (Sharon Gless). Michael's eccentric mother - vehemently proud of her gay son.
Melanie (Michelle Clunie). Lindsay's tough-talking lawyer lover who has always detested Brian, the biological father of their baby.
Lindsay (Thea Gill). A warm nurturing, university art teacher who's having a child with her lover, Melanie.
Zap2It.com
November 2000
'Queer': It's Here, Unfortunately
by Cheryl Klein
Showtime's "Queer as Folk" is as gay as its uninspired rainbow logo, but where exactly does it get off calling itself queer?
Besides being a catchier catchall than "LGBT" (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), "queer" connotes art that deviates not just from the sexual mainstream but from narrative and aesthetic conventions as well. The British series of the same name, on which Showtime's disappointing attempt is based, is quite queer: funny, dark and daringly populated with complex characters who don't change at the end of the hour. But Showtime's rendition, premiering Dec. 3 at 10 p.m., plays like a fairy tale mutilated by Disney --and the word becomes an epithet all over again.
SEX AND THE PITY
Best friends Michael ("Talk Soup's" Hal Sparks) and Brian (Gale Harold) helm a cluster of gay buddies in what is supposed to be working class Pittsburgh but in fact looks like a gay amusement park, brimming with rainbow flags and cool cars. The schtick is that likeable everyman Michael has spent much of their 15-year friendship pining for his rakish confidant, who is currently grinding the heartstrings of high school student Justin (Randy Harrison). To pass the time, they all go clubbing and have a lot of sex with a lot of people.
The sex will undoubtedly be what alternately lures and alienates viewers and spawns controversy in the media. Ironically, the early sex scenes are some of the series' most accomplished, conveying, for example, Justin's loss of virginity with unromantic candor. The scene is graphic not just for lack of a strategically placed sheet, but for its refreshing awkwardness.
Yet the characters' post-AIDS (an inherently problematic concept) promiscuity resurrects a stereotype of gay men that may result in the show stifling the gay movement rather than assisting it. Yes, some people are promiscuous. No, they should not be punished for it a la '50s pulp novels. But the attitude the press release calls "unapologetic" becomes highly damaging in the absence of character development -- that crucial ingredient that makes an audience believe and accept just about any activity on the part of its fictional friends.
TWO WOMEN AND A BABY
"Folk" isn't much better when it comes to women who sleep with women. The show's token female couple is the latest to partake in TV/moviedom's lesbian baby boom, following "Friends," "If These Walls Could Talk 2," "Broken Hearts Club" and that John Hancock Insurance commercial that ran during the Olympics. It is as if the writers of these pseudo-progressive plots shrug and mumble, "I don't know what lesbians do, do you?" "No, let's give 'em a baby. Babies are cute." The result is an odd queer cult of domesticity that finds "Folk's" lesbians never leaving the house while its male breadwinner equivalents dance the night away at hotspots with names like Babylon.
And, like "Broken Hearts Club" (the far more likeable film with which "Queer as Folk" shares many character demos), the series juxtaposes a femmey, peacemaking birth mother with her constantly-screaming butch girlfriend who, natch, hates the baby's father. The dynamic is impressive only because it manages to insult women on so many levels in very little screen-time.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS...
But beyond the realms of stereotype and politics, "Folk" is just plain bad. Although painfully American in its tendency to redeem and tie up loose ends where the Brit version exercised admirable restraint, the show stupidly ignores studio cinema's cardinal rule: Make your protagonist likeable. Brian could have been the equivalent of Trent in "Swingers" -- reckless and swaggering, but loyal to his friends. Yet Harold, apparently cast for his pecks and modelish scowl, comes across as creepy and thoroughly unfun.
We're supposed to identify with Sparks' Michael, who collects comic books and raises his caterpillar eyebrows at every jolt of unrequited love. But because Brian is so despicable and Sparks is so one-note, Michael becomes a big wuss. Sparks eventually sounds like Wally Cleaver, protesting with a nasal "Ma-ah!" every time his goofy mother embarrasses him.
Which brings us to Sharon Gless, who plays Michael's mother, a fag hag working in a diner that looks like a gay Ed Debevic's. Her abundance of PFLAG buttons is played for laughs, but there is something very disturbing about the way she fetishizes her own son. Gless does nothing to alleviate this, her raccoon eyes and wavery voice creating a character that seems far more unstable than either actress or script intended.
The promising young Harrison delivers the show's only laudable performance as Justin, layering teenage attempts at coolness with passion and fear. Interestingly, he is also one of the few characters who actually seems gay, neither playing up the wrist flicks nor hiding behind a business suit in a panicked attempt to "shun stereotypes."
'FOLK'? ART?
Although Showtime boasts "No Limits," it could have used some. In the confines of network television, "Will & Grace" has remained more loyal to its queer sensibilities than "Queer as Folk" for all its ass-baring and F-word privileges. Despite innovative camera work and a guiltily compelling story, "Folk" is not the gay community's answer to under-representation, America's answer to England's risk-taking, nor Showtime's answer to "Sex and the City."
Newsweek
11/27/00
Gay All the way
Is America ready for a gay ‘Sex in the City’? HBO’s rival Showtime is banking on it Television has finally created a man who can go toe-to-naked-toe with the bed-hopping ladies of “Sex and the City.” His name is Brian (Gale Harold), a Pittsburgh advertising executive with a sexy grin, smoldering brown eyes and pheromones that never miss.
BRIAN GOES HOME with a different person every night, even when he’s seduced a client into an office tryst earlier in the day. With that kind of irresistible charm, perhaps it’s not surprising that his lesbian friends ask him to father their baby. Nor is it surprising that Brian misses the birth because he’s too busy bedding a 17-year-old. “So, we’ve both had an infant tonight,” says one of the lesbian moms when Brian finally arrives at the hospital, baby-face date in tow. Sex, wicked humor, complicated friendships—that’s not all Brian’s show has in common with the “Sex and the City” galpals. The men on Showtime’s “Queer As Folk” all sleep with men, too. It’s been a huge year for gays on television, and we mean that literally. John Goodman is in a sitcom about a large gay man in Ohio. Richard Hatch took off his clothes, survived “Survivor” and became the most overexposed celebrity in America. The skinny actors on “Will & Grace” did their part, too, by winning the Emmy for best comedy. But none of those shows has prepared the TV audience for the 10 p.m., EST, Dec. 3 debut of “Queer As Folk.” “Queer” is not just the first TV series where all the major characters are gay. It’s the first to treat gay people simply as people. Michael is in love with Brian. Brian can’t handle commitment. Justin’s mother doesn’t understand him. Ted is too geeky to find a boyfriend. Emmett sells clothes and says “fabulous” a lot. If they were straight and had a laugh track, they’d be “Friends.” Instead, they’re simply gay men in Pittsburgh living their lives—sex included. The sex is not insignificant. While it’s never gratuitous (or full frontal), “Queer” is not shy about showing people kissing and moving in ways never seen before on TV. Is it in-your-face? Absolutely. But “Queer” is also honest, engaging—and maybe important. “It’s the first time that gay men are not apologizing for who they are by making themselves eunuchs or victims or clowns,” says Peter Paige, who plays Emmett. “TV isn’t made like this.”
It would be easy to overstate the explosive potential of a show that’s naked in so many ways. But “Queer As Folk” has, you might say, a past. It debuted two years ago in Britain with a British cast but essentially the same daring storyline. The public went ballistic—especially over the story involving an underage young man sleeping with a 29-year-old ad executive. But then something strange happened. Viewers settled down and became involved with the characters rather than their body parts. Still, when Showtime acquired the rights to remake the show, many people in Hollywood predicted the cable network would neuter it. In fact, other than adding two years to the kid’s age—he was 15 in Britain—the American “Queer As Folk” takes more risks than the British version: more sex, more graphic language. It’s also richer. Showtime has spent more than million per episode—about standard for a net-work drama—and hired Richard Kramer (“Once and Again”) and Jason Schafer (“Trick”) to write scripts that are both funnier and softer than the British show. “This is an odd and wonderful mixture of raw and charm,” says Dan Lipman, one of the executive producers. “Something that is dark and threatening isn’t something you’d want to return to.”
“Queer As Folk” is something of a calculated risk for Showtime. The network has yet to hit on a series that grabs the public’s attention like “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” have for HBO. With about 13 million subscribers, Showtime is less than half the size of its cable rival. A little controversy wouldn’t hurt—not that the network looks at “Queer” that way. “We’re not in business to offend anybody,” says Matt Blank, chairman of Showtime. “We think there’s an opportunity here to provide programming that wouldn’t see the light of day without us.” Showtime did submit an early version of the pilot to the Motion Picture Association of America to get a sense of how it might be rated if it were a movie. Blank says they’ve taken some of the board’s suggestions to heart, but not to the point of gutting the show. “There’s a chance some of our episodes would get an NC-17 rating strictly because of the homosexual nature of the sex,” Blank says. “If these were heterosexual portrayals, there wouldn’t be any problem getting an R rating.”
The toughest part of making “Queer As Folk” may have been casting it. “My manager told me not to do it,” says Paige. “He said, ‘I’m afraid that when we take you over to a network they’ll say they can’t put you on in prime time because they just saw you getting worked over on Showtime’—’worked over’ are not the exact words he used.” But the cast says the daring nature of the show is what appealed to them. “I could smell the trouble,” says Sharon Gless, the “Cagney and Lacey” star. She plays Debbie, who is a sort of den mother. “When I read the script, I went, ‘Send me in, Coach, because I want to be a part of this one’.”
As wonderful as “Queer” is, it can be a bit of a hard sell. Scott Lowell, who plays Ted, says his Pentecostal parents aren’t sure what to think. “They ask about the show, but I don’t give specifics. When a magazine story comes out, I cut out the article and just send the pictures.” Try as they might, some of the straight actors can’t get used to making out with men, even though it’s not PC to admit it. “What do you do?” says Chris Potter, who plays Dr. David. “Soon as they say cut, you spit. You want to go to a strip bar or touch the makeup girls. You feel dirty. It’s a tough job,” he says. Hal Sparks, who plays Michael, says having a mixed straight-gay cast may help the nongay viewers. “If it were just gay people, your average straight audience would just go, it’s a gay show, it doesn’t concern me,” says Sparks, the former host of “Talk Soup.” “The nice thing about this show is that, after about 10 minutes, you get so involved with the people, you forget they’re all gay.” At least until the next shower scene.
Edmonton Journal
November 2000
People Will Talk New Queer as Folk series more explicit in language, nudity
Electricians fiddle with the overhead lights on a television set. Wardrobe fusses in the background. Crew members munch on granola and yogurt at the craft services table.
But there are telltale signs that things are different here. On the cavernous soundstage where 15 standing sets have been constructed, one has the scrawl "Lesbian house" on the outside wall.
And next door, in the offices, there's the strange sign warning: "Please! No dildos allowed within 20 feet of the fax machine."
Welcome to the world of Queer As Folk, the new TV series that's been shooting since July at Toronto's Dufferin Gate studios.
Astute viewers will say: "I've already seen that series, haven't I?"
Well, yes and no. The original seven-hour British mini-series ran last season on Showcase to considerable controversy and some acclaim. It documented the lives of a number of young gay men from Manchester in frequently ribald style, with language and nudity not normally glimpsed on TV screens.
Well, you ain't seen or heard nothing yet.
The U.S. version of Queer As Folk has more of everything: more nude scenes, more same-sex couplings, more four-letter words.
In tone and texture it's completely different, an ambitious attempt to tell the story in a more realistic frame. It will run not seven hours but 22.
The crew has been working frenetically through the summer and fall -- shooting of episode 13 is about to start, and filming at the pace of three episodes a month will go on into next March.
In the "Lesbian house" living room, actresses Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill are rehearsing a tense domestic scene, aided by director John Greyson (Lilies).
"We really have the best Canadian directors around," producer Sheila Hockin says. "Besides Greyson, we've used John L'Ecuyer and David Wellington. It's a who's-who of Canadian independent filmmaking."
A few minutes later Gale Harold appears on set clutching a teddy bear, ready to rehearse his lines. He plays the central anti-hero Brian (Stuart in the British version), a hunky 29-year-old who seems to have it all but is really a mass of contradictions.
Only two of the eight leads are Canadian: Gill and Chris Potter (Material World), who plays a gay chiropractor.
The other leads are American theatre actors, including Harold, Randy Harrison as Justin (Nathan in the original), Scott Lowell as Ted, Peter Paige as Emmett, and Clunie as Melanie. Only Hal Sparks, as Michael, has done substantial TV work.
And viewers will spot Sharon Gless (Cagney and Lacey) as Michael's good-natured waitress mother.
"In a way, it was good to move to Toronto," says L.A.-based Clunie. "Here we were able to concentrate on the work with no outside distractions."
"And we all hang out together on weekends," Gill adds.
Some L.A. agents warned their clients not to audition for the series, fearing they would be typecast as gay. "I felt I had to be in this, the writing is so good," Paige says.
"These roles don't come around often."
A few clothing companies refused to show their wares. And cast and crew are preparing themselves for a publicity barrage. Newsweek and Time have visited the set along with dozens of U.S. newspaper writers. Entertainment Tonight sent a crew and Extra! is expected shortly.
The first episode will air Dec. 3 on U.S. cable TV station Showtime, which is forking out million US an episode and has promised another million in a gigantic publicity blitz. Canadian viewers will have to wait until Jan. 22, when the series will premiere on Showcase.
The executive producers are Daniel Lipman and Ron Cowen, partners in life and in TV for 25 years. They wrote and produced the groundbreaking TV flick about AIDS, An Early Frost (1985). They later produced the NBC series Sisters (1991-96).
The location is supposed to be Pittsburgh, but Toronto landmarks can be spotted.
Cowen spends three-quarters of his time in Los Angeles working with the writers, while Lipman is a hands-on producer who is usually in Toronto. Hockin says she can tell the series is being written in California, "because an upcoming script calls for the men to meet at an outdoor cafe. I don't think that will happen with this weather."
Cowen says he thought the British original was "audacious," but realized he would have to use the basic story "and then go off on our own. We took the germ of some ideas and tried to develop them."
The British version caused an uproar by graphically depicting a 29-year-old man seducing a 15-year-old schoolboy. The boy is now 17, "still below the age of consent," Cowen says. And when the older man comes on to him, the student asks about safe sex.
The program also deals with drug use. Again, the boy says never to use drugs except those prescribed by a pharmacist. "What are you, a public service announcement?" Brian snaps at him.
Other changes: Cowen confronts the issue of gay bashing when Brian has the word "faggot" spray-painted on his Jeep. The lesbian couple were in the background in the British version but now have storylines of their own. And the character of Emmett has been toned down and made Michael's roommate.
Cowen says there are "dark and unhappy" interludes as well as some fun. "We deal with the isolation of being gay, the fear of getting older."
And now that the crew and the locations are in Toronto, he adds, "I consider this the North American version."
New York Times
11/20/00
'Queer as Folk': Cable TV Shatters Another Taboo
Less than 30 years ago, Home Box Office created the pay-television business by showing uninterrupted and uncut feature films. On network television, feature films were cut up by commercials, any foul language was bleeped, and any sex scenes edited.
Within a few years, HBO was offering no-holds- barred comedy specials by performers like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy. By the 1990's, it was in television's vanguard with explicit dramas, beginning in 1993 with "And the Band Played On," about the AIDS epidemic, and continuing with current series like "Oz," about a maximum-security prison; "Sex and the City," about a group of single women in New York; and "The Sopranos," about a Mafia family leading a middle-class life in New Jersey. These shows' language, sexual content and violence broke television taboos.
And now comes Showtime's "Queer as Folk," taking the explicitness even further.
A 22-hour television drama about gay and lesbian life, "Queer as Folk" starts on Dec. 3. The opening two-hour episode was seen for the first time on Thursday night at a premiere in New York co-sponsored by the Gay Men's Health Crisis and Showtime.
The series, which seeks to rival HBO in sexual candor, also shatters an unwritten rule in television against explicit depictions of sexual behavior between men, including kissing, fondling, anal sex and oral sex, much as HBO's "Sex and the City" depicts men and women engaged in various sexual acts. But if "Sex and the City" has more talk than sex, "Queer as Folk" has more sex than talk. (Although "Oz" has featured scenes of men raping men, sex is not the dominant element in that series, as it is in "Queer as Folk.")
"We pushed this as far as we could go," said Tony Jonas, a former president of Warner Brothers Television and an executive producer of "Queer as Folk." Mr. Jonas said that the highly successful NBC sitcom "Will and Grace," about a gay man and a straight woman, was "a wonderful mass-appeal show, but it's still sanitized."
"Our show has no such limitation," Mr. Jonas said. "We don't have to apologize for or whitewash or pretend what gay sexuality is all about. In a way, it's a giant step for cable."
The series, set in Pittsburgh, is based on the award-winning and darkly funny British series of the same title that dealt with a group of gay men in Manchester. (The title derives from an old Yorkshire saying, "There's nowt so queer as folk," meaning there's nothing so odd as people.) The British series's explicitness led to intense news-media coverage during its 10-episode run in 1998-99. But the show's popularity with general audiences seemed to be inspired not only by its sexual candor but also by its provocative characters.
The American series's centers on five gay men who spend most of their nights at a gay dance club or looking for bedmates. The characters also include a lesbian couple with a newborn baby and the mothers of two of the men. (One is played by Sharon Gless of "Cagney and Lacey.") The central character, Brian, played by Gale Harold, is a seductive advertising executive who revels in his promiscuity.
"Actually, he's an archetypal character, a bit like Don Juan, which is how I play him," said Mr. Harold, a San Francisco and Los Angeles theater actor who was, he noted, "massively unknown" before being cast as the lead in the series.
He added: "This guy's a blast to play. He believes unapologetically in his freedom. He holds nothing back."
The American series was written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who also created the Emmy Award- winning dramatic series "Sisters," which ran for six seasons on NBC. Mr. Cowen and Mr. Lipman said Showtime executives encouraged them to be even more explicit than the British series. (Some gay writers in Britain criticized the original series because, they said, it depicted only one element of gay life — the club scene — and reinforced the stereotype that gay men were promiscuous and obsessed only with youth and staying in shape.)
The American show is significantly different. The original series focused on an affair between a 29-year- old advertising executive and a 15- year-old boy, a plot device that drew criticism because the boy was so young. In the American version, the youth is nearly 18. The new series has also expanded various roles, including those of the lesbian couple and of some older boyfriends, as well as those of the gay men's mothers.
"I don't think any one of us has seen anything on television that portrays gay people in as complex a way as this," Mr. Cowen said. "Most of the time we see gay people portrayed as eunuchs or clowns or victims of AIDS or tortured teens. I don't think we've ever seen gay people expressing and celebrating their sexuality as they are here."
Mr. Lipman added, "No constraints were put on us by the network."
Jerry Offsay, Showtime's president for programming, said the network was making "Queer as Folk" because the British series was "the most interesting, unique, innovative television show we've seen in a couple of years."
"It's truly a show that's exploring characters and a lifestyle we've never seen before on television," he added. "You can do the 47th lawyer show or the 50th cop show or the 700th doctor show. We've seen those. We haven't seen this before."
"People have no problem seeing this kind of honesty in movie theaters," Mr. Offsay continued. "We and HBO have the ability to bring the same kind of honesty into your living room because we're invited in. We're not there without your invitation." The limits, he said, are "what we think is in good taste, what we think is responsible."
To an extent, Showtime has everything to gain from a series that will inevitably earn plenty of media attention. The network's goal is straightforward: to lure more paid viewers in hopes of competing with HBO. Currently, HBO has 25 million paid subscribers; Showtime has 12 million, according to Paul Kagan Associates, a media research company in Carmel, Calif.
The broader issue for Showtime and HBO is how far to go in terms of creative freedom. Several network and cable executives said privately that Showtime was treading a path between daring and sensation for sensation's sake in "Queer as Folk." But several top executives at HBO as well as at Showtime said that dealing bluntly with sex was not what differentiated cable from network television.
"The advantage we have is that we can go for an honest representation of an idea; we don't have to couch anything," said Chris Albrecht, president for original programming at HBO. "We don't say, `Let's be shocking.' And we use our judgment about what's appropriate and not appropriate for a show. If everyone on `The Sopranos' said `Shucks,' it wouldn't feel like a real rendition of that group of characters. The same goes for `Oz.' One of the most intense places on the planet is a maximum-security prison. The show needs to be extremely intense."
The freedom enjoyed by cable television is the envy of some top creative writer-producers who must contend with network television's standards and practices departments. And certainly some network executives resent the constant unfavorable comparisons between the freedoms of cable and the limits of network television. That "The Sopranos" has failed to win the best dramatic series Emmy for two years in a row may be a measure of the resentment that networks feel toward cable.
Steven Bochco, who helped create "N.Y.P.D. Blue," "L.A. Law," and other network series, said the start of "N.Y.P.D. Blue" in 1993 was delayed for a year while he argued and negotiated with ABC executives about how far he could go with language and nudity.
He and other television writer-producers have long argued that the networks must relax their standards on language, sexuality and general realism because serious shows on cable are drawing large audiences away from broadcast networks.
"Cable plays by a completely different set of rules on every level," Mr. Bochco said. "First of all, they spend more money. Second of all, they have no advertisers. They don't have as many episodes as we do. Their schedules are longer. And they compete more directly with motion pictures on a content level."
But Mr. Bochco said he envied cable television only to a point. Last year, he explained, he sold a project to HBO, but the deal collapsed over the issue of how much freedom he could have.
"Ultimately, I withdrew," he said. "Ironically, HBO didn't give up creative control, and I didn't feel comfortable ceding the kind of control that I've had for 20 years in broadcasting." The control involved, among other issues, approval of writers, directors, the cast and scripts.
"We were willing to give the same creative control that we gave to David Chase and Tom Fontana," said Mr. Albrecht of HBO, referring to the creators of "The Sopranos" and "Oz," respectively.
But Mr. Bochco, who still has great leverage in network television because of his track record, is unusual. Alan Ball, a television writer who also won an Academy Award for his "American Beauty" screenplay, has had perhaps more typical encounters. Now working on a forthcoming series for HBO called "Six Feet Under," a dark comedy about a dysfunctional Los Angeles family that runs a funeral home, he had a dismal experience with his most recent network series, ABC's "Oh Grow Up." A comedy about a group of men living in a Brooklyn apartment, it ran for 11 episodes last fall.
"The difference between working for a network and for HBO is night and day," he said. Mr. Ball, who has also written for shows like "Grace Under Fire," said ABC executives kept telling him to "make everybody nicer and articulate the subtext."
That means, he said, that audiences must be "spoon fed" information about the characters on the sitcom and that essentially nothing in a character's life can exist beneath the surface. Subtlety is out of the question, Mr. Ball added.
"That's why everything seems so formulaic on network television," he said. "If you're watching a show and have half a brain, you know in the first five minutes where it's going to go." Working in cable, he said, "I'm getting the opposite notes. It's like, `Maybe we don't have to spell things out so much.' I can't believe what I'm hearing."
TV Guide
November 2000
Boy Meets Queer World
Theater-trained actor Randy Harrison makes his television debut with Showtime's provocative new series Queer as Folk — and what an initiation it is. In the pilot episode, airing Dec. 3 on the cable network, the newcomer's 17-year-old alter ego, Justin, loses his virginity with a 29-year-old in a scene so sexually explicit that even the predominantly gay audience at last week's premiere screening in New York were squirming in their seats.
"It actually wasn't as much of an adjustment as I thought it would be," Harrison tells TV Guide Online of his transition from the stage to the small screen. "The cast is amazing and it's such a great environment up in Toronto (where Queer is shot). We all get along really well, which you sort of have to given the intimate nature of a lot of the stuff that we have to do. It's been really idyllic."
Although Queer as Folk delivers on its promise to be as racy as the British series on which it is based, Harrison points out that the show is not all skin and no substance. "If it were badly written, then I wouldn't have wanted to do it," he admits, "but the characters are so well written you want to play them."
Case in point: While the much talked about one-night stand between Justin and resident man-eater Brian (Gale Harold) may be graphic, it triggers a major awakening for Harrison's sheltered character. "It completely shakes him up," he says. "He's sort of thrown into this whole new world and quickly learns to adapt and play the game. It's really great to watch him become empowered and become more confident." — Michael Ausiello
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