In the north of England there’s a saying that goes: “There’s nought as queer as folk”. What and who can’t all seem strange to you.
If you don’t like watching football, you might find it strange, for example, that men are chasing a ball. Anyone who enjoys watching football may find it odd the circumstances under which men are chasing a ball in a country that doesn’t find it odd to treat people in an unworthy manner.
Against the standards of morality
Meanwhile, if you want to boycott this World Cup in the most harmless way (not even tuning in), you could watch a series that speaks against the moral standards of this country: “Queer as Folk”, the series about Canal Street, the gay district in Manchester.
It’s been more than twenty years since the lives of Vince and Stuart in their late twenties and the teenager Nathan were told. “Queer as Folk” was the first drama series on British television to feature gay protagonists – no supporting characters, no laughs, no victims, as in soap operas and TV films before.
It was about sex, partying, drugs, alcohol, love, family, friendship. Some critics were predictably outraged: promiscuity! Drug consumption! Rough language! Infidelity! The others excited: promiscuity! Drug consumption! Rough language! Infidelity! They dare, the screenwriters!
Neither representative nor admirable
Russell T. Davies, who wrote the series (and revived ‘Doctor Who’ for the BBC a few years later) thought: Characters don’t have to be representative or admirable. The series only shows a small part of gay life that had not been presented in such a blunt, exaggerated and funny way before.
When the Guardian placed the series on its list of the best TV shows, it said, “It’s hard to tell how many of the viewers would potentially faint offended rather than just tune out.” Great is “Queer as Folk ‘ but not because it provokes.
Aidan Gillen, who played the self-confident, sometimes very unlikable handsome Stuart, summed it up like this: “I was surprised at how explosive it was. It wasn’t the sexual content: I was just struck by the openness. I had never read a TV script that was so cheeky.”
At the time, the House of Lords was debating the age at which gay men could have consensual sex (Charlie Hunnam played a fifteen-year-old on the show). It was a time when gay men wanted to leave the AIDS trauma behind. A time, according to Davies, when gay men could not yet think of marriage.
“Queer as Folk” became a success, with more than three million viewers tuning in. They didn’t find anything odd about the Manchester men.
