Farewell to Our "Folk"

When the American edition of "Queer As Folk" debuted on Showtime in December of 2000, fans of the original BBC production might have been a little startled at how the names of the players had been changed -- from Vince Tyler (Craig Kelly) to Michael Novotny (Michael Sparks); from Stuart Jones (Aiden Gillan) to Brian Kinney (Gail Harold); from Nathan Maloney (Charlie Hunnam, who had a brief transatlantic movie career in Folks' aftermath) to Justin Taylor (Randy Harrison) -- but they would have had no trouble recognizing the general shape of the characters' arcs and personalities. But by the time the series aired its final episode, a few weeks ago, the American production had long outgrown and outstripped its British counterpart.

The last episode (written by American producers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who re-jiggered the Russell T. Davies original to better suit American tastes and to provide for a more open-ended series than the original 8 regular episodes and the 90 minute TV movie that capped off the BBC version) was the perfect sendoff to the "Queer" crowd, and -- since the American series had long ago incorporated most of the British show's plot lines and moved beyond them -- the show's producers felt free to end the characters' journeys in ways that diverged from Davies' sourced material. Even if you already knew the ending of the original show, you wouldn?t know how the American version was going to end up.

As the American "Queer As Folk" burned through Davies' original plot points, it became less of a watered-down retread (thank God! The original British episodes were so much more charming and witty than the American remakes) and began to grow into its own voice and vision. The characters began to embrace more familiar American passages: Michael left his dead-end job at "Q Mart" to run his own small business, a comic book shop; Brian -- like the original's Stuart, smarter and wealthier than everyone else in the show -- broke away from the ad agency that treated him like another drone and founded his own company. Emmett (Peter Paige) bounced from career to career -- some fabulous, some less so -- and relationship to relationship, including a lonely 70-something and a pro football star, both of which had come out of the closet late in the game.

But even as the characters evolved into their own distinct American editions of their British counterparts, the show itself shifted tone, grew bolder, and -- while never shedding its silly, soapy edge -- eventually became a sharp, sometimes strident, means for analysis and debate on the American gay scene and the larger, often hostile, culture in which it exists. Often, there was a discernable streak of resentment toward "assimilation," and critics of the highly sexualized gay party scene, like Michelangelo Signorile, might well find themselves lampooned and lambasted (as a Signorile-like character was in one episode where, after taking the gay community to task for not being more like straight domestic couples, the character was spotted by the regular characters hypocritically riding some guy bare-back at an orgy); and though Michael eventually fell in love with, and settled down with, late-coming series regular Ben (Robert Gant), Brian's viewpoint was more typically the one espoused by the show. "We are not fucking straight people," Brian would tell his young on-again, off-again lover Justin, who pined for a house and picket fence. To Brian, monogamy meant nothing less than the death of love and the ultimate loss of personal freedom.

In the final episodes, the social debate took a back seat to an unapologetic political approach that showed the characters facing "Proposition 14," a fictitious piece of legislation based on real ballot initiatives from around the country. "Proposition 14" would dissolve any legal contract formed between same-sex couples, including mortgages and joint checking accounts. The show's producers were certainly paying attention to real-life situations of this sort, because on TV, as in actuality, once gays and lesbians were targeted for punitive, discriminatory legislation, the violent loonies emerged from the woodwork, throwing a brick through Michael's store window (a clear reference to Kristallnacht, or "the night of broken glass," an immediate precursor to the rounding up of the Jews in Nazi Germany) and setting off a bomb at Babylon, the show's hub of gay activity, during a fund-raiser to combat Proposition 14.

The proposed amendment to the state constitution -- and the violence its supporters perpetrated -- had its effects on the cast of characters. For the show's resident lesbians, two-mommy parents Lindsay (Thea Gill) and Melanie (Michelle Clunie), there was simply too much at stake; they left the country for Canada, taking their two children along with them. For Ben and Michael, the imminent threat to their legal status as foster parents accelerated their decision making process in adopting Hunter (Harris Allan). For Brian -- ever the rebel -- the best revenge was re-opening Babylon. The show never tells us the outcome of the vote on Proposition 14, but Michael's closing narration -- a nice bookend to his monologue during the opening minutes of the first episode -- assures us that, no matter who sits in the White House, "the thumpa-thumpa (of gay night life) goes on? we will survive."

"Queer As Folk" provided greater America with a catalogue of talking points over its five-year run: senior gays looking to make up for lost time, young gays and lesbians seeking out the guidance and sexual companionship of their older counterparts, the cultural taboos and trials and legal hurdles of same-sex parenting, the constant attack against gays and lesbians from the right wing, the intolerance of employers and parents, the unconditional acceptance of friends and more enlightened parents, the risk -- and costs -- of loving someone with HIV. In the final episode, the show worked so well on so many levels that it was hard to believe Cowan and Lipman had written the story and script; they almost never authored the show's stronger installments, but this time they hit it out of the park. They also gave us a whole new catalogue of talking points in that single, final hour: sometimes really loving someone means letting go; friendship is so much better than sex; there's nothing you can't talk through; and, yes, it is all about sex -- but it's also all about family.

"Queer As Folk" was never a huge hit on a "Will and Grace" scale, but it didn?t need to be: it was more honest, more overt, and it boasted full frontal male nudity. It was never strong, hard-hitting drama like "The Sopranos," but it wasn't supposed to be that, either; it was both a wish fulfillment and a forum for the issues of the day as seen from a spectrum of ay perspectives. For five years, it was -our- show: a series that showed boys (and a few girls) falling in and out of love with other boys (and girls), hooking up with buddies for a few weeks, or a few nights, or a couple of hours, growing up, getting serious about life, taking charge. For five years, it was place on the TV dial to call our own -- full of sexual fantasy, tinged with successes and failures, sometimes brilliant in the risks it took and the inventive ways it found around its comparatively low production values, and tinged with politics. These "Folk" were our folk, and saying farewell wasn't easy. Most of all, though, it gave us one more right that had been denied us too long while everyone else in the nation thoughtlessly enjoyed it: the right to tune in and hang with people like ourselves, even if (especially if!) they were prettier, more interesting, and more successful. Ciao, bellas, and thanks for 83 juicy, funny, sexily subversive episodes.