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It's a Sin (HBO)

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  • It's a Sin (HBO)

    New drama series from Russell T. Davies, centered around a group of young people moving to London in the 1980s.

    Checked out the first episode this morning. Quite liked it. Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin are all fleshed out. Come from different places, and feel like different people (rather than being interchangable). With all three being gay, and the show starting in 1981, hints of the AIDS epidemic are shown around them. But only Colin interacts with someone visibly sick, with Ritchie and Roscoe being seemingly unaware of what is going on. Sad seeing Neil Patrick Harris die.

    Apparently, the show is partly inspired by Davies' own experiences of this era and the AIDS epidemic in the UK.

  • #2
    "Episode 2".

    Jill learns that her friend Greg has AIDS, and ends up becoming his sort of caregiver. Though, the lack of information leaves her paranoid and scared. She asks Colin to pick up some magazines, when he's in New York, as she can't get any info in London. There is a truth to that. Looking at Simon Watney's book Policing Desire, gay men visiting the states (from the UK) would, around this time, want to bring back copies of magazines like The Advocate and New York Native (which had effectively been made illegal in the UK, since a 1984 raid by the British Costums against the world's second biggest gay book store), because those magazines contained the only sustained information and debates about the AIDS epidemic.

    Really wanted to punch the Doctor, whom Jill seeks out for information, who insist that she couldn't be affected. Not only does HIV affect also straight people, but studies in the United States (not sure about the UK) found that HIV disproportionally affected blacks, Asians, Native Americans and Latinos. Of course, this is 1984, and that study was done a few years later (in another country). The Doctor was written as a reflection of the times.

    Colin gets fired after his creep boss finds that Colin's been buying magazines about AIDS. This rings very true. Because of fear and ignorance related to the AIDS epidemic, a man could be fired simply for "looking gay" (causing costumers to fear that he has it and that they might get infected, simply by being in the same room).

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    • #3
      "Episode 3".

      RIP Colin. The way that hospital treated him, and the way his mom's neighbors treated her for having a son with AIDS, is digusting.

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      • #4
        "Episode 4."

        Who hasn't wanted to do that, in Thatcher's coffee?

        The actress who plays Jill's mom is Jill Nalder, whom Davies based the character of Jill Baxter on. Ritchie appearing in a fictional episode of classic Doctor Who was actually a tribute to Davies' friend, Dursley McLinden (who played Mike Smith in Remembrance of the Daleks), who died from AIDS in 1995 (aged 30), rather than a reference to Davies' own past as producer of the modern series.
        Last edited by jon-el87; 02-04-2021, 01:32 AM.

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        • #5
          "Episode 5"

          RIP Ritchie. I had hoped that he would survived long enough to be put on HAART. But HAART was several years in the future, from 1991.

          Roscoe begins to patch things up with his family. During the first meeting with his father, there is an ackowledgement of women and children dying in Africa from AIDS. It should be noted, that it's only within the past 20 years, that films about AIDS have focused on Africa. Historically, both women and people of color with HIV/AIDS have been given limited space, in media representations of the epidemic. Many of the media depictions centers around white men. I thought that this show was good, but will also acknowledge that it does not break from the dominant media depiction of HIV/AIDS as being something affecting white men (specifically gay/bisexual, white men). While the show throws in the odd line about it affecting women and people of color, all the onscreen victims that we get to know are white men, who are homosexual. What will you remember? A throwaway line by John Hurt, in a bit from an AIDS program from the 1980s, acknowledging women also being affected by it? Or the main characters? Sure, Roscoe gets himself tested, but tests negative. He never visits or interacts with black men in London, who are HIV+. Nor does Ash interact with HIV+ Indians in London.

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