Out writer Russell T. Davies, creator
of the gay drama Queer as Folk, has said that he omitted
HIV/AIDS from the series on purpose.
Queer as Folk had two seasons on
Channel 4. It inspired the Showtime series by the same name, which
ran for five seasons.
In an op-ed for the Guardian,
Davies said that it wasn't an accident that the words HIV and AIDS
were never spoken on the television show.
“[A]fter I'd invented a raft of gay
characters for various soaps – a lesbian vicar, schoolboy lovers, a
gay barman in 1920 – I came to invent Queer as Folk in 1999,
Britain's first gay drama,” Davies wrote. “And the words HIV and
Aids were said … not once.”
“That was quite a press launch. The
rage, the shouting! Two hundred journalists in full pomp. The
straight press were as hostile as you’d expect, but the gay press
were especially furious because we had no condoms, no warnings, no
messages on screen. Well, yes, tough. Because by that stage, in 1999,
I refused to let our lives be defined by disease. So I excluded it on
purpose. The omission of Aids was a statement in itself, and it was
the right thing to do.”
“In truth, the virus does tick away
in the background of QAF. There are charity nights, a fleeting
mention of a dead friend, and in one episode, a character has a
one-night stand which results in his death. It’s caused by an
overdose, but the man he hooks up with is called Harvey. I said to
the producer, Nicola Shindler, 'Harvey? D’you get it? Har-vee, like
HIV.' She said, 'Don’t be so pretentious. Never tell anyone that,'”
he
wrote.
Davies' latest project, It's a Sin,
looks at the horrible toll the epidemic took on the LGBT community
through the lives of three friends. In a teaser clip from the show,
Olly Alexander's character says he doesn't believe in the “gay
cancer” because he's not stupid.
(Related: First
look: Russell T. Davies' AIDS drama, starring Olly Alexander, coming
to HBO Max.)
The five-part drama set in the 1980s
will air later this year on Channel 4 in the UK and HBO Max in the
United States.