Queer as Folk may have premiered nearly twenty years ago, but there are still many things about it that are relevant to today. While LGBT+ representation on television has greatly improved in two decades, there is still a ways to go. There is more representation in general, but there’s no denying that Queer as Folk broke many barriers and was in many ways more daring than many queer shows today. However, the series definitely wasn’t perfect and had a lot of problematic aspects, too.
Here are the five things about Queer as Folk that have aged poorly and five that will always be timeless.
POORLY: HAVING A VIEW OF SEXUALITY THAT WASN’T VERY NUANCED
Given that the show ended in 2005, its view on sexuality was a little bit outdated. Most of the main characters on the show identified as gay men. While there’s nothing wrong with this, there wasn’t a lot of representation of other orientations, such as bisexual. The show seemed to present more of a black-and-white vision of sexuality that was made up mostly of straight and gay people.
TIMELESS: BEING EXTREMELY GROUNDBREAKING
There were so many things about Queer as Folk that broke barriers. First of all, even having a show where all of the main characters were LGBT+ was a huge deal. The series was relatively popular, and it didn’t try to soften these characters to make them seem less threatening to an audience who might not be open-minded. The show tackled many LGBT+ issues and was very upfront about everything.
POORLY: NOT GREAT AT PORTRAYING FEMALE CHARACTERS
There were really only a few female characters on this show. There were Melanie and Lindsay, the show’s resident and only predominantly-featured queer female couple. Then, the only other main female character was Michael’s mom Debbie. While it’s understandable that Queer as Folk was telling a story mostly about gay men, they could have done a better job including more women. Plus, the storylines given to the main lesbian couple were rather stereotypical and revolved around parenting and infidelity.
TIMELESS: UNAPOLOGETIC DEPICTION OF QUEER MALE SEXUALITY
One thing that many LGBT+ activists have noted about queer representation in media is how it is often desexualized. Letting LGBT+ people be shown as rich, complex people with sex lives is fairly rare. Queer as Folk threw this all out the window. The show made no apologies about showing sexuality and included some groundbreaking scenes with sex acts never shown on television before.
POORLY: LACK OF RACIAL DIVERSITY
The main issues with the show that have aged poorly revolve around lack of diversity. There could have been a lot more diversity with gender and sexuality, and this is also true with race. All of the main characters on this show were white men. It’s rather disappointing that not even one person in the main group of friends was a man of color. The only recurring character who was a person of color was Daphne Chanders, Justin’s close friend.
TIMELESS: BEING VERY REALISTIC ABOUT THE HATE CRIMES LGBT+ PEOPLE FACE
Queer as Folk often didn’t pull punches when it came to dealing with some of the harsh realities that queer people face in society. First of all, there was the heartbreaking scene where Justin was beat up after his prom. Then there was the episode where The Babylon was bombed. This is sadly still relevant today given real-life events such as the tragic shooting in Orlando. The show didn’t ever shy away from depicting the types of hate crimes that real-life people have had to deal with.
POORLY: FOCUSING TOO MUCH ON THE CLUB SCENE
This point is fairly nuanced because there are two sides to this. On the one hand, the way the show embraced a certain culture that is somewhat prevalent in the gay community was admirable. The show’s message was often that LGBT+ people didn’t have to change their lifestyle to fit the mainstream. On the other hand, it’s not accurate that all queer people engage mostly in the club and bar scene.
TIMELESS: NOT BEING INTERESTED IN CATERING TO A MAINSTREAM AUDIENCE
As hinted at other times in this article, Queer as Folk wasn’t created solely as a show for a heterosexual audience. While it was a series that people of all sexualities could enjoy and relate to, it definitely had many elements that largely appealed to an LGBT+ audience. Queer as Folk didn’t try to water itself down to be more palatable for what was considered acceptable in the mainstream at the time.
POORLY: PORTRAYING SEX WITH UNDERAGE MEN
This is the biggest critique that has been lobbied against the show, and it’s an extremely valid one. In the U.S. version of the series, Brian first meets and hooks up with Justin when he’s only seventeen. In the U.K. version, there is an instance of a 15-year-old having sex with an adult man. Both of these instances are statutory rape, and the show brushes it off as mostly acceptable because both parties were men. This is definitely one of the most troubling things about the show and most controversial.
TIMELESS: SHOWING A GROUP OF GAY MEN WHO WERE VARYING DEGREES OF MASCULINE/FEMININE
While the series could have done a better job at showing diversity in its main character one area where it excelled was in showing a group of gay men who were different in how they presented themselves. Some of the men were more masculine while some were more feminine and flamboyant. This wide range of gay men was definitely refreshing, and it’s great that the show didn’t reduce its main characters to stereotypes at the time of what a gay man looked and acted like.