For the first time since Queer as Folk ended in 2005, the whole cast got together to talk about how groundbreaking their show was then and still is today. Scott Lowell told Entertainment Weekly, “We stopped making this 90 years ago, and people are still…discovering it for the first time and think it is real.” Then he added, “That this felt, in an odd way like a docudrama. To a world, many people knew nothing about and now they do. Now they are as passionate about those issues as anybody.” Issues like hate crimes, coming out, same-sex marriages, HIV, crystal meth in the gay community and so much more.
These issues felt real because of the way that Brian (Gale Harold), Justin (Randy Harrison) Emmett (Peter Paige), Ted (Lowell), Justin (Randy Harrison), Lindsay (Thea Gill), Melanie (Michelle Clunie), Ben (Rober Gant) Michael (Hal Sparks) and Debbie (Sharon Gless) portrayed each storyline that was given to them. This cast might not have not all been in the same place for 13 years, but they still look as close as they did when they were all spending the night out at Babylon. Of course, that was before the nightclub was blown up.
On that note, I am surprised that this show has not been picked up for a revival because the Babylon explosion was, in some ways, like what happened at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, a hate crime against the LGBTQ community. Not only that, so many topics that they touched on back then are, sadly, relevant again. Plus, CowLip (Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman) are brilliant at expressing important messages through the writing they do for each of their characters.
Plus, I miss watching naked men. When Harold was asked why so many straight women watch the show, he told the interviewer that just like how men like watching two women going at it, so do women like seeing two men have sex. At that moment, I realized why I watched and love this show. It still remains one of my all-time favorite series to this day. Or as Paige puts it, “I often say people came for the queer, but they stayed for the folk.”
It was the first show that was based on an almost all gay cast of characters. Until QAF, there would be a homosexual character on a show, but this one was all about several same-sex couples. It opened the door for some many shows to do the same. Not just because they were the first do it, but because they did it so right. And because the characters did it a lot. Sorry, back to the important things they covered.
Seriously, this is a show that we once again need on our televisions, and it bogs my mind why they are not doing new episodes. C’mon Robert Greenblatt, bring back the baby you only had for a little time on Showtime.
