it's a sin
May. 6th, 2021 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sea_changedI keep meaning to post and then I keep not posting; I have books to talk about and gardening and new fic, but: I watched It's a Sin last weekend, and I keep thinking about it, and so I wanted to get down some of my thoughts.
I mean, first of all, I loved it. It's been literal years since I watched any narrative TV, as I'd become very sick of the constant output and navigating streaming services and everyone telling me that something was the best show ever, and I needed to have watched it yesterday. This makes it all sound very petty, and it was, but mostly I just had other things I wanted to do with my time. I didn't quit TV; it was just that nothing really seemed worth it.
But this is exactly the kind of thing I'm invested in and it's a miniseries, five 45-minute episodes, so very doable, and created and written by Russell T. Davies, so a familiar face/style/what have you.
As it turned out it probably should've been at least twice the length it was: it covers ten years, 1981-1991, and it just does not have the breathing space to give the characters or relationships their due. This is not something I noticed really while watching it, it must be said: it's very adept at sucking you in and taking you on its journey. For the most part it was only afterward that I went, hm, we should've gotten way more from them, or that relationship didn't really make sense at all in hindsight.
But what I think saves it, and makes it resonant and compelling, is its moments: there were at least a handful of scenes every episode that just blew me away, which statistically is pretty bonkers. I can't even list them all, but there was so much that I loved: there was the funny (pissing in Margaret Thatcher's coffee!), the clever (Richie's monologue early on about "gay cancer"), the defiant (so much, but especially Ash's monologue about Section 28, and Richie telling his mother how much fun they'd all had), the heartbreaking (Richie's speech about how he's never going to be anything, which hit very, very hard). There was so much going on--indeed, too much going on--but Davies stuck the landing over and over, even if the routine, to perilously extend this metaphor, was sloppy.
It wore its tropes comfortably, for the most part: there were only a few moments I felt like I was watching a PSA. I'm not sure how to avoid that entirely in fiction about AIDS if you're not Tony Kushner (though I would be fascinated if people have recs or thoughts about this); the problem is, of course, that the viewer knows so much more than the characters, and the temptation of dramatic irony is too strong or just too necessary. That was one thing I really appreciated about the "gay cancer" monologue that I mentioned above: it was transparently a history lesson about early AIDS theories, and yet it was entertaining (which seems like the wrong word, but it was) even if you already know that history, and also served a dramatic point, that is, that the whole thing sounded bizarre and unreal in its early days. How could this possibly be real? The monologue presented that argument in a way that was sympathetic, which I think is something of a triumph, and jolts the audience perhaps from the complacency of our historic positioning. Yes, we know what's true and what they all should be or shouldn't be doing; but they don't, and what they do know sounds insane, or like a bad joke.
(Which is, of course, what makes good historical fiction: being able to understand why people made the choices they did in the past, even if we from our place in the present can see why those choices were bad or led to bad things.)
It did avoid being a morality play, which we can all be grateful for; none of the gay characters is the villain in this story, even when they do things that are morally, at best, questionable. There was a bit I disliked where the show felt the need to explain in flashback how and by whom one of the characters got infected, which seemed unnecessary and undermined a nice bit just before it where Roscoe says basically, look, we can't know, we'll never know, and we just have to live with that.
This is all very scattered and impressionistic, but: it was good. It was worth watching. How do you make historical fiction about something that is partly over and partly still very real? I don't have a good answer to that, but I thought the show was a fascinating attempt. It was educational without surrendering its dramatic purpose; it was a piece of fiction that nonetheless seemed to feel keenly its relevance to the real world. Apparently British HIV/AIDS organizations saw a dramatic uptick in donations and in people getting tested after it aired, which can only be a good thing. Maybe if you have some spare cash or time you could research organizations near you to help out; that's what I'll be doing, at any rate.
And in related news: the ONE Archives in L.A. is doing a reading of The Normal Heart Saturday night, which I have a ticket for. (Speaking of fiction that attempts to balance its dramatic and educational imperatives; though, of course, it wasn't historical when it was written.) It'll be my first theatrical Zoom experience; my ability to navigate the world of Zoom performances has been more or less nil, and I haven't seen theater of any sort since literally the last night of Broadway in March 2020. Wild.
I mean, first of all, I loved it. It's been literal years since I watched any narrative TV, as I'd become very sick of the constant output and navigating streaming services and everyone telling me that something was the best show ever, and I needed to have watched it yesterday. This makes it all sound very petty, and it was, but mostly I just had other things I wanted to do with my time. I didn't quit TV; it was just that nothing really seemed worth it.
But this is exactly the kind of thing I'm invested in and it's a miniseries, five 45-minute episodes, so very doable, and created and written by Russell T. Davies, so a familiar face/style/what have you.
As it turned out it probably should've been at least twice the length it was: it covers ten years, 1981-1991, and it just does not have the breathing space to give the characters or relationships their due. This is not something I noticed really while watching it, it must be said: it's very adept at sucking you in and taking you on its journey. For the most part it was only afterward that I went, hm, we should've gotten way more from them, or that relationship didn't really make sense at all in hindsight.
But what I think saves it, and makes it resonant and compelling, is its moments: there were at least a handful of scenes every episode that just blew me away, which statistically is pretty bonkers. I can't even list them all, but there was so much that I loved: there was the funny (pissing in Margaret Thatcher's coffee!), the clever (Richie's monologue early on about "gay cancer"), the defiant (so much, but especially Ash's monologue about Section 28, and Richie telling his mother how much fun they'd all had), the heartbreaking (Richie's speech about how he's never going to be anything, which hit very, very hard). There was so much going on--indeed, too much going on--but Davies stuck the landing over and over, even if the routine, to perilously extend this metaphor, was sloppy.
It wore its tropes comfortably, for the most part: there were only a few moments I felt like I was watching a PSA. I'm not sure how to avoid that entirely in fiction about AIDS if you're not Tony Kushner (though I would be fascinated if people have recs or thoughts about this); the problem is, of course, that the viewer knows so much more than the characters, and the temptation of dramatic irony is too strong or just too necessary. That was one thing I really appreciated about the "gay cancer" monologue that I mentioned above: it was transparently a history lesson about early AIDS theories, and yet it was entertaining (which seems like the wrong word, but it was) even if you already know that history, and also served a dramatic point, that is, that the whole thing sounded bizarre and unreal in its early days. How could this possibly be real? The monologue presented that argument in a way that was sympathetic, which I think is something of a triumph, and jolts the audience perhaps from the complacency of our historic positioning. Yes, we know what's true and what they all should be or shouldn't be doing; but they don't, and what they do know sounds insane, or like a bad joke.
(Which is, of course, what makes good historical fiction: being able to understand why people made the choices they did in the past, even if we from our place in the present can see why those choices were bad or led to bad things.)
It did avoid being a morality play, which we can all be grateful for; none of the gay characters is the villain in this story, even when they do things that are morally, at best, questionable. There was a bit I disliked where the show felt the need to explain in flashback how and by whom one of the characters got infected, which seemed unnecessary and undermined a nice bit just before it where Roscoe says basically, look, we can't know, we'll never know, and we just have to live with that.
This is all very scattered and impressionistic, but: it was good. It was worth watching. How do you make historical fiction about something that is partly over and partly still very real? I don't have a good answer to that, but I thought the show was a fascinating attempt. It was educational without surrendering its dramatic purpose; it was a piece of fiction that nonetheless seemed to feel keenly its relevance to the real world. Apparently British HIV/AIDS organizations saw a dramatic uptick in donations and in people getting tested after it aired, which can only be a good thing. Maybe if you have some spare cash or time you could research organizations near you to help out; that's what I'll be doing, at any rate.
And in related news: the ONE Archives in L.A. is doing a reading of The Normal Heart Saturday night, which I have a ticket for. (Speaking of fiction that attempts to balance its dramatic and educational imperatives; though, of course, it wasn't historical when it was written.) It'll be my first theatrical Zoom experience; my ability to navigate the world of Zoom performances has been more or less nil, and I haven't seen theater of any sort since literally the last night of Broadway in March 2020. Wild.
