At the beginning of the successful series It is sin, there is a glimpse of the hopeful future of the show’s heroes that gives a hint and what the show is. Ritchie wants his “name in the lights”. Colin will “remain happy to work here” at the tailor where he is learning. Roscoe predicts: “I’m going to be filthy rich”. It is a perfect moment that encompasses so much about three central characters that will be swept away by the AIDS epidemic that is plaguing London’s gay population. We see the aspirations of these vibrant, hopeful and witty young people. But knowing a little of the story the show portrays casts a shadow over the statements: Who among these men will be lost to AIDS?
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Shifting from uplifting to devastating from scene to scene, It’s A Sin is a brilliant (if not easy) watch. Created by Russel T. Davies de Queer As Folk and Years & Years, covers 10 years of the AIDS epidemic over five episodes, in shifts of mourning and homage to the young people who were most commonly affected by it. We start with Ritchie (Olly Alexander), who moves from her conservative and strict family on the Isle of Wight to London to university, where she meets a new group of friends who celebrate her – and her – queerness, including Jill (Lydia West), Ash (Nathaniel Curtis) and Roscoe (Omari Douglas). Separately, we met the calm and kind Colin (Callum Scott Howells), who moved to London for a tailor training.
Throughout the following episodes, we see the group react to AIDS at first with disbelief, until they witness gay men being victims of the virus, including their friend Gregory (David Carlyle) and Colin’s mentor, Henry (How I met your mother star Neil Patrick Harris). Soon these young gay men are affected: Colin falls ill after contracting AIDS from a former roommate and undergoes a terrible decline. His death leads his friends to take the test: Roscoe and Ash discover they are not infected, but Ritchie avoids receiving his results. He soon suffers from the disease – which is when his vengeful parents return from the Isle of Wight to discover that they did not know their son as well as they thought.
How much of that sin really happened?
Showrunner Russel T. Davies said that much of It is sin is loosely based on the events of his own life, living as a gay man in the 1980s. This is a fictional television based on historical facts. Most of the characters in the series are not based on real people, rather than characters made up of a series of events, but Jill Baxter is based on a real woman: Jill Nalder, a friend of Davies of the time (who actually plays the Jill ‘s mother In the show). Although Colin’s character is a fictional creation, his situation during the contracting of HIV and AIDS, his detention and eventual death are all based on a real case of the time.
The description of the era covered in the show, from 1981 to 1991, is also based on facts. Davies himself reflected on how people initially denied the AIDS crisis and how the decade that began with the exploration of the freedom offered to gays in cities like London turned into one of fear and trauma, similar to what is portrayed in the presentation. The era was marked by protests and dissatisfaction with the way the government and health officials treated gays and the AIDS crisis as a whole. Friends would disappear “at home” and never be seen again, just like Ritchie, and the UK government that handled the crisis has long been criticized.
Why Ritchie’s death is not shown in It’s the end of a sin
It is sin it was not made to close. It is not an easy clock, but it tries to portray faithfully how gay men, their friends and family were feeling while the AIDS epidemic was affecting the population of gay men, who were unevenly affected. It also explores how people around people who contracted HIV and AIDS acted. Ritchie never told his family that he was gay until they showed up in London to surprise him and discover him in his hospital bed, suffering from lymphoma caused by AIDS complications. Her mother (Keeley Hawes) and her father (Shaun Dooley) are furious and blame everyone from Ritchie to the nurse working in the AIDS ward, to Jill and Ash. They are avoiding their feelings of inadequacy, shame and guilt. In order to try to make up for their shortcomings, they take Ritchie back to the Isle of Wight and prevent his friends from seeing him until it’s too late. Ritchie’s death off-screen may preserve for Jill, Roscoe and the viewer their earlier description as undisciplined and colorful, but it harms the closure. They couldn’t be with their friend when he needed it most. Describing Ritchie’s death in this way – somewhat in contrast to Colin’s previous death – emulates the feeling of loss felt by survivors of the AIDS crisis after his friends disappeared.
Why Jill visits the man who is dying of AIDS
Despite depicting the horrors suffered by people affected by HIV and AIDS, It is sin it reaches a hopeful tone of preserving memory and helping people in the darkest moments of their lives. At the end of the series, Jill found out, helped people and educated them about AIDS as an activist for almost a decade. She knows that, despite how it feels to lose your best friend, the fight is not over. The man who is dying of AIDS is revealed in a previous scene as having no visitors and no request for contact with anyone. He is alone, as so many men were during the crisis. Jill goes to the man to comfort him because he has no one else. Their actions prove that the fight is not over, that more activism is needed and that people like Jill will continue to fight for those who cannot.
Why Roscoe returns to his family
Roscoe has a chance encounter with her father at the AIDS ward. He was called to support a man from the infirmary. Roscoe is shocked to think of these people that he thought he left behind. His father says he visited Nigeria, where the family planned to send Roscoe earlier in the season. In Nigeria, his father saw people suffering from AIDS – not just gays, but also women and children. He had a real moment to come to Jesus, realizing that the disease is not a punishment sent by God to affect only gays, and he asks Roscoe for forgiveness. Roscoe’s return to his family is a sign that he is working to give that forgiveness and, provisionally, bring his family back into his life.
It’s a sin it’s about how to gun identity
Throughout the period portrayed in the program – and for a long time before, after and still – different people were stigmatized and treated as strangers, and unworthy of love, attention or support. This applies especially to minority groups, such as people in the LGBTQIA + community.
It is sin it shows, in so many points, how an individual’s identity can be used as a weapon against them. Colin is fired simply for having newspapers and magazines that discuss AIDS, and is arrested and considered “a threat to society” because he contracts the virus. Ritchie feels ashamed and hides his true identity from his family because he fears that they will react badly if he decides to come out, which is the same shame he feels when contracting HIV and because he hides his positive status. Forming an unconventional family found at Pink Palace – the apartment that the main characters share – is a way to come together and protect against this stigmatization. The safe queer spaces that we see portrayed in the program, such as gay clubs and AIDS wards, are also a way for these cultures to protect themselves from discrimination and persecution.
It’s a sin, a story of maturing for a lost generation
There were so many people lost to the AIDS epidemic, and It is sin tries to tell the story of this generation growing up from carefree and idealistic, eventually becoming responsible and caring, united by their shared trauma. The moment at the beginning of It is sin where the protagonists reflect on their goals for the future shows what Ritchie wants: to be a famous and renowned actor creating a good job, no matter the role size.
But It is sin it’s not just about trauma and death or what went wrong. The show balances the joy in life that these young people experience, and the joy and the bonds of love that unite them in their common family. The show takes a long time to celebrate each victim’s life, be it Gregory’s joy and liveliness, Ritchie’s love of life and passion for acting, the discovery of Colin’s wide-eyed world or longtime love Henry for him. partner. The show celebrates this lost generation of gays as much as it regrets them.
What does the end of a sin and the final shot mean
One of the last times we saw Ritchie, he is talking to his mother in his childhood bedroom, trying to show her why – despite loving and needing her – he is desperate to see his friends. He talks as he would with them, casually, obscenely, talking about his sexual experiences and all the beys he’s been with, and she backs off. But what he means is that he lived the life he wanted and that he “had a lot of fun”. The scene gives us Ritchie in a nutshell, but this final scene with him and all his friends goes a step further, celebrating the way these people came together and found joy in who they really are.
This celebration of these young people crystallizes in the final scene of the show, which portrays the main characters in a wooded park on a clear day. Ritchie stands before Roscoe, Jill, Gregory, Colin and Ash, practicing a monologue from William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth night ice cream melting in hand. The joy that these people feel for each other is so clear, they are laughing, hugging and touching, just because they are together. They found people who can help them in the worst times. even though It is sin being a brutal clock, there are equal measures of beauty in each episode.
