Already early in the hit series It is a sin, there is a glimpse into the hopeful future of the show’s heroes who give tips and what the show is about. Ritchie wants his “name in lights”. Colin will ‘still be happy to work here’, with the partner where he teaches. Roscoe predicts: “I will be stink rich”. It’s a perfect moment that sums up three central characters that will be whipped up in the AIDS epidemic that is devastating the foreign population in London. We see the aspirations of these lively, hopeful, enthusiastic young men. But the knowledge of the history depicting the show casts a shadow over the statements: Which of these men will be lost to AIDS?
Click the button below to start this article in a quick view.
It’s a brilliant (if not easy) watch that swings from scene to scene from constructive to devastating. Created by Russel T. Davies of Queer As Folk in Years & Years, it covers ten years of the AIDS epidemic over the course of five episodes, mourning their turn and celebrating the young men most affected by it. We start with Ritchie (Olly Alexander) moving away from his strict, conservative family on the Isle of Wight to London for college, where he meets a new crew of friends celebrating his – and their own – authenticity, including Jill (Lydia West ), Ash (Nathaniel Curtis) and Roscoe (Omari Douglas). Separately, we meet the quiet and gentle Colin (Callum Scott Howells) who has moved to London for an apprentice with a friend.
During the next installments, we first see the group react to AIDS with disbelief until they see gay men falling victim to 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 gets a huge drop. His death asks his friends to be tested: Roscoe and Ash discover they are not infected, but Ritchie avoids his results. He soon suffers from the disease himself – this is when his vengeful parents descend from the Isle of Wight to discover that they do not know their son as well as they thought.
How much of it really happened?
Showlunner Russel T. Davies said that many of It is a sin is loosely based on events from his own life, who lived as a gay man in the 1980s. It is fictional television that uses historical facts. Most of the characters in the show are not based on real people, but are composite characters from different events, but Jill Baxter is based on a real woman: Jill Nalder, a friend of Davies from the era (who is actually Jill’s mother play) in the show). Although Colin’s character is a fictional creation, his condition, due to the shrinkage of HIV and AIDS, his detention and eventual death, is all based on a real-life case.
The depiction of the era covered in the show, from 1981 to 1991, is also based. Davies himself reflected on how people initially denied the AIDS crisis, and how the decade that began exploring the freedom that gay people offered in cities like London turned into fear and trauma, similar to what was shown in the show. . The era was marked by protests and discontent over how the government and health authorities treated gay people and the AIDS crisis as a whole. Friends will disappear “at home” and never be seen again, just as happened with Ritchie, and the British government’s handling of the crisis has long been criticized.
Why Ritchie’s death is not shown in it is the end of a sin
It is a sin was not made to give closure. It’s not an easy look, but it faithfully tries to portray how gay men, their friends and family members felt when the AIDS epidemic swept through the population of gay men, who were affected unequally. It also examines how the people around those who contracted HIV and AIDS behaved. Ritchie never told his family he was gay until they arrived in London to surprise him and discover him in his hospital bed. He suffers from lymphoma caused by AIDS complications. His mother (Keeley Hawes) and father (Shaun Dooley) are incensed and blame everyone from Ritchie, to the nurse working on the AIDS ward, to Jill and Ash. They bend their feelings of inadequacy, shame and reproach. 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. The death of Ritchie off-screen may preserve for Jill, Roscoe and the spectator his earlier performance as reckless and colorful, but it takes them away. They could not be with their friend if he needed them most. The depiction of Ritchie’s death in this way – somewhat in contrast to Colin’s earlier death – mimics the sense of loss that the survivors of the AIDS crisis experience after their friends disappear.
Why Jill visits the man who died of AIDS
Despite the atrocities portrayed by those affected by HIV and AIDS, It is a sin strikes a hopeful tone to preserve memory and help people through the darkest times of their lives. By the end of the series, Jill had known, helped and educated people about AIDS as an activist for almost a decade. She knows that no matter how she feels about losing her best friend, the battle is not over. The man who died of AIDS is revealed at an earlier scene that he has no visitors and no requests to contact 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. Her actions prove that the struggle is not over yet, that more activism is needed and that people like Jill will continue to fight for those who cannot.
Why Roscoe goes back to his family
Roscoe had a chance encounter with his father in the AIDS ward. He was called to support a man in the hall. It screams Roscoe to consider these people what he thought he had left behind. His father tells him that he visited Nigeria, where the family planned to send Roscoe early in the season. In Nigeria, his father saw people suffering from AIDS – not just gay men but also women and children. He experienced a true Jesus moment and realized that the disease was not a punishment sent from God to affect only gay people, and he asked for forgiveness from Roscoe. Roscoe returning to his family is a sign of his attempt to forgive and bring his family back to life for the time being.
It is a sin that deals with identity weapons
During the period portrayed in the show – and long before, after and still – people who are different are stigmatized and treated as outsiders, and worthy of love or attention or support. This is especially true for minority groups such as people in the LGBTQIA + community.
It is a sin shows, on so many points, how an individual’s identity can be armed against him. Colin is fired simply for owning newspapers and magazines that cover AIDS, and is locked up and considered a threat to society because he contracted the virus. Ritchie feels ashamed and hides his true identity from his family because he is afraid they will react badly if he decides to come out, which is the same shame he feels when he contractes HIV and why he hides his positive status. Forming an unconventional family in the Pink Palace – the apartment that the main characters share – is a way of working together and protecting against stigma. The strange safe spaces we see on the show, such as gay clubs and the AIDS department, are also a way for these cultures to protect themselves from discrimination and persecution.
It’s A Sin Is a Coming-Of-Age Story for a Lost Generation
So many people have been lost by the AIDS epidemic, and It is a sin attempts to tell the story of this generation becoming carefree and idealistic, and eventually becoming responsible and caring, bound closer together by their shared trauma. The moment at the beginning of It is a sin where the main characters reflect on their goals for the future, shows what Ritchie wants: to be a famous and celebrated actor who creates good work, regardless of the size of the role.
But It is a sin do not focus only on trauma and death, or on what went wrong. The show balances the joy of life that these young people experience, and the joy and loving bonds that bind them in their joint family. The show takes a lot of time to celebrate each of the victims’ lives, be it Gregory’s joy and liveliness, Ritchie’s love of life and passion for acting, Colin’s wide – eyed discovery of the world, or Henry’s years of love for him mate. . The show celebrates this lost generation of gay men just as much as they grieve.
What it means to be a sin’s end and final shot
One of the last times we see Ritchie, he talks to his mother in his childhood bedroom and tries to show her why he, even though he loves her and needs her, is desperate to see his friends. He talks like he would talk to them, comfortable, obnoxious, talks about his sexual experiences and all the bees he’s been with, and she’s back. But his point is that he lived the life he wanted to live and that he ‘had so much fun’. The scene gives us Ritchie in a nutshell, but this last scene with him and all his friends takes a step further and celebrates the way these people came together and found joy in who they really are.
This celebration of these young men is crystallized in the final scene of the show, depicting the main characters in a green park on a clear day. Ritchie stands in front of Roscoe, Jill, Gregory, Colin and Ash and rehearses a monologue from William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night melting ice cream in hand. The joy for which these people and in each other feel is so evident that they laugh and embrace and touch, are just together. They have found people who can help them through the worst of times. In spite of It is a sin being a cruel watch, there is equal amount of beauty in each episode.
