Television: It's Here, It's Queer Get Used To It

Halloween may be a gay high Holy Day in Greenwich Village, but it was business as usual on the Toronto set of Queer as Folk. O.K., almost as usual. Amid various cross-dressers and naughty priests, there was a crew guy outfitted in a spangly cowboy outfit, an assistant director dressed like Cher and actresses Thea Gill and Michelle Clunie--fresh from filming a lesbian love scene--tricked out as "Texas hookers" with red feather boas. Then there was the pumpkin-carving contest, including one jolly squash accessorized with a...well, put it this way: it's not a banana, and the pumpkin is happy to see you.

"It's all about sex," says gay-boy-next-door Michael (Hal Sparks) in QAF's two-hour pilot (Showtime, Sundays, 10 p.m., starting Dec. 3). That is an exaggeration, but just barely. This adaptation of the controversial 1999 British cult hit series about a group of young gay friends is also about challenging gay and straight shibboleths, about relationships and responsibility.

But mostly it's about sex. The adrenaline-charged opening begins in a pheromone-drenched disco on Pittsburgh's gay mecca, Liberty Avenue, then hurtles at 200 beats a minute into an outre lust scene between 29-year-old rake Brian (Gale Harold) and Justin (Randy Harrison), a kid of 17--count 'em, 17--years. No conveniently arranged sheets, no angst, no kisses shot from the back: in 10 hot minutes, QAF opens the closet of gay TV sexuality and chucks in a neon stick of dynamite.

"There are more gay characters on TV now, but they're mostly clowns or eunuchs," says Ron Cowen, who executive produces the show and co-wrote the pilot with his life partner, Daniel Lipman. The two have battled the networks to get gay characters on the air since they wrote the Emmy-winning An Early Frost, the first TV movie about aids, back in 1985. When they created NBC's Sisters in 1991, says Lipman, they tried unsuccessfully to make one of the leads gay. So they were attracted by the British QAF's "unapologetic" attitude--about things like drug use in the gay community and the fact that gay teens, like straight ones, get horny, sometimes for older men. "I don't look at Justin as a child," Lipman says. "He's the predator, not Brian."

The British series was the brainchild of Russell T. Davies, who based it on the lives of his friends in gritty Manchester. (The title comes from the saying "There's naught so queer as folk"--there's nothing as strange as people.) Davies took heat from conservatives and from gays, who called it defamatory and unrealistic. "It's realistic for men who live like that," he argues. "It's not realistic for everyone." Cowen calls such criticism "internalized homophobia."

QAF's controversial pedigree intrigued Showtime, which is gunning for pay-cable giant HBO (which, like TIME, is owned by Time Warner). Showtime sees QAF as its Sopranos, or at least part of a suite of niche-targeted shows--including Resurrection Blvd. (Hispanics) and Soul Food (African Americans)--that will add up to a Sopranos. The network set up a new subscription number--1-800-COMING-OUT--and distributed "premiere party kits" to gay and lesbian college groups. (Though one hopes any self-respecting homosexual would take a pass on party tips from a TV company.)