It's a Sin
No longer just my favorite tune by the Pet Shop Boys, It’s a Sin now also refers to the new HBO Max miniseries chronicling the lives of a group of young queers in 1980s London as they thrive and survive the AIDS epidemic. Yes, that sounds very bleak, and in a lot of parts it is, but the show is also surprisingly joyous. Mild spoilers ahead.
The five-part mini follows the lives of Ritchie, Roscoe, Colin, Jill and Ash—five London housemates whose lives are upended by the onset and rise of AIDS. The show covers about a decade of their lives, from how they all came together as a group, to how they grew as young adults, and how they grappled with the mysterious illness ravaging their community, and eventually, their own bodies.
It’s a familiar premise, made more so by the times we’re in now. You don’t have to look too hard to find parallels to current events—from the scientific uncertainty and denialism, to the moral judgment that people make toward others’ individual and collective choices.
The found family of Ash, Colin, Roscoe, Jill and Ritchie. Courtesy of HBO Max, 2021
AIDS stories are harrowing and bleak, as they should be, and I’d have thought that the impact of It’s a Sin would hit me a lot harder during a pandemic. As a gay man who have loved ones living with HIV and have lost some to AIDS, it was hard for me to watch The Normal Heart or Angels in America. I braced myself for this miniseries, aware of my second-hand baggage, and especially given the existential panic and moral outrage that is part of living in the time of the coronavirus.
So I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of joy in It’s a Sin. The show depicted the characters’ lives with hope and happiness and exuberance and frivolity, which I don’t see often in media about the AIDS crisis. Even in the episodes set during the height of the epidemic, it had moments that had me laughing out loud and cheering.
Ritchie explains the origin of “The Pink Palace”. Courtesy of HBO Max, 2021
Of course the moments of joy don’t blunt the gravity of the subject matter. In fact they highlight the profound pain and injustices that the characters and their loved ones go through, and it does so in such an effective way. In the third episode for example, I’d gone from laughing out loud to bawling my eyes out in a matter of minutes.
That balance is one of the many things I enjoyed about the show; I also enjoyed how the cast, from different backgrounds and experiences, come to form their own family, and I especially like how they are all young people. We see them going through the drama of coming out, balancing school and work, learning how to date and have sex (a lot of good, fun sex!), basically becoming new adults. They overcome these obstacles in varying degrees and they carry on even as they find new ones as AIDS comes along.
Overall, I really enjoyed the show, to the extent one can “enjoy” a show about such a serious topic, and despite the state of the world and my emotional predisposition. It’s been a while since I raved about a queer show, and though I don’t want there to be more It’s a Sin (it’s a complete story in five episodes—a rarity), I hope there’d be more like it.
Thumbnail image: Detail of It’s a Sin promotional poster, courtesy of HBO Max, 2021