Together, they wove a textured and nuanced set of queer narratives that offer a refreshing alternative to tired stories of trauma and cooptation. He also set up what Ryan O’Connell, a writer and actor on the show, described as the “Out100 of fucking writers’ rooms,” which included the likes of Brontez Purnell, Punkie Johnson, and Roxane Gay. After securing the blessing of Russell T Davies, the creator of the original drama series, Dunn moved the setting to New Orleans and assembled a cast of hot queers to bring the show to life. So when Peacock announced the remake of the seminal show Queer as Folk would be dropping j ust in time for Pride, expectations were mixed.īut for Stephen Dunn, the plan to reimagine QaF began years before the reboot craze-the Newfoundland-born director remembers falling in love with the 1999 original while watching it in his basement as a 10-year-old. Despite the relentless commercialization of queerness, LGBTQIA+ representation on screen has been remarkably narrow, overwhelmingly focused on the lives of affluent, white, cis, and able-bodied people. In the era of the reboot, queer retellings (think The L Word: Generation Q ) often err on the side of serving watered-down, buzz word-heavy social justice.
