Sometimes there's nothing like period fiction to make you say thank you for contemporary life. There's nothing like traveling back in time to put yourself in your place. It happens to me a lot with series that tell us LGTBI realities, perhaps because they are the ones with respect to which the West has changed the most in the shortest time.
Fellow Travelers (Skyshowtime) — an adaptation of Thomas Mallon's novel of the same name — tells the emotional love story between Hawkes and Tim, two men from the political intricacies of Washington at the height of McCarthyism. A tortuous love story that spans from the time of the purple terror in the 10s, which put more than 000,<> government employees out of work, to the AIDS crisis in the <>s. A kind of gay Forrest Gump, whose references range from As We Were to the films of Ang Lee or Todd Haynes.
25 years ago, a series like Fellow Travelers would have been impossible for many reasons. First of all, because of the explicitness of the gay sex it shows. Second, because it co-stars two openly gay stars, Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer, who also serves as executive producer. Queer as Folk is 24 years old; 30, Philadelphia, written by Ron Nyswaner, creator of Fellow travelers.
Gabriel Attal, France's new prime minister.YOAN VALAT (EFE)
I like to imagine Gabriel Attal, the new and very young French prime minister, watching it. Attal, who was outed in 2019, said shortly afterwards about his homosexuality: "I have always considered that it could be assumed without claiming it. I wonder if carrying it as a flag wouldn't contribute to making it an abnormal thing." After decades of progress, some LGBTI+ people live in the privilege of the indifference of others. There are those, like Attal, who transfer it to their way of life. I like to imagine it, and I don't think it has, some series put you in your place.
You can follow EL PAÍS Televisión on X or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
_