To feel like the character of Jill in It's A Sin was really underdeveloped? ***Spoiler alert - added by MNHQ***

[Draineddraineddrained]

Just binged this show with DP over last couple of evenings and LOVED it (heartbreaking though it was) - but this just got to me...

I mean I don't find it unrealistic that a (presumably?) straight girl would be best friends with a group of gay men and become a huge advocate for them and an AIDS activist - my mum did similar back in the 80s, and I wish like anything she was still alive because she would have thought this show was amazing.

But she was also a full human being with her own life, relationships (mostly dire), failings and priorities - whereas Jill just seems like a sort of motherly cipher, there to hold everyone else together without any normal human feelings beyond extreme empathy and compassion. She feels like a fantasy of what a woman should be to men - completely supportive, undemanding, cares more for them than they do for themselves.

The horrible scene in the last episode where Ritchie's mum rips into her for having no life of her own - it was horrible but I couldn't help but think she had s point and was hoping that some "real" Jill might emerge as a result of this challenge - but no, she just continued to live her life for Ritchie and the other men in the show, even finding strangers to devote her compassion to.

Anyone else just find it really disappointing? I mean the story (clearly) is about gay men and what they went through during the height of the aids crisis. And that is an important story told with beauty and sensitivity. But why include a female character in that, ostensibly as a lead character, just to utterly marginalise and charicature her?

YABU: Jill's a great character/she's not what matters in this show

YANBU: She should have been done right or not at all.

I didn’t know that @SimonJT. I love Years and Years the band but I was a bit sceptical when I saw him cast in this. I thought it was a pop star trying to be an actor thing. Very happy to have been proved so wrong. He was excellent and really shone in the part.

Article in today's Guardian which among many things, raises the criticism regarding Jill's depiction, and the seeming lack of lesbian characters. It also mentioned that RTD has mentioned that he imagined this show as being long-running as there are just so many stories that could be told.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/10/its-a-sin-there-is-such-a-raw-truth-to-it

@sansucre

That was a frustrating article. There's no reason Jill and the solicitor couldn't have had an episode where they were the focus. It also seemed to end on a 'trans people are treated like gay people were in the 1980s' note, which (a) isn't true and (b) shuts down the very important conversation around conflicts of rights.

@MoodyMarshall

Not quite sure why you're commenting to me directly, I did not write the article, I merely shared it

It has already been mentioned by numerous posters that the series was only put into production once it was cut from 8 episodes to 5. Maybe if 8 had been commissioned, then episodes would have focused more on Jill and the solicitor more. However, given the series was originally called 'The Boys', it is highly unlikely Jill or the solicitor would have been the focus of any episodes. If you (and others) can't understand why they're supporting characters in this series, then you're rather missing the fact that Richie, Colin and Roscoe are the three leads.

As an aside, having worked in tv, I do find threads like this so frustrating as so many have zero idea how tv treatments are written, and how the writers/producers often have to drastically change their vision in order to get their work on screen. I think It's a Sin is an extraordinary piece of tv, and am really quite baffled that some are incapable of appreciating it as it is.

@sansucre, why do you think people don't know (or should know) how people compromise their vision to get their work on TV?

That seems such a bizarre response to a thread that's had masses of discussion of how the series wasn't what RTD had hoped for.

The bottom line is that 'vision' is not something we can tap into, magically. We have to watch the TV series as it is. And so that's what we're talking about.

Hi @sansucre sorry I read that back and it looked as though I was addressing my comments to you, I absolutely want, sorry thanks for sharing the article, it was really interesting.

*wasn't

I simply refuse to believe that OJ is older than me!

If anyone from Channel 4 is reading, I would watch a whole spin-off series about Lizbeth Farooqi and her work.

+1 to that!

@Floisme

I'm out of here soon because I'm getting far too invested in this - which is a compliment to RTD and everyone involved. But just want to add that I really don't understand the viewpoint that there was no need to flesh out Jill's character because it wasn't her story. I think well drawn characters always enhance a drama. Pride and Prejudice isn't Mrs Bennett's story but it would be diminished without her character. (And before anyone says again that there were only 5 episodes - the Andrew Davies P&P dramatisation was in 6 episodes, and the Keira Knightley / Matthew McFadyen film was about 2 hours 15 so done in half the time RTD had.)

That is true, but equally I don't think that people worry about not hearing as much about, say, Charlotte Lucas and her life away from her friendship with Elizabeth.

Sometimes characters are just there to support the main storyline and not every character can be fully fleshed out. With Jill, we saw her career, we met her parents, we saw her passion for her friends and her determination to make a change for AIDs patients, which is more than we saw of some of the other characters, like Ash and Gloria.

I think all characters are there ultimately to drive the narrative and build up a picture, and they all did that in this show.

This was a drama about gay men and AIDS. I wouldn't expect women to play a major role in it.
I can't praise this drama enough. Richie was such a 3 dimensional character and Olly Alexander was wonderful in the role. Overall, the cast was very strong. It was very evocative of the 80s but also shone the light on the dark aspects few of us appreciated at the time. The way those poor patients were locked up was barbaric. There was a lot of fear and ignorance amongst the public eg catching it from toilets but a minimum medical professionals should have treated these patients compassionately through barrier nursing. I hope this gets lots of awards.

Is RTD changing Jill's name to Mary-Sue for series 2? 😁

I had another thought... (sorry for the disjointed random thoughts! 😂)

It seemed important to the narrative that jills parents were a mixed race couple, making them more understanding than some of the discrimination the men were facing. Now when watching I knew Jill was based on a real person, but not that she was playing her white mother. I wonder why they came to that decision in casting? And also, I wonder what it was that did make jills parents (as they apparently were) more understanding?

It seemed important to the narrative that jills parents were a mixed race couple, making them more understanding than some of the discrimination the men were facing.

People who were mixed race we often allies, othered communities often come together to support each other.

Note these screenshots of the Daily Heil five years apart

Oh I understand that Simon, my point was that I wondered what it was that made RL jills parents so understanding, given that they (I'd hazard a guess, but I know that could be wrong) aren't mixed race. Especially given that they were - afaik, given where real Jill attended drama school - from the same area I am. My grandad is the same generation and from the same area, and he still won't let my cousins (male, who lives with him) boyfriend in his house.

People who were mixed race we often allies, othered communities often come together to support each other.

I think this is why a lot of women were involved, too - they would have gained experience with activism in the feminist movement if the '70s.

@ThisIsSimplyBeyond

I had another thought... (sorry for the disjointed random thoughts! 😂)

It seemed important to the narrative that jills parents were a mixed race couple, making them more understanding than some of the discrimination the men were facing. Now when watching I knew Jill was based on a real person, but not that she was playing her white mother. I wonder why they came to that decision in casting? And also, I wonder what it was that did make jills parents (as they apparently were) more understanding?

I think the answer is probably as simple as Lydia West being the first choice to play Jill (she had a significant role in Years & Years) and therefore the casting of her parents needing to reflect her own ethnicity.

The real life Jill sounds like an amazing and compassionate person.

@ThisIsSimplyBeyond

Oh I understand that Simon, my point was that I wondered what it was that made RL jills parents so understanding, given that they (I'd hazard a guess, but I know that could be wrong) aren't mixed race. Especially given that they were - afaik, given where real Jill attended drama school - from the same area I am. My grandad is the same generation and from the same area, and he still won't let my cousins (male, who lives with him) boyfriend in his house.

I guess some people genuinely were more understanding, like Colin's mum was too.

Fab show and I agree Jill was underdeveloped. However, the show wasn’t about her so maybe the writers felt that they had shown as much of her as was necessary.