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.

Oh, gosh, yes, she's very like Donna, isn't she?

I suppose that's probably just because that is literally how RTD remembers her.

But I felt with Donna it was quite plausible that a teenager would think her best mate was terribly edgy and exciting for having gay sex. I was about Donna's age at that time and I'm sure I'd have been all wide-eyed about how cool my friend was.

I didn't feel quite the same with Jill - I mean, she's living quite a cool, boho lifestyle herself, would she really be so very impressed and amazed about it all?

She was only supposed to have been 18 at the start of the series so maybe in the beginning , possibly the character was portrayed how the real Jill wanted herself to be portrayed ?

Oh, I hope so.

I think there was a lot more material that they could have put in that series and extended it to maybe 8 episodes.

she showed the humanity of the world, she wasn't just a weak female standing by. She did research, she worked on helplines, organised protests and marches. The scene were she sits with the dying man who has no one was utterly heartbreaking.

I know, and I actually feel a bit bad that that dedication and intelligence isn't enough to make her feel "really real" to me now I think about it. I mean it's important work for an important cause. I didn't feel like that about the lawyer who was in it for about 5 minutes (never got to know anything about her personal life or other motives and passions either!).

Possibly my issue is her "niceness" - she has no "side" to her at all, just sweetness, which to be fair is the same Colin - and it doesn't bother me with him!!

The more I think about it the more I think I may just have a problem with overly "nice" female characters as I sort of instinctive recoil - when actually if women are going to be able to be anything that comes naturally to them, some of them are just going to be bloody lovely and that doesn't make them "boring" or fake.

Possibly my own issues at play here!!!

Not just Jill, but more background to all. It was captivating viewing.

I'd definitely have watched a lot more than five episodes.

That's a really interesting point about struggling with 'nice' female characters. I do know what you mean.

I guess I feel that, with Colin, he was 'nice' but also had a lot more going on - I loved how he was so pleased to be opening up the shop and he wanted people to like him so much, but he also had a crush on his flatmate and you could see a bit of him wanted to be a bit more like Richie.

* spoiler alert if you're bothered *

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I'm literally watching it as we're chatting and I've just got to the bit where Jill tells Richie's mum Richie is 'beautifully gay'. And the whole conversation just does not ring true to me at all. Especially the wide-eyed adoring look from Jill. Do people talk about other people being 'beautifully gay'? Really?

So, for me, it's not just that she's 'nice' but that she's written as having some sort of deep connection to male gayness in a way I can't help feeling is a bit odd.

I actually thought I could have ended at the end of episode 4 in the back of the police van - or indeed extended to 10! 5 was both too much and too little. I am so difficult to please

I agree OP - it would have taken seconds to show Jill walking home from one of their many nights out with a partner, or waking up with someone in her bed after the night before, like we saw with the others. It could have even been a small subplot about whether her partners were accepting of her close friendships with gay men during the AIDS crisis.

The implication is that she is straight (because she isn’t mentioned when they make a joke about their lesbian friend) but there’s no evidence of it at all. I assumed she would end up confessing her undying love for Ritchie, just because she was otherwise so under-developed as an individual character and seemed to exist purely as a straight female foil to the camp male characters. I do get that it was primarily about the gay men and their experiences, but given how central she was to the story, she was very one-dimensional.

It was incredible and poor Colin the way they slipped in how he had contracted AIDS at the end was very, very well done. I cried solidly throughout the whole thing.

I thought Jill was brilliant. I didn’t like the way Richies friends weren’t allowed to say goodbye to him and he just died alone but suspect that was very true of the time. However, I though Jills reaction to it would be different but suspect shock. A friend of mine had a close relative that died of AIDS I remember it being so hushed up at the time and he was treated like a pariah. Such a lovely, lovely man and none of us really knew or had a good understanding of what was happening as we were all in our very early teens.

I thought Richie's mum was strange - one minute she was just clueless housewifey mum stereotype then as soon as she discovered he was ill she turned into the bitch from hell. Strange the way the dad was presented as the rigid bigoted one until then and then flipped over into reading Watership Down and weeping at just the point he would have been more likely to become a total bastard.

Oddly, that bit wasn't unusual. Back in the '80s I remember a couple of gay friends who came out to their parents and found that their mums - who had always been kind and supportive - were appalled, while their dads - who'd been blokey and bigoted - were quite understanding when it was their own son. Obviously that wasn't always the case, but it did happen. I'd guess if you also find out your son is dying the reaction would be more extreme.

I thought the series was excellent
But I do think in a way this might take up your whole life. However, There could be a bit more of a hint at her missing out on things because she's so dedicated to her community and friends. So showing her turndown a date or something. But I do think there could have been more to show her making those choices to support her friends and the cause. Or even if the write felt it would just come naturally to her they could show her lived ones and friends or even the hospital staff questioning how much she is giving.

Unfortunately it does feel typical ofost of writing where the female character amongst men is under developed and not a real 3d person.

Yeah, really not liking the way the conversation between the three women is written. It makes me think of the Jane Austen truism about being unable to write conversations between men alone, because she'd never heard them.

I think it frustrates me because it feels as if the writers know what it feels like to be a gay son whose mother didn't recognise he was gay, and there's clearly some hurt involved in that. Maybe hurt that the mum somehow didn't 'see' who her son was and didn't notice something very important to him.

But they've gone from that and transformed it into an issue that the women argue about, and one mother of a gay son is really outraged that Richie's mum didn't know her son was gay. I get that they're trying to show another perspective but it just doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel plausible. It might well be what gay men wish their mums would say or feel. Dunno.

They did want 6-8 eps but channel 4 didn't commission it and they'd been turned down by BBC and ITV. So the fact 5 eps made it onto the screen was a struggle enough!

I disagree about Jill. This is a story told by gay men about gay men and their battle through HIV when it initially hit the London scene in the 80s. Women formed strong ally ships during that time and Jill was a symbol of that. I thought her character was brilliant for what they could show us. If they had expanded her any more over the 5 eps, it would have taken away from the story lines of the ones they're really trying to show us. She did ask them to stop, and she did struggle with Gloria's diagnosis initially, they showed some imperfections for sure.

The actress did mention in Its a Sin after hours that she believe Jill was in love with Richie to some extent. It's worth a watch as she explains some of the scenes.

Real Jill plays Jills mum so I'm sure she had a lot to say about it the script. She's a close friend of the write, Russel T Davies, and helped develop the show.

I can't stop thinking about this show, it's was beautiful and heartbreaking and so well told. More HIV tests have been ordered in a single day than ever before and I'm so glad those poor boys are having their stories heard. I know HIV effects straight people too, but this was a generation of gay men forgotten and ignored essentially and I'm so glad we are shown a snippet.

I did feel like she was wierdly characterised as a flat mother figure, in a supportive role, rather than a peer and an equal.

I don't think any of the women's roles were well played.

I agree op and thought exactly the same. As a pp said, she was a "bland saint".

I know this series has rave reviews but I found a lot of the characters were underdeveloped cliches of their time. I found Gill's parents unquestioning acceptance of her living her life in the gay community, nursing her friend with AIDS etc quite unbelievable.

I found Colin's mum completely embracing her son's sexuality and her non judgemental attitude to his gay friends unrealistic and simplified.

The dad who totally disowned his black gay son having a total epiphany and welcoming him back with open arms..

In reality, characters are flawed and have evolving conflicting views.

That said, I enjoyed it. It was a fictional programme based on the AIDS epidemic. I think some viewers have taken it as an accurate piece of history. I saw one poster on another thread saying it should be used in schools to educate.

It was a romanticised piece of fiction based loosely on the events of the epidemic and I think some of the characters were clumsily portrayed.

I also disagree about the mums! It's really interesting how we've interpreted it differently.

It really hit home for me, and I totally felt Jill, when she said Richie is beautifully gay and his mum was asked how she missed it. She was trying to say that he was perfect as he was. I also totally understood Jills reaction to him dying and telling Richie's mum that she was to blame for all those boys dying in shame.

It was because of people like her, ignoring who their children are, not hearing them - Richie told them so many times in certain ways - and choosing to live in their ignorance. It means those boys ran away to live in shame that never truly left them, even in death.

I like the conversation between the women, it showed so many different perspectives on what was happening at the time.

I felt sorry for Richie,s mum she clearly loved him ,it must have been a massive shock that not only was her son gay ( there was much more of a stigma in the 80,s) but that he was dying of an horrible disease ,I know it seems screamingly obvious to everyone that Richie was Gay ,it just never crossed his parents mind ,it wasent talked about as much at the time if they didn't know anyone or had ever met anyone that was gay why would it cross their mind ?

The character Jill is based on, in her own words. She sounds wonderful in real life too.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55937944
I think that it is a bit patronising to criticise the portrayal of a character based on someone in real life who clearly had a big input into the script.

Why patronising, though?

As someone said upthread, it's fictional. It's not a documentary and it wasn't intended as one.

So we are all going to have different thoughts and reactions to the characters. That's not at all the same as criticising someone's life.

I think I'd rather have seen more of Richie's mum interacting with Richie, TBH. It's weird given we're all repeating the line that the show was meant to be about the gay men, that so much screen time was given over to showing the mums arguing and Jill getting in the middle.

But definitely it's interesting how differently we all see it.

The problem I had with the show was you've got all these men essentially being quite silly and reckless - the boys. Some of them doing quite unpleasant things, like Ritchie with his friend on the beach in IoW.

Then Jill is just this saintly character doing all the leg work to save them. Shes the one advising them to stop having sex, she's the one doing the research, she's the one caring for them, she's the one comforting the mothers. Shes the one organising the rallies. Without Jill who knows what the fuck would have happened in that show?

To me it just read a bit as boys will be boys and they need a woman to mother them and sort them out.

I think Jill needed a bit of fleshing out, some other interests. The odd partner maybe or other friends. It didn't need to be too central to the show but I think it would have been good to show her as something other than just to serve the gay community. Even her parents were just there to serve the gay community

Maybe if they'd shown more of the other group, or even if Colin had said something about his friends he had lost at the start. Something other than just naive boys vs Jill

The original story arc was meant to be 8 episodes, I believe. I suspect much of this content would have fleshed out Jill, and the lesbian nurses who stepped up to work with AIDS patients.

Jill never even got angry really. If she's supposed to be this strong character you'd think she would have got angry?