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

322 replies

Draineddraineddrained · 06/02/2021 10:42

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.

OP posts:
JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil · 06/02/2021 16:50

I got the impression that she was supposed to be kind of an amalgamation of all their female friends. I liked her. I agree there should’ve been more about her personal life but it’s clear there wasn’t really enough time. I would’ve liked to see more about Ash too.

If it’s true it was originally supposed to be 8 episodes but Channel 4 cut it to 5, they made a bit of a cock up. I bet a lot of interesting bits ended up on the cutting room floor. Audiences are interested in stories we don’t see much of on the screen. The success of the Steve McQueen series Small Axe and Its a Sin prove this. Hopefully now we’ll see a wider range of period pieces other than endless remakes of Emma and Little Women.

PleaseReferToMeAsBritneySpears · 06/02/2021 17:03

Sorry - I could see mention of a real Jill, but not that she was in the programme.

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 17:06

Yes, several mentions. It is a nice detail, to be fair.

likeafishneedsabike · 06/02/2021 19:07

I agree with PPs who said that the real female characterisation problem was with Richie’s mum. Her reactions in the last episode didn’t quite ring true and this made the ending less powerful for me. I believed in Richie 100 percent (great performance by Olly Alexander) but I knew in my heart that his mum’s love for her son would have overpowered her bigotry and anger. RTD is a great writer but I don’t think he’s got a hold of the mums and sons thing.

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 19:43

I believed in Richie 100 percent (great performance by Olly Alexander) but I knew in my heart that his mum’s love for her son would have overpowered her bigotry and anger.

Do you think? If anything I thought it was implausible that his dad seemed to have come round to it. I could have seen them being the kinds who'd have abandoned him TBH.

x2boys · 06/02/2021 19:51

I felt sorry for his mum she had a lot to come to terms with in a short space of time and her son was dying ,I know she behaved badly and wrongly blamed Jill from keeping Ritchie from her but grief does terrible things to people ,and she clearly loved Ritchie

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 19:53

I agree, I felt sorry for her too.

I thought it was really badly written that both Jill and the other mum were telling her she should have known her son was gay, as if it were a moral failing - because obviously it would be a shock.

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 19:55

I thought the later scene where she put that record on for Ritchie was much better written - it was really painful that she was treating him like a toddler, but also really plausible that she'd want to remember him as a small child, especially as she'd clearly barely seen him for a decade.

x2boys · 06/02/2021 19:56

Exactly ,because why would she even though it seems obvious ,if she had lead a very sheltered life on the Isle of Wight away from the mainland and had never knowingly met anyone who was gay than it just wouldn't have crossed her mind .

x2boys · 06/02/2021 19:58

Yes definitely happier times when he was small and relied on her for everything.

ScreamingBeans · 06/02/2021 19:58

Of course.

She's only a woman.

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 19:59

Yes, and also, it's a bit daft, because you get people who seem stereotypically 'gay' and are not, right? I didn't like the way Jill implied that if your son is an actor and a bit camp he must be gay.

x2boys · 06/02/2021 20:03

Yes I agree ,and her generation too my parents are both late 70,s now they just didn't talk about sex or HIV / Aids when I was young ,actors etc were not openly gay in the 80,s it wasent openly discussed well not in my experience anyway .

HariboBrenshnio · 06/02/2021 20:07

I didn't feel sorry for Richie's Mum at all because I think she was still ashamed of him. She never accepted him for who he was. She wanted to remember him as a toddler and block out the life he was leading - by excluding Jill even after he asked for her. She was selfish in his death and thought only about herself in his last moments. He knew it too, when he asked her what she was planning to tell family. I personally find it unforgivable, even when faced with grief. So many other women and mothers didn't and wouldn't do that, including Colins.

I think there's a lot of families who did the same back then though, and some still now. She cared for him because he's her son, in the way Gloria's family did, but they were all ashamed.

CaptainMyCaptain · 06/02/2021 20:11

@x2boys

There are quite a few threads about this ,but I think the show was about Aids and the affect it had on Gay ment at the time,it wasent really about Jill's story , incidentally the real Jill played Jill's mum in the show .
I'm just going to agree with this and stop following the thread. I've commented plenty on the other threads. The series was originally going to be called The Boys because that's what it was about - boys dying of AIDS. If it was going to be about Jill's other interests it would have had to be much longer and it wasn't really about that.
CaptainMyCaptain · 06/02/2021 20:12

@PleaseReferToMeAsBritneySpears

Sorry - I could see mention of a real Jill, but not that she was in the programme.
She played Jill's mother.
SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 20:14

I do know where you're coming from, @HariboBrenshnio, but she did have it hard, didn't she? When she talked about men just being 'randy' and how some men have gay sex and aren't gay - that was quite messed up. She'd clearly internalised some pretty awful messages about sex.

And I think most parents would find it quite hard if their child barely spoke to them for ten years and then started talking about their partners' faces when they were coming. I know we as an audience were meant to realise Ritchie was rambling in the same way we'd seen Colin rambling earlier, but presumably she had no context for it.

Of course it was selfish and wrong, but she didn't have much time to work out how to behave. When she spoke to Jill after Ritchie died, you could see she was trying to work out how to say she'd been wrong, and she made one little effort and then couldn't sustain it. It wasn't compassionate, but it made you see how maybe if she'd had more time, she would have become more supportive. And the tragedy is that she never got the time.

likeafishneedsabike · 06/02/2021 20:15

Interesting that you both found the mum more plausible than I did. The scene of Gloria/Gregory’s family holding a funeral pyre in their garden shocked me to the core. Maybe I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that a mother’s love of her son could be so conditional.

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 20:16

What a weird post, @CaptainMyCaptain. Confused What on earth is wrong with having lots of threads about a popular TV show? No one's forced you to comment if you're bored with the subject.

CaptainMyCaptain · 06/02/2021 20:17

@SarahAndQuack

What a weird post, *@CaptainMyCaptain*. Confused What on earth is wrong with having lots of threads about a popular TV show? No one's forced you to comment if you're bored with the subject.
I didn't say there was anything wrong with it just that I wasn't going to keep on saying the same thing. I'm sure I won't be missed.
allycat4 · 06/02/2021 20:18

I've seen some of my friends' mothers on social media saying that they feel ashamed, but they would have been "that mother" (Keeley Hawes) in the 80s.

HariboBrenshnio · 06/02/2021 20:19

I get what you're saying but the tragedy is her son couldn't tell her who he really was because of the environment at home. She never made her own feelings clear about him, when his Dad did time and time again
He was ashamed he was gay and then ashamed he had aids.
She never put him first, just her own thoughts and feelings and wants for him. She let him down and I just can't relate to it at all.
I totally understood Jill when she basically said Richie's mum was the reason why all those boys died in shame.
Maybe with more time she would have reacted better but I'm not sure - she was very selfish from the moment she found out. Him excluding her from his life was entirely her own doing.

I do understand this was of a different time and people had different views but I have a son and I just can't ever imagine reacting like this. Colins mum handled it so beautifully and she had allowed for him to be able to turn to her.

x2boys · 06/02/2021 20:20

I see what your saying Haribo but society at the time wasent really accepting ,of gay people and HIV and AIDS was seen as a disease people mainly brought on themselves through their actions this was clearly wrong but you had the innocent victims is those who caught it through blood transfusions etc and the " non innocent" victims is gay men and drug abusers and prostitutes ,of course it was no one's fault
and it's an abhorrent way of thinking but a lot of people thought that way .

SarahAndQuack · 06/02/2021 20:20

@likeafishneedsabike

Interesting that you both found the mum more plausible than I did. The scene of Gloria/Gregory’s family holding a funeral pyre in their garden shocked me to the core. Maybe I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that a mother’s love of her son could be so conditional.
Oh, gosh, yes, that was just so appallingly sad. Very, very well written but incredibly painful.

I admit, I can't personally get my mind around feeling the need to burn your child's baby photos - it's such a violent thing.

But I don't doubt people did (and do) that sort of thing.

I found Ritchie's mum's response much more familiar. I could imagine how, if he'd lived, she might have mellowed. The series ends in the early 90s when he's 30 and she's presumably in her early 50s (although Keeley Hawes is 44, which I thought didn't work). I could imagine that by now she'd be her early 80s and would be just slightly uptight about her middle-aged son's husband.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 06/02/2021 20:20

@SarahAndQuack

Yep, she wasn't great, was she?

I think the Welsh mum was great and felt plausible, but Richie's mum was also shit. It kind of annoys me that they cast Keeley Hawes and then did her up in frumpy older-woman clothes.

In fairness that's what many young women wore in the 80's

Re Jill - it wasn't about her. The show was about gay men and their struggles. Let them have this one please