'Queer as Folk' Is Getting a Reboot, but Is It Ready for 2019?

The iconic LGBTQ series Queer as Folk is prepping for a whole new generation. 

The US Queer as Folk follows four gay twenty-somethings as they navigate dating, homophobia, and their personal lives in early 2000s Pittsburgh. The original UK show ran for 10 episodes in 1999, then was remade for North American audiences, premiering on Showtime and the Canadian channel Showcase in 2000 and ran for five seasons. 

Variety reports that Russell T. Davies, creator of the original UK series, is all set to executive produce the show for Bravo, along with writer and producer Stephen Dunn, who directed 2015's gay, coming-of-age story Closet Monster. 

"The new version of the show will feature entirely new characters in a new setting," reports Variety. "It is described as a modern take on the original British series that centers on a group of club-going friends who find support in the gay community following a tragedy."

Normally we'd be hyped for a reboot, but that description is a bit worrisome. In the last season of the American Queer as Folk, a bomb was set off in a local gay bar. The parallels between that fictional scene from 2005 and the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 are stomach churning.

While the show is an envelope-pushing snapshot of a part of gay culture in the early 2000s, how exactly will it translate into 2019?  

Executive Producer of the US version Daniel Lipman had an opinion on a hypothetical reboot earlier this summer. "If somebody wanted Queer as Folk, that kind of energy, you’d have to go back and you’d have to cast young people,” said Lipman. “And with Tinder and Grindr, it’s a very, very different world than it used to be.

"This was a show about young people trying to find their way," he told Entertainment Weekly. "That would be a totally, totally different kind of show." 

That's certainly true. If Queer as Folk did come back, it'd need quite the facelift. Dating is wildly different these days. How would a modern-day Brian, Ted, Emmett, and Michael navigate the world with gay apps?

Underlined by the ongoing kickback from Call Me by Your Name, the relationship between 17-year-old Justin and 29-year-old Brian isn't just a taboo as the original series implies. Dating an older man might've been many a high schooler's fantasy, but in a post-#MeToo world, we don't need any more queer storylines about these oftentimes predatory relationships.

The show also had a tendency to generalize and stereotype people of color and the glaringly caucasian cast of the original QAF is no longer acceptable. Looking, HBO's moving dramedy following a few men in San Francisco, was criticized for mainly showcasing the white gayze. Queer people of color exist and the updated QAF needs to give us some black and brown characters—and not just tokenize their faces, but share their unique experiences in the gay community. 

What about the rest of the L, B, T, and Q? Let's get a transgender character and follow their dating life!

And lastly, with the proposed reboot storylines, is violence against LGBTQ people what we need to be viewing? Or could watching a community rebuild from the ground up inspire a whole new generation of queer folks?