I still don’t really get tumblr

but I’m trying?

This has just been out there on the internet waiting for you and you never even knew!

Just an awful lot of this on repeat lately.

‘Looking’ is Dead: Long Live ‘Looking’

Recently a friend lamented to me the probable cancellation of HBO's Looking. It was the only show on television that came close to mirroring his lifestyle, and although he knew it wasn't perfect, he was going to miss it. But he felt silly complaining about it. "I know," he told me, "it's just TV."

I don't really believe in "just TV." Just TV has impacted my life in so many ways. Just TV is the unifying cultural medium with which everyone you know is obsessed. Just TV is really, really important, particularly if you're someone who doesn't often see yourself reflected on television or in films or otherwise in mainstream media.

There was a chance — a hope — in the months leading up to Looking's release that it would take off like gangbusters: perhaps it would capture the public imagination and spark a series of imitators and clones of all different types, catering to all sorts of fun, under-served queer niches. With a little luck it would be that rare bird, that strange tricky alchemical concoction: great TV. Maybe cable and broadcast networks would see at last that there is gold in them there hills — them there hills being queer storytelling. Maybe a beautiful long summer would unfold full of queer people on television in something other than charming supporting roles.

That hope was balanced by a fear that the opposite would happen: the show would sink like a stone, unnoticed, and network executives would point at its failure and go, "Well, there you have it. We tried a show about gay people and even gay people didn’t watch it. What's next?"

Unfortunately after a few languid episodes it became clear that the central dramatic tension of Looking was whether it would get renewed or not. HBO moves confidently, and they're not beholden to anyone: it’s not unusual for them to announce the next season of one of their shows as soon as the current season premieres. Or sometimes before that, even! And I'm not talking about Game of Thrones here; not just international phenomena. Stuff that maybe doesn't get great numbers, but is part of a larger cultural conversation.

But Looking didn't get renewed for its second season until well into its first, presumably because it wasn’t welcomed into that conversation (and because the show picked up some fans after a mid-season episode patterned after executive producer Andrew Haigh’s beloved film Weekend). It would have been rude and politically clumsy for HBO to bury the show after one season, so even the shadow of uncertainty about its future wasn't a great sign. The writing has been on the wall from day one: even the gays weren’t sold, and if you can’t sell gays to the gays, you’re doing it wrong.

And yet.

When Looking came on the scene, my facebook feed was full of people rediscovering Queer as Folk, both the (superior) (just saying) English version and the much-maligned (at the time) early-2000s American adaptation. Queer as Folk was bombastic and weird and soapy and sexy, and when it aired that was too much for some people. Understandably so: there weren't enough gay men on TV, and these weird loud dramatic sluts, some people felt, were giving the whole gaggle of us a bad name.

But the strength of Queer as Folk was that it was just telling its loud, weird, slutty dramatic story, pretending that it wasn't representing anyone, that it existed in a media environment full of queer representation. And now, looking back on it, people who once spurned the show realize that some of their favorite people are (surprise!) weird, loud, dramatic sluts. There's room for them (...us?), too. It's an entertaining show, and it is good that it exists.

Now that Looking is gone, you can put it on your shelf without worrying about it anymore. It exists as a completed project, and you can enthuse about the things you like about it (it is beautifully shot; Russell Tovey has a nice ass) without fear of being labeled a dull, assimilationist milquetoast by your bitchier-than-thou BFF (you know who you are).

Just like Queer as Folk, Looking didn't really give a fuck. This was almost certainly its undoing, but it also means that history will smile on the show. People will find things to appreciate in its languidness and its refusal to lighten up, because it can now be viewed as part of the (increasingly) rich, textured landscape of queer media history rather than all we've got going for us. Whenever the next thing comes along, I'm going to see a lot of reflection about Looking on social media from people realizing that hey, it wasn't that bad, why didn't I watch this when it was on?

Or maybe not. Who knows? It's just TV, after all.

(This post originally appeared on Decider.)

Fran Lebowitz

Hello.

I am on tumblr now, OK?