Safe sex on the screen
Melbourne’s queer TV soapie answer to Neighbours, Queer as Fxxk, starts screening its fourth series this week.
The web video series — aimed at promoting safe sex among gay and bisexual men — has upped the ante in season four featuring some well known faces including comedians ‘The Fabulous’ Adam Richard, Denise Scott, Cal Wilson, Judith Lucy, and Andrea Powell, and actor Catherine McClements.
Victorian AIDS Council/Gay Men’s Health Centre (VAC/GMHC) manager of health promotion Colin Batrouney said the show has steadily grown in popularity with almost 3000 members on its Facebook page and the new series has much entertainment in store.
“Series four has allowed us to further explore the lives of Brendan, Peter, Aaron and Davo in situations that are sometimes tricky, sometimes tragic but at all times, we hope, entertaining,” Batrouney said.
“Will Davo and Glen have a baby? Will Peter cope with having HIV? Will Brendo stay with Jack? Will Aaron ever stop being a wanker?
“We have a number of fantastic guest stars this season. We’ve got dream sequences, dinner party spats, departures, arrivals, blind dates, psychic phenomena and psychiatric assessments — in short, something for everyone.”
The series, aired on social media platform Facebook and video-sharing website YouTube, follows the lives of four gay housemates and their dramas and deliberations about meeting men, hooking up and negotiating relationships.
The series is funded by the Victorian Department of Health and developed in a collaboration with the VAC/GMHC, the Burnet Institute, the University of Melbourne and theatre company X:MACHINE Productions.
VAC/GMHC health educator Jason Asselin said the series is now more inclusive of a range of audiences.
“We’ve had several requests from viewers asking for our videos to be closed captioned for the hearing-impaired,” he said.
“We’ve been doing exactly that — going through our back library and ensuring all episodes are closed captioned or subtitled.”
Series four started on June 15 and new episodes will appear weekly for 12 weeks.
info: Tune in at
www.facebook.com/QAFxxk
