Kevin’s Room (2001) is a fictional television series in the vein of Queer as Folk or The L Word. But where the latter programs sensationalize the lives of their characters and play up sexuality as both a tool for ratings and a means of securing a niche audience, the short-lived former show attempted to explore the more relevant social issues facing the gay community at the turn of the century.

The Oberlin showing, which was sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center in conjunction with the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People, was the culminating event of the World AIDS Day program sponsored by the two organizations. Prior to the screening, Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies Meredith Raimondo offered some remarks intended to appropriately contextualize the work for the small audience.

The show, which focuses on a discussion group organized by the eponymous character, deals primarily with the unique issues facing the African-American gay population. In particular, the show discusses AIDS in the community, the reluctance to make public one’s sexuality and the unique stigmas attached to race and sexual identity.

Raimondo’s 20-minute introduction touched on many points, closing with an expression of the effects of race and sexuality. She began by listing a series of statistics, including high infection rates in gay African Americans when compared to other races. Nearly 46 percent of gay African Americans are HIV positive as opposed to 22 percent of whites and 17 percent of Latinos (there was too small a sample size for a statistical account of Asians). Raimondo argued that in the face of such statistics we have to conclude that societal factors are in play and should be given due consideration.

“Perhaps it’s time to look directly at the ways that racism does cause AIDS. Unfortunately the corollary is also true: AIDS causes racism,” said Professor Raimondo. “AIDS-related stigma is drawing on and further fueling all kinds of racist discourse about sex and disease.”

Although the issues raised in the episode were of grave importance, the show’s tone intentionally did not reflect the nature of the subject. Instead, it was simultaneously light-hearted and informative in its presentation of AIDS in racially marginalized communities. However, due to ineffective writing and an after-school-special sensibility, the program came off as both uninteresting and trite.

The show is replete with partially-developed characters that are archetypes of the sort you would imagine in an overly-dramatized portrayal of AIDS in a minority community. There is a poet who proclaims his love during an open mic night. There is the highly effeminate character who serves as the comic foil. And the stalwart AIDS infectee whose determination to live a normal life despite his disease is emblematic of the clichéd assertion that one can will away one’s troubles. The list of characters continues in that vein, all of them possessing the realism of cardboard cutouts of the issues and concerns affecting the community under consideration.

The show, produced by Black Cat Productions in association with the Chicago Department of Health, attempts to be informative and persuasive. The subject material seeks not only to empower an audience in need of influence, but also to provide that audience with needed counsel. It was the aim of the series’ writers to encourage the appropriate audience to take a newfound interest in its health and in the dissemination of information to others in their community, and the thought behind the production is appropriately, if not persistently, expressed. The exceeding emphasis on the social importance of the production, however, and the comparative disinterest in creating palatable artwork, left the viewer feeling preached at and unfulfilled.

Whether one enjoys the program is a personal matter, but the content is less flexible in its importance and necessity. As such, one rides the fine line as a critic in dismissing the series as a poor artistic endeavor or embracing it as an important exhibition of a pertinent and often ignored issue. Nonetheless, what we have here is further proof that good intentions do not always make for good results.