I’m a big fan of historical dramas. Whether it’s a film, TV series, book, or video game – if it’s set some time in the past, I am all over it. Anyone who has spent more than around five minutes with me can also tell you I’m a big fan of pirates. I love them! Never hand me the aux cord, because I will play nothing but sea shanties, I will sing every word, and I will not stop until you pry that phone out of my cold hands. So when I got Amazon Prime and saw Black Sails, I wasn’t hanging about, and if you’re looking for a queer show that’ll keep you stuck to the screen during quarantine, you shouldn’t hang about either.
Historical dramas generally all follow the same kinds of people – white, straight, cis, and able-bodied – but Black Sails doesn’t fall into that same system (unlike first appearances may lead you to believe). There are characters of colour who aren’t just sidekicks, later on in the series there is a disabled character who isn’t portrayed as weak or dependent, there are interracial couples, and to top it all of there are queer main characters who are absolutely integral to the plot. There’s no way you could take queerness out of Black Sails and still have a story, and that’s not an exaggeration. Not to mention this show has the only example of straight-baiting I have ever seen in my life, and damn that is a beautiful thing to watch.
It’s certainly not for everyone. It’s not quite at the level of Game of Thrones when it comes to gratuitous sex and violence, but it’s up there. If that’s your thing, though, then you’re really missing out by not giving it a go. It’s a show about power, sacrifice, politics, civilisation, who gets to tell the story and, at it’s heart, is completely driven by queer characters, their love, and their desires. It’s a constant struggle between love and power.
Black Sails also gets pretty meta, especially when it comes to the idea of history being written by the victors. Many of the characters would rather not fight, but they know that if they don’t, their stories and their lives will be twisted. On the one hand, it’s about how England portrayed pirates as all barbaric, immoral monsters, but it’s not hard to see how this is also about the way history remembers (or rather, erases) queer people. The characters are constantly battling the question of whether fighting and struggling is worth it to have their stories survive.
Unfortunately, exclusive interviews with some of the actors seem to suggest that the queerness of Black Sails was scaled back after the straight-baiting I mentioned earlier, which is a real shame. However, it is still undeniably gay and well worth the watch. It’s the only big-name historical drama series I’ve seen that focuses on it’s queer characters and presents them in a positive light. That’s not to say these characters are necessarily “good”, there are no “good” people in this story, and that’s part of what makes it so compelling. Everyone is some shade of grey, just like in real life. They all have their own moral code, their own desires, their own fears. Some of them you’ll love, some of them you’ll hate, and plenty of them will have you flipping between the two. They are all so real, and the show doesn’t rely on stereotyping or side-lining these queer characters and their stories.
As I said, it’s not exactly for everyone, but I do think it’s worth a go if you don’t mind the sex and violence (and I mean a real go, the first couple of episodes of a show are never as good as the rest). Black Sails is available for free on Amazon Prime, but if you don’t have Prime I’m sure it can be found on some other, totally legal and not pirated corners of the internet. It has four seasons, so it’s perfect binge-watching material while we’re stuck at home! I hope you all enjoy it, and I’ll be writing another post soon about queerness during the Golden Age of Piracy if you’d like to learn more. Stay safe everyone!
By Kezia Johnston
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