The series that shows the tsunami of hate that surrounds us

BarcelonaThe beginning of Tip toe, the HBO Max miniseries premiering this Thursday, is the kind of thing that sends a chill down your spine. The camera transports us to a residential neighborhood in Manchester, with its characteristic, identical brick houses. At the entrance of one of these houses, we see a woman shouting. She says something like, "He's a monster." Right in front of her is a man, we understand her husband, with an unperturbed expression. Then, the camera moves and a woman appears on the ground, we don't know if alive or dead. There's still a final blow: the camera pans up and we see a man hanging from one of the streetlights. Then, the series rewinds ten days to explain how this hellish situation came to be.

The person responsible for the new HBO Max fiction is Russell T. Davies, creator of other miniseries like Years and years andIt's a Sin. As is customary in all his dramas, political and social commentary are at the epicenter of the story. In this case, his gaze focuses on polarization and radicalization and how these are affecting the LGBTIQ+ community, of which he is a part. As one of the characters points out, hate is no longer something we look at from afar: it's a tsunami that has swept over us.

The two protagonists of Tip toe are neighbors, Leo (Alan Cumming) and Clive (David Morrissey), who have known each other for fifteen years and have had a more or less normal coexistence. The former, homosexual, runs a bar on Canal Street, the hub of gay life in the city. The latter is a plumber married with two sons (one adolescent and the other already adult). The neighborly relationship begins to sour one day when a one-night stand of Leo's steals his computer and flees. When Leo rushes out after him – dressed only in a tank top and briefs – the house door closes, leaving him outside without keys or a phone. It is then that he will have to ask Clive for help, who will very soon reveal the many prejudices he holds against him and homosexuality.

A path to terror

Russell T. Davies began to imagine Leo and Clive's story after giving his house key to his neighbour, as he spends a lot of time away and needed someone to look after the parcels that arrived. Although in his case he has a very good relationship with his neighbour, this fact made him ask questions about what happens when you give someone access to your home. Thus, he ended up developing a story about warring neighbours that is not at all comedic. "[The series] Is an internal reaction to where the world is going. It's not just about politics; it's everything, everyone and everywhere. Our intolerance, our bad temper, our impatience, our anger. It's all growing, undoubtedly because of the way we communicate: through brief bursts of indelible text. We haven't evolved to communicate like this. We live in a world of visceral and hasty reactions; one way or another, everything ends up generating conflict, and it seems that the LGBTIQ+ community always ends up being pointed out as the guilty party," reflects Davies in an interview for Channel 4, the network that produced the fiction in the UK.

In English tip toe means to walk on tiptoe and is an expression that one of the characters, Melba, uses to define how her way of being and expressing herself has changed due to the rise of homophobia and hate speech. "We live in a Great Britain where there are people – even some politicians – who speak with satisfaction about burning hotels where immigrants are staying. When a woman is imprisoned for inciting this act, she becomes a popular heroine. Therefore, all steps lead us in this direction. It's not a fantasy; you can see the steps we are taking to get there. We are heading towards terror," remarks Davies, who points out that he himself has experienced online hate. "The number of times I've been called a child abuser and a paedophile on the internet [for his support of trans rights] is outrageous and perhaps grounds for legal action; although I think if I took action, it would only make things worse," he explained to the Guardian.