queer trojan horse? - HEARTSTOPPER [guest essay]

[@belpop]

This is such a thoughtful essay and I completely agree. Heartstopper (the show particularly) is meant to be kinda light and innocent, but it sanitizes queerness and strips it of any sexual feeling whatsoever. It’s a gay show that Netflix wants to be palatable to a straight audience. That being said, I do think the show will probably (hopefully) mature as the characters do. 😊

[@johnpexton3614]

Just because some experience sex early not all people do. This is just showing different journeys that is outside the norm. Even in the graphic novels nick and Charlie doesn’t have sex until we’ll within a year almost 2 years into their relationship. Season 1 is Nick discovering himself with Charlie guiding him along the way. So I don’t think this is a sanitized relationship of the queer community it’s just showing different relationships that develop over a period of time. Which is not a bad thing.

[@alexandrareuter327]

I have mixed feelings about this essay. I resonate with a lot of these points and appreciate that you point out that it's a nuanced topic and a hard balance to strike. I just feel like a lot of the criticism is exactly what the series is going for and why it is so important. I personally love the more deviant side of queer culture! I love the way it's a big fuck you to all the heteronormativity that is constantly pushed onto all of us. And I recognise how important it is! I love it within my own community and I also love watching it on screen. And as you mentioned there's a reason those movies and shows never really penetrate the mainstream the way Heartstopper did. I'm from a small town in Germany and I know quite a few queer people from back home who seem to be pretty intimidated by the 'deviant' side of queer culture, it feels alienating to them, so they never ended up finding queer community at all. Some don't even have any other queer people around them other than their partner. Maybe some of them have no desire to, that's fine of course. But my strong feeling is that some of them need something to bridge the gap, a bit of a queer gateway that isn't too scary and 'out there' that makes them feel like queer culture and queer community is both possible and desirable. Heartstopper seemed to be that for at least two people I know. And I have to admit, even I crave sweet, innocent queer love stories and soppy queer Christmas movies from time to time too. Do I want all my queer media to become a sweet, sanitised version of what I usually consume? Absolutely not! But sometimes this kind of show is what I crave. You said this show is popular cause it's heteronormative enough to not really challenge anyone. And while that is definitely true to some extend, I think you might underestimate how many people in the mainstream still think and feel about queerness. I live in the British countryside, so maybe I'm biased, but to me having a teenage trans character in a popular mainstream show still feels pretty boundary pushing. And about the exclusion of sex... They're 14 and 15 at the beginning of the comics/show. (Spoiler ahead!) Later on sex becomes a fairly big part of the story. If I remember correctly Nick is pretty nervous about having penetrative sex for the first time so they wait and talk about it and make out a lot. They start having sex when Nick's in his last year of high school and once they get over the anxiety they both seem to love it and have sex a lot. Sure some teens might start having sex earlier than that but this seems pretty realistic and authentic to me. So I feel like it's a little weird to criticise the story for not having enough sex. It's a show made for predominantly young teens. I think it might be a bit like with Harry Potter (I know unfortunate example but it was the first one that popped into my head), the audience will grow up with the characters and more explicit or 'adult' themes will be introduced over time. I might be wrong but that's what happened in the comics and novel so I think it's a fair assumption.

[@AugustKJ]

Thank you so much for your response! I really appreciate your perspective. That's really interesting about what you said about bridging the gap! I hadn't thought about how the deviant side of queer culture can be alienating to some queer people. Even so, something that still really sticks out to me about Heartstopper is that it doesn't reference important aspects of subversive queer culture. The show tries to act like this sanitised version of queerness is the only side that can be represented in more mainstream media, without acknowledging that all aspects of the queer community, including those that may be considered more subversive. I believe that to have a functioning queer community, it's important to accept all aspects of the queer experience as compatible and interrelated with one another. I feel that a show that did this really well, although targeting a more adult audience, was Sex Education's episode about Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I agree with you that not all queer media needs to take a gritty look at oppression - watching Heartstopper felt like such a relief after more intense shows like It's A Sin. But it feels disingenuous to present a world where the experiences of the queer characters are so disconnected from the rest of the community, as well as from our history and culture. As far as representation of sex goes, I completely agree that it would be weird for the show to talk about sex, at least at this point in the story! I absolutely am not expecting the showrunners to include depictions of a sexual relationship between fifteen year olds - you're absolutely right that that would be inappropriate. What I AM concerned with, though, is the response of young people to the idea of queer sex. Working with young people, I noticed an outright refusal of the LGBT young people to discuss sex as a real aspect of relationships, which I didn't notice among their heterosexual peers. This lined up with the outrage online among teens who read the graphic novels after seeing the show, who were upset about the depiction of sex in the novels. While I don't expect Heartstopper to serve as a solution for this developing purity culture within the queer community, I do feel that the response to the show can be recognised as a symptom for a wider problem that is beginning to brew within the community.

[@alexandrareuter327]

​@@AugustKJ I haven't seen that episode of Sex education but I love John Cameron Mitchell's films so I'm definitely going to check it out! Thanks for the recommendation. :) You say it feels disingenuous to present a world where the experiences of the queer characters are disconnected from the rest of the community and from our history and culture. To me that feels very accurate. It's a show about a bunch of 15 year old queers in a small town. When I was in high school, even when I started questioning my sexuality I was completely disconnected from queer community and queer history. There were a few other queers in my year (most of them not out or at least a little shy about it all) but I never came across queer culture or community and I'm pretty sure neither did they. It either didn't exist where I grew up or we just didn't know where to find it. It took moving to London (as an adult) and finding my way into a few different social circles until I came across it for the first time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's a good thing, just that it's realistic. I studied film in uni btw and I totally agree that nuanced and diverse queer representation is super important! I also think that effective films and tv shows have to find their focus. 'It's a sin' focusses on a specific part of British queer history, 'Blue Jean' is set in the same time frame but focusses on the experience of queer women in rural north England. Sex Education focusses on the sexual exploration of a fairly wide variety of characters in their later teens. Heartstopper focusses on the tentative first steps into queer romantic relationships of characters in their early teens. I don't think we should necessarily expect for one piece of media to cover too many different aspects and angles at once. Especially in 8 episodes of under 30 minutes each. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be hoping and asking for better representation of course. It would be great to have more mainstream queer tv with a main character who isn't white, cis, male and middle class. What makes you think that the show tries to act like this sanitised version of queerness is the only side that can be represented in mainstream media? Sweet innocent teen love is the vibe they are going for (at least in the first season) but why would that mean that that's all that can be represented in mainstream media? I'm sure the creators of Heartstopper are aware shows like Euphoria, It's a sin, Young Royals and Sex Education have been big mainstream successes. Heartstopper seems to be the first of its kind. I can't remember ever having watched a movie or tv show about a queer character as young as 14. But so far I don't see any reason to believe that that means there's no more space for more gritty, sexy and adult queer shows and movies. It's sad that young queers are feeling that uncomfortable talking about their sex life and sexual desire. I did too when I was younger. That could have lots of different reasons though. It could be a push back against society thinking queerness and queer topics are inherently sexual and inappropriate for minors. I was reading about studies on different queer aesthetics. The most common aesthetic of bisexual girls and women tended to be 'cutesy, fluffy and innocent' while the associations in mainstream society were 'highly sexual, greedy and manipulative'. A stark contrast. I might be wrong of course! I don't know enough young queer teens to know what makes them feel uncomfortable, it sounds like you might know them a lot better! I assume and hope the Heartstopper Tv series won't shy away from sex once they get to that part of the comics.

[@belpop]

See that’s my worry though. Like the stuff that happens later in the books, this show is basically like a Disney channel show except gay. I am saying this as a fan, I loved Heartstopper, but I do agree with a lot of the points in this essay. Like how can we expect a show aimed at kids to delve into these heavy topics from the comics? Not just sex, but Charlie’s OCD, ED, I mean hell he is INSTITUTIONALIZED at one point. And this show is like cotton candy. I trust Alice, but the show has already been dialed down from the comics. Nick doesn’t swear, for example. Charlie doesn’t have that same sarcastic humor. And when Ben assaulted Charlie, it felt so glossed over. If they can’t address something like that, how can we expect them to address the rest of the content we are going to get? I’m just nervous.

[@alberte8279]

I think this was a really good take, but I think it's also important to mention that, the media often overstates how many teens have sex, and how early it happens. I know maybe 5-7 people who have had sex, and I'm 16. In heartstopper Charlie is only 14 when the show starts.

[@louisst-amand9207]

yeah, it's kinda crazy how little teens have sex when you look at real world statistics as opposed to what media like films and series make it out to be. when I was 16, i think i knew of two people my age who had had sex, and that's because i knew both persons in the couple.

[@Queer_boiled_ears]

Right like I’m really glad that there’s a teen show that’s actually somewhat realistic to teen relationships and doesn’t oversexualise it to appeal to and older audience which also is just really creepy like if you wanna make a show with a bunch of sex just make the characters older

[@abbyr-w3675]

I loved everything - this is so professional and you should feel so proud yippee August!!!

[@Newest_editsjustbecause]

While I don't disagree with majority of what you said, I also need to point out that Heartstopper isn't meant to be some hard hitting in depth view of the grittiness of the history of queer culture, it's meant to be a "hey look, kid, you're allowed to just have a happy, sweet innocent love story just like any hetero person has always had." And it does hit on some of the harder topics, it just doesn't need to dwell in them... We don't want this generation to feel that everything needs to be struggle all the time just because it was like that for us in history. You can learn about the history and the harder parts in time without that having to be your first view of it. I'm proud that we're getting past making the struggle of it all the forefront because in the end these ARE just normal relationships and have every right to just simply be treated as such. Also, Charlie is 14... Why do you need a 14 year old to be having sex? He sneaks subtle looks at shirtless Nick... They kiss pretty intensely... All normal things for that age. Alice hasn't steered away from sex in the show, the show just hasn't reached that part of the story yet. That's not in the first 2 volumes. All in all not a bad video, but you seem to have your own bias towards queer stories being nothing but sex and struggle and I'm not sure why you feel it needs to be that way to be real...

[@Ruby_V_]

I think you are misrepresenting the author.

[@Newest_editsjustbecause]

@@Ruby_V_ nope. She's said multiple times that she wanted to make a more light-hearted young queer love story, showing that even through the hardest parts there is light at the end of the tunnel and the main focus is how important healthy clear commutation should be in relationships of all kinds. Also, she has been very clear that explicit sex is not necessary and she wants to respect the ages and privacy of her characters. If you think this author is in any way about feeding some weirdos need to see underage sex, you definitely do not understand her or the story.

[@Ruby_V_]

@@Newest_editsjustbecause I meant the essay's author. Also why do you frame young people having other young people as sexual role models as a bad thing? Isn't season 3 planned to have sex scenes?

[@Newest_editsjustbecause]

@@Ruby_V_ ah, it was over my comment so I assumed it was a response. And I don't. There's nothing wrong with people having examples of healthy consensual sex. The issue is when people think it's unrealistic for teens, and it seems to be especially queer relationships, to not instantly just into a sexual relationship straight away. I've seen so many people complain that N&C are "unrealistic" because they don't jump each other right away, which is just absolutely silly and the urgent need for teen sex scenes the moment two people begin dating is insane. It can be shown as a normal progression in a relationship, but when people act like it's desperately needed to make the show... It gets a bit weird

[@MimiJones-x4i]

Such an insightful take on modern queer rep!

[@louisst-amand9207]

so many other shows tackle sexuality over romance, i think it's fine if 15 year olds don't have sex, and also most 15 year olds do not have sex, even amongst straight people.