Tag: Alice Oseman

Why Am I Like This?

So, Heartstopper, season two.

First, some preliminary discussion. Since the enormously popular first season dropped last year and turned the cast literally into worldwide stars, the almost constant speculation (and hounding he received) about the sexuality of adorable young Kit Connor, who plays Nick Nelson, forced him to come out publicly as bisexual earlier this year (He came out on Twitter, deleted his account, and hasn’t come back). Shortly after the second season dropped, Joe Locke, who plays Charlie Spring, the other lead and Nick’s love interest, voluntarily came out publicly; he’d been out to family and friends since he was twelve, but finally decided to go public with it. If we take away the sheer adorability factor of a young bisexual man playing a young bisexual male discovering his own sexuality, while playing against an openly gay man playing an openly gay male teenager discovering his own self-worth and value, this kind of visibility–as well as the visibility of the show, and its enormous popularity–is sorely needed and is probably changing lives as I type this. I didn’t know what to expect when I went into season one, and I have to admit the show turned me into an adoring, gushing teenaged girl….so obsessed that I also went ahead and bought the original ebooks of the story and read them all in one afternoon. So, as we go into my thoughts on Season Two and some thoughts about the show’s importance–as well as some of it’s failures (much as I love the show and the characters, I can also see why people would criticize it; I love the show but nothing is above critique.)–bear in mind there are spoilers for both the season and the books contained within.

And while I know Locke is over eighteen, posting sexy-style photos of him just feels kind of wrong. He looks like such a child…but then the entire cast does, which is why the sweetness of the show hits so strong…which brings up another point about queer young adult fiction–or any medium about queer teenagers for that matter: having queer characters in juvenile and young adult fiction is already seen as dangerous by the homophobes (“grooming! grooming!”), so how do you show queer teens wrestling with their sexuality and their identity without triggering the hypocritical pearl-clutching homophobes who want us all gone? Heartstopper danced around this by focusing on identity rather than sexuality; when season one opens everyone already knows Charlie is gay because he was outed the previous year and bullied mercilessly. The bullying has died down–which isn’t often the truth in reality, but will allow it for the sake of the show–and now Charlie, in season one, develops a crush on the school rugby star, Nick Nelson–who sits next to him in form (the UK version of homeroom), and Nick is actually a super sweet, nice guy. They begin to develop a very sweet friendship–Charlie of course develops a bit of a crush, which he knows is hopeless and his very protective friends think is a bad idea…but what nobody knows is that Nick is finding himself attracted to Charlie and drawn to him, which is confusing for him. This first season was all about Nick coming to terms with his attraction and feelings for Charlie–a constant refrain from both of them is “Why am I like this?” And the entire show was incredibly sweet and lovely and very teenaged; the cast were age appropriate as well; sexuality it a topic of discussion but it’s never seen. The boys are incredibly chaste for teenaged boys. There was also a delightful lesbian couple, a wonderful trans girl named Elle, and of course Tao, Charlie’s super-protective friend. (My personal favorite character of the entire cast is Charlie’s Goth sister Tori. I fucking love her.) The season ends with Nick and Charlie becoming “boyfriends” and Nick settling into his own bisexuality, coming out to his mother (the divine Olivia Colman) in the end.

I ain’t gonna lie, I loved season one to the extent that I watched it twice and then bought the books and read them all over the course of a day–graphic novels don’t take as long to read as novels–and loved them, and the characters, all the more.

If the first season serves to introduce us to the primary couple and cast of the show, and is very sweet (other than the homophobic rugby players and Charlie’s wretched ex, Ben), the darker issues that were merely hinted at–you had to pay attention to catch them–come more to the forefront in season two; just as the graphic novels got a bit more serious as they went on. I’m not seeing the same outpouring of love for the second season that the first got, but I may not be paying enough attention and let’s face it, both Facebook and Twitter have circled the drain since the first season aired. So I don’t know if the more serious tone of the second season played well with the audience or not; it’s not all cotton candy sweetness in the second season as we get to know the characters and their personal lives a bit more. Darcy, one of the lesbians, has a homophobic borderline abusive mother; the bullying Charlie dealt with that followed his accidental outing caused some mental health damage that hasn’t been dealt with or handled until Nick begins to notice and suspect something is wrong with the boy he loves; Tao and Elle deal with their feelings of attraction to each other (and he finally cuts off that wretched curly bang thing he had going); and Nick also has to deal with a homophobic older brother and an absent father–and discovers that coming out is actually a never-ending process. The charm and queer joy is still there, of course, but as everyone who has ever had to come out has learned, the joy and relief is all too frequently followed by having to deal with all the problems your concern about coming out pushed to the back of your mind. Coming out is just the start; your world has changed irrevocably and now you have to relearn how to navigate that world as your actual self, and that is hard.

And for me, one of the more interesting aspects of how Alice Oseman chose to tell the story is that we originally see everything from Charlie’s point of view, with some of Nick’s; the point of view shifts to be more from Nick’s point of view than Charlie’s as it moves on. Heartstopper is really Nick’s story, from his first bisexual stirrings to falling in love to coming out to learning more about himself and resolving issues he is facing while being strong and supportive for Charlie.

Spoiler alert for fans of the show who haven’t read the books: the stories will continue getting darker, but that hopeful optimism that underlies both the show and the novels is always there.

And if nothing else, the show’s depiction of queer joy is worth a watch.

If You Let Me Down Let Me Down Slow

One of my favorite lines from All About Eve is not, actually, one of the more popular or famous (infamous?) ones. It comes when Margo and Karen are stranded in the car on the way to the train station so Margo can make her curtain; they’ve run out of gas and Lloyd has gone for help (Margo doesn’t know Karen has drained the tank deliberately to punish Margo for–well, for being right about Eve all along), and they start talking. Margo turns on the car radio and music plays, and Bette Davis makes a patented Bette Davis sneer-face and turns it off, snapping, “I despise cheap sentiment.” I love that line, and use it whenever it feels appropriate.

I do feel it important to say that I don’t despise all sentiment, just the cheap, sappy kind. I used to love It’s a Wonderful Life, frankly, until I started really thinking about its message and how truly dark it actually is; now I love to fuck with people who still love it by called it the darkest Christmas noir ever put on film. But The Princess Bride and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast are still two of my favorite movies; and earned sentimentality, that arises from strong character development and a good story, still moves my heart and can make me cry a little bit.

Yes, I cry at movies and television shows; there are even songs that make me tear up a little bit, too. I know I project that I am deeply cynical–probably because, well, I am deeply cynical. People and systems have disappointed me far too many times for me to have a glowing opinion of humanity as a rule; my friend Victoria often accuses me of being a misanthrope–to which I always reply, “And I’m not wrong to be.” I do prefer to believe that most people are decent at heart, but there are just so many examples on the other side of the scales that it’s very hard to keep believing in the kindness of random strangers. (Just look at our current society and what is going on in the world even as I type this.)

So, I went into Heartstopper not expecting an awful lot. It looked cute from the brief previews I’d seen, and so I knew already it was about two teenaged boys falling in love and their friend group. I’ve often been disappointed by queer representation in films, television shows, and sometimes in books as well; I figured, despite the enormous popularity of the graphic novels this show was based on, that this would yet again be the case.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I was so completely charmed by a television series with gay characters–if ever. I have always been harshly critical of fictions targeted toward queer youth for any number of reasons; the primary one being a serious lack of authenticity in the ones I’ve read and/or watched. Some of them were so blatantly unrealistic I couldn’t even get past the third page, and even the ones I managed to hold my nose and get through were incredibly problematic and disappointing. I never got into Love, Victor because it seemed…well, phony to me. I can’t give any examples of why I reacted that way to the show, and believe me, I wish I could have watched more of it so I could (I may go back and do so at some point). So when I saw the first previews for Netflix’ Heartstopper, it looked adorable…but as I said, didn’t get my hopes up. I checked into it before watching and learned that it was based on a series of graphic novels that started as web cartoons, written by Alice Oseman, and I thought, well, be supportive and give it a chance. We were just coming off season 5 of Elite, which had thoroughly shocked and surprised me with the amazing storyline and arc they’d given the character of gay Patrick (who literally stole the entire season out from under the rest of the cast; it was a stunning performance by Manu Rios), and the thought that I might have another terrific show with gay characters and a romance was too much to pass up on. So, the Saturday before we went to New York, Paul and I queued up Heartstopper and…

We were both enchanted.

Heartstopper is just so sweet and lovely I felt my Grinch heart grow three sizes while watching it.

I even happy-cried several times per episode; so it’s like Ted Lasso and Schitt’s Creek in that way, but it also touched me deeply. I kept thinking, over and over again, how marvelous this show was; how beautifully written and acted and produced–and how lovely this would have been for fifteen year old me to have seen.

It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore.

It really is just so damned sweet and charming.

The queer rep I’ve seen in y/a novels–romance or not–has generally not been satisfying or engaging; I tend to raise my eyebrows and roll my eyes a lot–if I can even make it all the way through. But this….this was different somehow. Maybe because the actors playing the roles were the actual age they were playing? They just looked so young and innocent and sweet….which was perfect for this kind of show, really. It does make a difference when teenagers are played by teenagers, as opposed to actors in their twenties.

Charlie is the main character, who was accidentally outed by one of his friends the previous year and has suffered some bullying, which has left a few marks on his psyche. But it’s a new school year, some older boys put an end to the bullying, and he’s starting over in a way. On the first day of class he finds himself sharing a table in Form (what I guess we would call homeroom) with Nick, the big star of the school’s (Truham) rugby team. As they continue sitting next to each other, they slowly but surely start becoming more and more friendly with each other; enjoying each other’s company, etc. Charlie is also involved in a toxic relationship with Ben–who will meet him privately to make out, but only on his terms and when he wants it, and is also seeing a girl–that Charlie is trying to get out of. Ben tries to force himself on Charlie one day… Nick stops it, and then their friendship blossoms even more, with more texts and Nick proving himself to be a really good friend to Charlie, who is also developing a crush on Nick.

Nick is also starting to have feelings for Charlie that go deeper than “being mates”–so we see him looking stuff up on line about being gay.

Kit Conner, who plays Nick, plays the role so pitch-perfectly–the confusion of having feelings you’ve never had before, which upsets your entire worldview and everything you think you know about yourself (it wasn’t my experience, personally, but I’ve heard this from countless others) and being terrified to express it; afraid of what will happen when you admit it to yourself and start admitting it to others, and what it all means. He’s falling in love with Charlie, but what precisely does that mean?

His mother is brilliantly played by Olivia Colman, who is just such a treasure. One of the sweetest scenes in the entire show is after she’s met Charlie, and she comments on the friendship, “You’re more you when you’re around him. You’re different around your other friends. With Charlie, you’re you.”

Yes, it brought tears to my eyes–especially watching the emotions of what she means being processed in Nick’s mind and the lovely smile when he realizes that Charlie really sees him…and what THAT means.

It was also lovely seeing their relationship develop and blossom and grow–and that everyone is supportive and excited for them for the most part (yes, there’s some homophobic bullying, but not as much as one would expect, but it’s also dealt with strongly and doesn’t really hang over the show, either). There’s a young lesbian couple as well whose development and growth mirrors that of Nick and Charlie; a wonderful young trans character who has left the boys’ school and is now at the girls’ school, and a burgeoning romance for her as well–which I hope develops more in the next season.

But most importantly, the show is about acceptance and the sweetness of falling in love for the first time–and the usual obstacles that keep our adorable young couple apart aren’t heavy drama, and their suffering is more along the line of does he really like me? Am I his boyfriend?

It’s sweet, and adorable, and charming. As I said, I happy cried any number of times throughout the show…and the soundtrack is fantastic.

In fact, I am so obsessed with Heartstopper that the day after we watched I bought all four graphic novels and read them the following afternoon.

The show follows the books pretty closely, but they are just as adorable in the graphic novels as they are on the show. The graphic novels take a bit of a darker turn in the last couple of volumes than I would have liked, but the dark stuff is handled not only optimistically but in the same charming, loving, kind way the rest of the story is told.

The covers for the series so far

Highly recommended. I am probably going to rewatch, too. It made me all warm inside, and shows like that–Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso and now Heartstopper–are necessary, especially in these dark times in which we live. Thank you, Alice Oseman, for the books, the story, and the characters. Highly recommended.

I could write about this show and the books forever, and may write more later…but I am going to go ahead and post this now.