Heartstopper, the Netflix Series: A Quick Review

Amid the attack on transgender youth in the US, the leaked "majority opinion" written by Justice Alito, from the US Supreme Court that may spell the end of marriage equality in the US, and "Don't Say Gay" bills and laws being passed among Republican states, there was a breath of fresh air and hope and love that came through a Netflix series a few weeks ago: "Heartstopper." 

The word, "heartstopper" means "something so frightening or emotionally gripping as to make one's heart seem to stop beating" (dictionary.com). This series is one in which the heart stops beating because of the love found between two young men at a contemporary "high school" in somewhere, UK.

This television series is based upon the novel by Alice Oseman, a British writer of young adult books, who wrote it as a webcomic or graphic novel on the social platform Tumblr. 

A few weeks ago I began seeing stories about the series on Netflix, and so one night, I began to watch it. In the next three nights, I watched the entire series, and wanted more. 

In essence it is the story of two young teenagers, Charlie, a true "geek," and Nick, the rugby star, and their discovery of not only their unlikely friendship from sitting next to one another in their first morning "homeroom" class, but their discovery, and reckoning, with something more in their life: that they are both in love with each other as they navigate school comedy-and-drama, and young love in this "coming-of-age" series."

Reporter Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian was like me: dubious at first about this coming-of-age, coming-out-of-the- closet series. As a gay man, I have tended to think that once you've seen one coming-out-of-the-closet series, you've seen them all. 

I was wrong about this one.

What was wonderful was that the character Charlie had already come out of his gay closet the year prior to where the series picks up, and is living a relatively happy gay life, all things considered. Granted, he had been bullied earlier by none other than the rugby team members, of which his soon-to-be-love, Nick, is the captain. I was so glad to watch a series in which the issue of coming-out-of-the-gay-closet had already been dealt with, and Charlie was living a pretty good life. And then when Nick comes out of his bisexual-closet and embraces his love for Charlie in the high school on the high school's very public "game day," I was elated.

But the other emotion I felt, as did apparently lot of my friends who are of my generation--60 years-old and older--and watched the series, is a sense of sadness in reflecting upon what we went through in high school in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I have often heard the comment, "Can you imagine that being on TV when we were younger?" Or even more poignant, I wish I went to such a high school like that when I was Charlie and Nick's age. Trust me: Beaverton High School (Beaverton, OR) in the 70s was nothing like the school that this series is based upon. Nor were there any TV shows, let alone movies, music, plays, musicals, dances, art, or any creative public expression that would capture the love and heartache I experienced as a closeted-gay-young man in high school. And any books that dealt with these issues never made the high school English class curricula, though The Scarlet Letter got really close, or the Crucible. Or worse yet, as Nicholson writes, "plenty of us recall watching terrible films or TV shows in the hope that there would be even a hint of gay subtext, only to be disappointed in the end."

If interested in her article, here is the link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/30/thanks-in-part-to-alice-oseman-tv-has-never-been-better-if-you-are-young-and-gay.

And here is my other sadness when reflecting upon junior high/middle school and high school: the churches I attended were even worse places to be gay than were the public high schools. At least in the high schools, those of us who were in our respective gay-closets knew who we were, even if we didn't live it out publicly. In churches, the guilt of sin of being gay was overwhelming, and there was no God, Christ, or Spirit of love to comfort us in our sexual identity as LGBTQIA2S+ people of faith in American Christianity in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. 

Perhaps now is the time for a Netflix series of an LGBTQIA2S+ open, affirming, reconciling, light and love-filled community of Christian faith, with a youth group that accepts, embraces, and celebrates everyone!

May it be so.