I am a Netflix sceptic. Every few months, as I begin to exhaust how much one person can rewatch the good series of Arrested Development, I consider cancelling it. And every time I get to that stage; something comes along that stops me from doing so. Last year, the promise of Gillian Anderson portraying Thatcher as the pantomime villain of the eighties kept the direct debit flowing. This year, it was glimpses of Heartstopper, the coming-out-of-age show based on Alice Oseman’s comics. I was expecting a sweet, mild, and innocent way to while away a few evenings. What I was not prepared for was a two-part binge to leave me feeling hollow and a wistful longing for what could’ve been.
I mean, the show was brilliant. An adorable tale of a group
of friends navigating their way through secondary school, centring around the
anxious and ever-so-slightly-nerdy-in-a-TV-way1 Charlie (Joe Locke) and his crush on Nick (Kit O'Connor),
the star of the rugby team2. Beyond Nick and Charlie’s
tentatively growing relationship, the show is unbridled in its celebration of
young LBGTQ+ lives. From exploring the challenges facing Elle as she adapts to the
girls’ school after transitioning, to the pressure on Tara and Darcy as they
begin to go public with their relationship, it does it all in a joyous way. The
show doesn’t shy away from some of the harder inevitabilities of growing up gay
– namely the bullying, uncertainty, and anxiety that usually accompanies. However,
even these relative dark moments are fleeting shadows quickly dispelled by the inclusive
sun of Oseman’s writing.
So, why did I come away feeling my joy tinged with sadness? I’m
certainly not the only gay millennial who did. Scott Bryan wrote beautifully
about how it left him feeling melancholic when looking back at his own coming
out experience at school as a comparison. Owen Jones too had a similar reflection.
I certainly can’t write as eloquently as either of them, but for my own catharsis,
I wanted to share my own thoughts.
Like most British schools in the early noughties, my secondary
was hardly a bastion of progressive inclusivity. Gay wasn’t just another insult
to be thrown around, it was the insult of choice. When one student got upset at
the word bastard being used as an insult (because it was unfair on children
born out of wedlock), he suggested that batty boy was an appropriate
replacement, because obviously no-one suffered when he employed casual
homophobia. Teachers just never talked about anything LGBTQ+ related, nor were there
any resources readily available. Section 28 was seeped into the fittings – not in
an explicit or pro-active way, but in the same way your friend’s house had a
slightly odd smell when you went over. It was only once you left you realised
the odour. The handful of students who were out were incredibly brave – I had a
weird mix of envy and sympathy for them.
It was this environment in which my formative years were
shaped. I suppressed any questioning of
my own feelings. I had plenty of neuroses and reasons to keep my head down at
secondary school already, without the additional possibility of being gay. I
closed those thoughts off and spent my days wishing myself straight.
Suppression was the only way to protect myself. And, I was very good at suppressing
those feelings, as I kept them down beyond university and into my mid-twenties.
It took a fresh start in London to begin the tentative process of coming out. The
barriers forged at secondary school took a long time to dismantle.
This is why I felt such a hollow feeling finishing
Heartstopper. A British secondary school similar in many ways to mine3, where being gay wasn’t necessarily a social death
sentence. It was looking at a version of my childhood I was robbed of. Not
being robbed of my chance with the cute not-really-a-nerd or rugby jock4,
but of the chance to question my sexuality, to feel that being gay wasn’t the
end of the world, to not enter every social situation consumed by anxiety.
I’ve seen a few comments about that its sad that so many gay
people in their twenties and thirties are pining for a childhood seen only
through the colourful filter of a TV show aimed at teens – and I agree. It is sad.
I’m fully aware that even in a world where CBBC were showing a proto-Heartstopper
at 5pm on weekdays, secondary school would still be homophobic, I’d still be
anxious, and most likely still closeted through school. But it’s a taste of
what could have been. A world where it was just a little bit easier to find out
who I was, and to be comfortable with who I was a lot earlier in my life. A
world where teenage Mike could find Nick and Charlie was a world where Mike
would find himself a hell of a lot earlier.
Despite the feelings of sadness, I'm still delighted at
the fact the world is getting that bit better. Heartstopper shows the progress
we’ve made, and how we can continue to make lives better for LGBTQ+ people. But
more fundamentally, it was fun. I can’t wait for a second season of melancholic
joy. And Netflix, you know my £9.99 is dependent on it.
1 I owned the same Muse poster, so can vouch that Charlie
must have been somewhat of a nerd
2 You can tell it’s not set in the Midlands because there are sports other than football and running fast
3 Albeit with a lot less graffiti – considering how rough Truham Boys is supposed to be, the place is immaculate
4 Again, no rugby in Derbyshire