![](https://silentmovieblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/aaaaqsa5duo0mdca9tygvrdcxyvx_1h4vvm2mcpnjlzvufqhpbw8ggp00xwy7haaimzn-ts9nq25uevg_pxeafen0vv0pqsqpf4zec2gpd6277p_mkjyuyulqfdnq6faq5vm0k5bwreyq0zjhjurz-zm7n4cmxg.jpg?w=1024)
This blog posts contains some spoilers for Heartstopper season 2.
Those of us who spend time on social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, often see posts shared by friends and family (as well as total strangers) of a certain age, where they declare that their childhoods were better because they played outside instead of on the computer, or because we spoke to friends face to face instead of on messenger, etc. They are posted with an air of nostalgia, of course, rather than through any real belief that our childhoods were better – and, it’s fair to say, that to say that they were is total bollocks.
Who would want to go back to a time where most queer kids would never dream of coming out, knowing full well that they would be beaten each day at school if they did?
Who would want to go back to time where even being suspected of being gay would result in a beating, too?
Who would want to go back to a time where disabled kids were not properly catered for in the school system and didn’t have the same rights as the rest of us?
If we look back at our childhoods with a sense of reality rather than through rose-coloured glasses, would anyone really wish them on today’s kids?
And LGBTQ teenagers twenty, thirty, or forty years ago didn’t have anything remotely like Heartstopper, the second season of which dropped on Netflix this week. The first time I saw anything close to a positive portrayal of male homosexuality on TV was when Beautiful Thing was first shown on Channel 4 somewhere around 1997 or 1998. I was twenty-four. Prior to that, most gay characters I saw on screen were dying of AIDS, being murdered, or committing suicide.
The BBC did try in the late 1980s with their then-controversial drama Two of Us (see pic, below) – a kind of hour-long Heartstopper of its day, and originally intended to be shown as part of the schools daytime programming of the time. Around the same time, Section 28 was brought in by the Tory government. This legislation officially banned “promotion of homosexuality” in schools. By “promotion” they basically meant “don’t say anything remotely positive about it.” The BBC got cold feet about Two of Us and pulled the programme, eventually showing it late at night instead when the people it was aimed at would have been in bed – and it was only shown then with a revised ending where the two gay teenagers didn’t get together after all. Ah yes, the good old days.
LGBTQ teenagers of the time (such as myself) had no-one on TV or film that they could relate to. If only we’d had a film or a show like Heartstopper to relate to, and to convince us that everything was going to be fine, and that we’d get through whatever life was throwing at us. I’ve seen criticism of the second season on social media, with people (mostly of my age) saying it is unrealistic because of its lack of sex (or references to sex). I can only assume their minds have somehow been programmed to think such a thing after enduring the gay-themed indie films of the 1990s onwards, where it was thought that showing full frontal nudity every ten minutes or so was the only way of getting a gay man to sit through a film. Any adult watching Heartstopper and wanting a sex scene is rather missing the point of the series in the first place.
Season two continues pretty much where season one left off. Nick and Charlie are, by and large, happy, and this season follows Nick’s journey through the coming out process – and it’s nice to see that journey depicted as not one “coming out” moment but the realisation that people keep coming out for the rest of their lives. Also nice is that Nick isn’t forced to come out. But, as with the first season, there is more going on than that. Tao and Elle are working through a will they/won’t they relationship. Tara and Darcy are going through various stresses in their own relationship – although I would like to have seen Darcy’s home life explored more. The strand focussing on that doesn’t even appear until episode seven. Perhaps there will be more next season. Isaac is slowing working out how he fits in (or doesn’t fit in) to the whole relationship thing, and we also get to see more Mr. Ajayi’s personal life, which is really nice, too.
It is a busy series (and includes a very charming three-episode jaunt to Paris), but none of it seems rushed, with the exception of the Darcy subplot, and, perhaps, the rather strange situation that homophobic rugby player Harry doesn’t make any play after finding out Nick and Charlie an item. There are some wonderful put-the-arrogant-idiots in their place moments in this series, where Harry, Nick’s brother, and Ben all basically get told where to go – although it would have been interesting to see one of those moments not work out so well for the one putting them in their place.
But, for the most part, this remains a series about good people doing good things and looking after each other. It’s still surprising, perhaps, that a series based on that premise has been so welcomed in our cynical times – and that it’s just so damned good. If there was an Emmy for Most Charming Series, it would win, hands down. And it shouldn’t be surprising that adults are watching the series and being moved by it, too.
Ten years ago, I wrote a novel called Breaking Point, dealing with a pair of teenaged boys who are friends but realise their friendship is becoming something more. At the same time, a bully and his friends do what they can to drive them apart. But I confess that, while I am very proud of Breaking Point and its sequel, Breaking Down (both still available, I might add!!), I’d much rather have written Heartstopper. There is almost an audaciousness and daring in writing something so simply driven by nice people doing good things. What other drama series or book series does that? It’s an utter masterstroke, and so what we need right now as the country continues to tear itself apart.
The writing this season is both sharper and more subtle, and the acting has also improved – although the slightly rough-around-the-edges element to the first season in that regard was rather beguiling. There are also sequences that appear to be improvised, giving the show such a natural feel, helped by how well the cast clearly gel with each other. Talking of which, don’t miss the recap of the last season before episode one, which is narrated by the cast as themselves, and is very sweet.
The reviews for this second season have largely been excellent, although it appears the reviewer in The Independent has a heart of stone. Perhaps he has forgotten that the show is actually aimed at young teenagers, and not middle-aged men – although there is plenty for adults to enjoy, I might add, including the appearance of Olivia Colman (stunning as always), but also that feeling of watching it and being thankful that today’s kids have Heartstopper instead of Section 28.
We should never forget how much of a good thing that is.