“Heartstopper”: The Youth I’ll Never Have

“Heartstopper” – just another of countless Netflix series based on successful media, I thought. In this case, by the way, on a web comic, which can now also be purchased as a haptic volume. Both versions – the comic, written by Alice Oseman, and the series, produced by Zorana Piggott – are about the young, gay misfit named Charlie Spring, who goes to a boys’ school. The other is Nicholas “Nick” Nelson, an apparently heterosexual rugby player who, unlike Charlie, is very popular simply because of his athleticism and looks. The two are put together in a class in the first episode, and it’s – of course – love at first sight for Charlie.

But what I dismissed as quite cute and charmingly filmed in the first episode (animated leaves, sparks and hearts appear at special moments) should completely captivate me and trigger me in the most beautiful and worst way. To be honest, I wasn’t prepared at all.

“Heartstopper” is a rarity among queer media

As a queer person, I’ve rarely been able to get much out of queer films and series, and I’m very skeptical about these media. Of course, there are also wonderful productions in this genre, such as the film “Call Me by Your Name”, which haunted and moved me for a long time. But for every such good example, there is a production like the ARD series “All You Need” ten times more often, which I find partly ridiculous in terms of dialogue and presentation, partly offensive.

Queerness is treated as something inherently dramatic that can only end in suffering, grief and death.

Both of the above examples refrain from using the cliché of:the “tragic homosexual” who:who suffers terribly from the awakening of sexuality, whose coming-out is a huge and extremely difficult event for everyone involved, after the end of which one feels either falls out with loved ones forever or lies crying in your arms. the drama And to this day I’m happy about every queer story in which one of the two people isn’t brutally verbally or psychologically tortured or even killed. Actually, when I watched “Call Me By Your Name,” I thought about the whole movie, “I hope neither of them has to die.” And it wasn’t until the credits rolled that I could breathe a sigh of relief. “Bury your homosexuals” is still a clichéd and popular way of dealing with queer people in the media. As if queerness were something dramatic through and through, as if the history of queer people could only end in suffering, mourning and death, like everything that is not “normal” for mainstream society.

But back to “Heartstopper,” which deftly circumvents these clichés, and why the show left me an emotional wreck that was both happy and traumatized. From here on there are spoilers for the first season of the Netflix series. Please take a look.

A queer emotional rollercoaster ride

The series (I can only speak of her, I haven’t read the comic yet) gets so many things right when it comes to depicting queerness: Charlie is an insecure, even traumatized, young man who can’t quite believe that anyone is in the world does not see as a nuisance. His homosexuality is only indirectly related – it was the reason why homophobic people pounced on him and tormented him at school for over a year. But it’s very clear in the series: Society did that to Charlie, and in the end his sexual orientation had nothing to do with it.

Not everyone succeeds in creating strength and self-love from the realization of being “different” – especially not right away.

As someone who spent a large part of my youth in a village in North Rhine-Westphalia, this narrative – unfortunately – picks me up. I was very harsh in my initial judgment of Charlie, who throughout the show apologizes for every little thing and basically just goes, “I’m sorry I’m alive.” Until I realized that Charlie is in me too, the part of me that to this day isn’t really convinced that I’m lovable.

But it’s not just Charlie who touches my heart: as Nick becomes more aware of his feelings for his “best friend” and researches homosexuality online, he sheds tears as he realizes that he is (as the series progresses he realizes he is bisexual). And they don’t come to him because he’s homophobic or thinks he shouldn’t be. Sure, his cliche straight friends are terrible, some actually homophobic. But the tears do not bring them to his eyes, but the realization that he is not “like everyone else” and never will be. Not everyone succeeds in creating strength and self-love from this realization, and certainly not from one day to the next. Viewers accompany him on this path, which is so sensitive, so well written, that tears come to my eyes even just thinking about it and writing about it.

And Charlie’s friends, who play a bigger role in the series than in the original, are all believable and completely understandable in their fear, which not only teenagers feel. I especially remembered Elle Argent, a trans girl who is also played by a trans girl in the series. She also went to the boys’ school for a while, in the first episode her change to a girls’ school is mentioned so casually that I only understood what her story was after a few episodes. The “naturalness” vaunted by so many transphobic people is captured so beautifully in “Heartstopper”: Elle is a trans girl, so of course she’s a girl, so of course she goes to an all-girls school. That ends that part of her story.

The coming out of the queer characters is portrayed as the experience it is: individual, sometimes frightening, ultimately liberating and depicting the most beautiful emotion that love is. Tara Jones, who is also in girls’ school, is making her relationship with Darcy Olsson as Gen Z public as a 30-year-old like me could ever imagine: via a photo on Instagram. And certainly, on the one hand, there is the wonderful moment between the two girls kissing at a party and celebrating the lightness and beauty of love that not only convinces Nick: Yes, love is worth everything. However, the danger of being suddenly reduced to one’s sexual orientation by other people is also dealt with. And the series also shows what can happen emotionally to a person who doesn’t want to and can’t open up to the world – and how much damage that causes to him and others.

The youth that was denied me

When I finished watching the series, I felt something very strange inside of me: helplessness. I didn’t want it to be over, I wanted to linger in this world, wanted to see how Charlie and Nick’s relationship continues now that it’s public. What will happen between Charlie’s best friend Tao Xu and Elle, who both have slowly realized that they are connected by more than friendship.

But most of all, I was torn out of a “What if…?” my youth. What if I could have seen a series like that back then that showed me that homosexuality is nothing reprehensible, not an insult, nothing to be ashamed of? The bittersweet truth I found to myself through all of the heartwarming and heartbreaking moments of “Heartstopper” is: I’ll never have that youth. The time when feelings first emerge, when everything is exciting and new and scary and intense and cruel and wonderful, that time is over for me. That’s the worst realization I had to take away from the Netflix series, for which I wasn’t emotionally prepared at all, even though I actually found “my Nick” years later.

I’m proud of a community that fights for their rights, for their love, and for life with their heads held high.

But then I also feel a feeling of intangible gratitude: I’m so glad this series exists, if not for my 15-year-old self, then for 15-year-olds around the world who struggle with their sexuality. When I look at all the emotional reactions, the stories and the people on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, I feel exactly what is celebrated in June every year: pride. I’m proud of a community that fights for their rights, for love, for life with their heads held high.

In the end, “Heartstopper” picks us all up: Whether we’re heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, whether we’re cis, trans or non-binary – at the end of the day, it’s all nothing more than a label. What defines us is the ability to love. No matter how scary, engaging, overwhelming it may be at times, love prevails.

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