If you’re a queer person who watches television – as almost all of us naturally do – you are told a lot of things. You are told that TV is gayer now than it ever was. It’s true enough: where once the very idea of depicting same-sex romances on screen was taboo, now LGBT+ characters are everywhere you look. You are told that TV series such as Netflix’s Heartstopper, with its earnest and sentimental exploration of young queer romance, are seismic and significant. You are told again and again, if only a series like this existed when I was growing up. You are told that queer joy is an end in itself.
But we shouldn’t believe all we are told. It’s true that Heartstopper, which returned for its third season earlier this month, is an affirming and well-intentioned fairytale – and maybe even a necessary one. Queer people, however, deserve more than just fairytales. The vision of gay life that Netflix’s effusively received drama offers is one that’s utterly palatable and comprehensible to straight audiences, one that shies away from the more interesting realities of queer existence.
Kit Connor, one of the show’s stars, recently summed up the show’s appeal in an interview with the i: “In queer media, gay sex can often be just super hyper-sexual… which is in many ways true, but not all gay sex is just that, you know?” If the idea that gay sex shouldn’t be too sexual seems blatantly oxymoronic, just watch a bit of Heartstopper, and you’ll see that such a contradiction is indeed possible to synthesise. Season three goes further than previous years in its depiction of sexuality – but it’s much the same animal as before.
The shortcomings of Heartstopper as TV’s modern gay success story are thrown into even starker clarity by another series that aired this month: FX’s school-set comedy English Teacher (streaming on Disney+ in the UK). Created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez, the actor and internet personality behind the cult YouTube gem The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo, English Teacher is one of the very best series of 2024, and one of the funniest sitcoms in years. It’s also deeply, unapologetically gay. If Heartstopper offers idealised queer joy for young and impressionable “baby gays”, then English Teacher captures, and satirises, queer reality for jaded adults.
The finale of season one, released on Tuesday, begins with a familiar enough scene. A child in a Texan high school approaches his teacher after class, and confides in him a secret: he thinks he might be gay. He’s gone to this teacher, Evan Marquez (Alvarez), because he is an out gay man; he’s asking for advice. Evan, bewildered by the question, scowls at him: “What!? You’re scared to come out? It’s 2024, just go in the hall and say, ‘I’m gay’!”
It’s a brilliantly unsentimental rug-pull, one that flies in the face of the sort of bottomlessly gentle storytelling that now pervades queer stories on screen. “If you want somebody to talk to, go to one of the many out gay kids at this school,” he says, adding: “But be careful: don’t talk to one of those non-specific queer kids who may or may not be doing it for clout… Those people are mostly straight. Don’t tell anybody I said that.” It’s the sort of joke that most modern queer series would baulk at – sharp and mean-spirited and politically incorrect. But it’s also honest.
In shows such as Heartstopper (and the likes of Sex Education or Schitt’s Creek), there is often a self-imposed need to portray queer people in a sanctified light. It’s easy to see why this is – it’s a corrective to decades of erasure or otherwise bigoted portrayals across all media. But sainthood has a limited horizon. In opting for something spikier and messier – problematic characters, sexual frankness, messy and unconventional situationships, a gleeful air of not giving a f*** – English Teacher manages to find affirmation in truth.
There is a place for fantasies such as Heartstopper. But it’d be nice if queer shows made for queer adults got a fraction of the attention. At a certain point, it’s time to grow up.
Season one of ‘English Teacher’ is streaming now on Disney+