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Colleague Review: Heartstopper

Margaret Blake shares some thoughts on the new LGBT+ coming-of age series.

 

Hi, I’m Margaret and I work at the School of Informatics.

I was just speaking with Jonathan (Staff Pride Network co-chair) about ‘Heartstopper’,  a new series that is available on Netflix, which I’ve been watching with my 14 year-old daughter. She’d mentioned it to me recently, as she’d binge watched it all in one night, has since watched it all again, and asked me to watch it with her.

It’s a brilliant, feel-good teen drama. The story is set in two schools – an all-boys school and an all-girls school.  The main character is Charlie, an openly gay teenager who has to sit next to Nick in his form class.  Nick is an older boy, enjoys rugby, has a group of boisterous mates and lots of girls fawn over him.  Charlie really likes Nick but thinks there is no chance of anything romantic happening, so makes do with becoming Nick’s best friend, until a party changes all that.

Meanwhile, Charlie has a group of really good friends including Tao, Isaac and Elle. Elle is a trans pupil and has recently moved to the all-girls school. SPOILER ALERT: She has a positive experience at the all-girls school.

This is classed as a coming-of-age series, and that perfectly describes it. I’ve still got two episodes to watch and I’m really looking forward to watching them with my daughter.  It makes me happy to watch, and I think it’s brilliant that things have come on so far in television that such a series even exists, as it wouldn’t have when I was growing up in the 80s.

 

Did you enjoy Heartstopper? What other LGBT+ media are you enjoying? Let us know in the comments or via socials: Twitter | Instagram

e: staffpridenetwork@ed.ac.uk