Why LGBTQ+ Teen Shows Are So Satisfying To Watch
3 reasons why LGBTQ+ romance on screen is less cheesy and more relatable than straight romance stories
3 reasons why LGBTQ+ romance on screen is less cheesy and more relatable than straight romance stories
This weekend I was in a bit of a rut and I needed something feel-goody to lift me up. Somehow I came across “Heartstopper” and “Love, Victor”, two LGBTQ+ teen shows. I would have never guessed that they would take me, a 30 year-old cis woman, on a wild emotional journey and that I would get completely obsessed with their stories. So, I started thinking: What makes these shows so relatable, and why are they so satisfying to watch?
Now, I have to say right off the bat that I am not the type of person who likes cheesy romantic comedies or teen soap operas. Even as a teenager, I couldn’t stand the teen shows with endless drama and a lot of “teen” (adult?) sex, like Dawsons Creek or One Tree Hill, because they didn’t have any deeper messages other than who gets it on with whom. And that is exactly what LGBTQ+ teen shows like “Heartstopper” and “Love, Victor” do differently.
1. LGBTQ+ teen shows deal with deeper questions
Because we are still at the point in time where LGBTQ+ people have to deal with a lot of external pressure and discrimination, LGBTQ+ shows are obliged to deal with these difficult questions: How will my parents accept me? What will my friends in school think about me? How do I become the person I want to be?
And these questions are extremely relatable for anyone. As a teenager, I was constantly plagued by these types of questions (and sometimes I still am), even though they didn’t apply to my sexual orientation. Certain external pressures, like religious parents, can affect so many areas of a person’s life that go beyond the LGBTQ+ struggles. For example, there was a clear parallel between my story and Victor’s story in “Love, Victor”.
Victor’s parents are very religious and that stands in the way of them accepting he is gay. In my case, my family being religious has often stood in the way of them accepting some of my life choices. In other situations, I also experienced discrimination for being a foreigner or not performing my female gender as expected by the society.
Watching “Love, Victor” made me see myself in these characters and their struggles. And it was so satisfying to see how these characters resolve their problems, make up with each other, and come to a perfect conclusion to their story, something that doesn’t happen all that much in real life, which brings me to my second point.
2. We can identify with the idealized depiction of teenagers as emotionally mature
Watching “Heartstopper” and “Love, Victor” made me realize why I am enjoying this so much at 30 years of age: I am living through them because I never got to be so mature as a teenager. All of us who have been through puberty know that teenagers are just a mess: They feel everything strongly, but they have no idea why they feel the way they do or how to communicate those feelings. It is simultaneously a very hard, confusing, and exciting time in anyone’s life.
Then somewhere in your mid to late twenties, you finally embark on a proper emotional journey to figure out why the heck you feel what you feel, and when you finally get to understand a chunk of it, you wish you could have used that wisdom sooner. And that is what these series are showing us: Teenagers acting like mature adults. They apologize to each other and explain why they did what they did. They have an extreme awareness of their emotional states and this is EXTREMELY satisfying to watch.
That is why “Heartstopper” is the most feel-good show I’ve ever watched. These teenagers are figuring out their emotions, telling each other about it, acting on it, and taking care of each other!! And while I’m watching this, I am screaming, going through an emotional journey, where I am identifying all my teen feels, my current feels and wounds, and how I could address them, if I just acted like these super mature characters. The truth is I do talk about my feelings a lot (wink to anyone who knows me), but somehow the completeness of these TV story arcs makes it feel like these characters have completely figured their sh*t out.
(This just made me realize that most parents I know didn’t figure their emotional sh*t either… Maybe they should watch these shows to get some inspiration.)
3. We relate to insanely romantic stories fueled by conflict
I don’t know if this applies to you, but I am a sucker for insanely romantic stories (not cheesy but proper romantic, something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The emotional intensity of these LGBTQ+ stories is much higher than anything I have seen in the past 10 years on film and TV, and definitely much higher than straight romance on screen. Why is that?
Great stories have great conflict or tension that fuels the story. And LGBTQ+ romantic stories have an in-built conflict in them: The conflict of the external societal pressure. In teen stories, this is usually about having to come out and tell people for the first time, which is daunting. On the other hand, straight TV romance usually invents some conflict internal to the relationship, like a guy cheating on his partner or moving to a different part of the country.
In 2022, a woman forgiving a guy who cheated is not a romantic story anymore (and it never was), and moving away is probably not a big deal either, with all that sweet pandemic technology... In fact, for a straight romance to be really romantic on screen, you can’t let the couple stay together in the end, like in La La Land, for example, otherwise it becomes too much of a cliché.
So, LGBTQ+ stories offer a fresh take on dealing with external pressures that a relationship might have to go through, while figuring out your own emotions and struggles embedded in the society and family you were born into. The tension that is built around these romances can make for an insanely intense emotional journey. You keep thinking: Will they manage to go through it and be happy? In both “Heartstopper” and “Love, Victor”, this tension is exploited to the maximum.
About “Heartstopper” and “Love, Victor” and watching recommendations
“Heartstopper” is a Netflix show based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alice Oseman (you can read it for free on Tapas and Webtoon). I don’t want to reveal any of the plot if you haven’t watched it, but trust me when I say that it is the most heartwarming, relatable, cute, and family-friendly story about love and friendship we have seen in a very long time. I loved both the Netflix show and the graphic novel, but the show might be a bit better at building tension.
“Love, Victor” is a Hulu/Disney series following the main character, Victor, who is exploring and coming to terms with his sexual orientation, amidst conservative family background. The show can also be characterized as heartwarming and relatable, although slightly more serious and less family-friendly than “Heartstopper”. In terms of screen quality, “Heartstopper” is superior to “Love, Victor”, but I enjoyed both shows and their first seasons are actually of comparable quality.
I would also recommend “Love, Simon”, a super cute family-friendly movie about coming out and finding love, situated in the same universe as “Love, Victor”, which is kind of a spin-off of “Love, Simon”.
One thing I do have to note about the current landscape of mainstream LGBTQ+ romance is that stories about lesbian couples often get a very different treatment. Unfortunately, most often we see an overly sexualized lesbian story written from a perspective that suspiciously resembles a straight male fantasy (Blue Is the Warmest Colour comes to mind, although I liked the plot) and not the heartwarming perspective we get in boys-love shows. I guess there is always place for improvement, but I’m glad we are getting more and more LGBTQ+ content.
Anyhow, go and watch/read some good LGBTQ+ romance!