Heartstopper Review
Includes spoilers
October 22, 2022
It is no question that television and media in general has become a lot more diverse in the past couple of years. This includes race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender, etc. One of the most wholesome shows I’ve ever seen with diversity in most of these categories is Heartstopper.
Hearstopper the tv show is a Netflix rendition of a classic webtoons comic series, Heartstopper made by Alice Oseman. It mainly follows the stories of tenth grader, Charlie Spring, and eleventh grader, Nick Nelson, and their adventures through Truham High School (an all boys school). The tv show also follows trans character Elle Argent (Yasmin Finney), Tara Jones (Corrina Brown), and Darcy Olsson (Kizzy Eldgell) at Higgs High School.
I fell in love with the series when reading the comic and watched the show shortly after. It’s a great short romance series, which means a lot that I’m saying this because I usually really don’t like romance stories. It’s not only a romance series, but it is also realistic. The series talks about serious things like homophobia (both external and internal), a non-consensual kiss, emotionally abusive relationships, mentioning prior severe bullying, and more. These are considered possible trigger warnings and more possible trigger warnings can be found at: https://aliceoseman.com/extras/content-warnings/.
Personally, I love when series that have this level of “possible trigger warnings” because they portray things realistically. The sad reality is that it wouldn’t have been realistic if the series was a romantic story between two boys and there was no homophobia. It is also realistic that there are toxic relationships, bullying, etc.
The comic was incredible (including the art which was amazing) and the show was just as incredible. The show decided to change the plot of the story a little with adding more characters and adding more diversity. Although I liked the close up on Nick and Charlie, I also enjoyed seeing more of the world that they live in.
The show wasn’t the only thing that supports the LGBTQIIA+ community, as seen in a video uploaded to twitter (see below). Kit Connor (Nick Nelson) said on twitter that Joe Locke (Charlie Spring) and Sebastian Croft (Ben Hope) were “front and centre”. Joe Locke said that he “had to do [his] job properly.”
This show has given a new definition of what diversity should look like. Now that you’ve finished reading this article you should go back and rewatch Heartstopper and read the comics if you haven’t. Season two is coming soon!
