Heartstopper and queer joy

organising my thoughts on Netflix's sweetest show to date

Hello, I hope you’re having a lovely day.

Introduction

Netflix’s recent adaptation of Heartstopper, a webcomic/ graphic novel about a coming-of-age gay romance, has been a resounding victory for the streaming service in one of their rockier PR eras. Critical and fan reception has been overwhelmingly positive, and its release was swiftly followed by articles from numerous queer writers expressing the wish for something similar growing up. Heartstopper’s success reinforces the value of positive and nuanced representation. This is especially true for shows aimed at a teenaged audience, for whom popular media and television are a critical tool for learning about themselves and others.¹

So, what is it about Heartstopper that’s made it such a success? **Minor spoilers ahead**

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To state the obvious, Heartstopper does appease a tradition of ‘decades of queer representation…marked by a focus on white, youthful and normatively attractive protagonists’.² However, though the two leads are white and ‘normatively attractive’, this doesn’t discredit the show’s unconventional choice to put queer joy at centre stage. This, in conjunction with the story’s attentive representation of a diverse group of LGBTQ+ characters, marks something of a seismic achievement.

What I think Netflix got so right with Heartstopper is the balance it displays between discrimination and the confusion of coming to terms with sexuality at a young age, and simple queer joy. Owen Jones cleanly sums this up:

…regardless of sexual or gender identity, adolescence for many is defined by boredom, tedium, rejection and sometimes trauma…But at least straight people do not lack affirming representation on their TV screens. Young LGBTQ+ people now have a show with relatable and frankly adorable characters who face hardship, but who also have the possibility of happiness. ³

The show’s fine-tuned balancing act owes a lot to the positivity attributed to queer existence in Alice Oseman’s (the creator of the Heartstopper webcomic/ graphic novel) source material. Wisely, she was hired to write the show’s script, and was adamant that she be involved in her story’s adaptation.

After a couple of re-watches, I’ve decided on four categories which sum up my personal favourite things about Heartstopper and why I think it represents queer joy so successfully: Youth, Rolling with the L,G,B and T, Visuals and colour, and Other honourable mentions.

Youth

To begin with, unlike so many series clamouring to show teenagers through a lens of adulthood, with graphic representations of sex, trauma, drugs etc., Heartstopper isn’t afraid to let its characters be young. The show offers an optimistic perspective on youth, something which has been forgone in recent years in favour of more traumatising, sexualised or otherwise dark representations of teenage life (see Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why, Skins, and…uh…Riverdale). While there are obviously some exceptions to this (Sex Education, Derry Girls and Never Have I Ever, to name a few), this continues to be a trend amongst popular TV shows produced in the UK and the US.

The show places its (actually) teenage cast within a world which feels believable for the audience, something which is reinforced through appropriate costuming and naturalistic dialogue. This dedication to an authentic representation of youth is seen in some small but important details: the characters’ Instagram accounts and DMs look real and behave accurately on-screen; the principal actors are almost all aged 18-19; and there is just the right amount of internet slang and/or references to feel believable but not cringey.

The eagerness to transition teenagers into adult roles is especially prevalent for representations of queer adolescents in popular media. Heartstopper consciously eschews this by avoiding depictions of drugs, sex and alcohol. This adultification is often due to writers’ desire, or sense of obligation, to showcase queer teens’ struggles with discrimination, isolation and/or heightened mental health difficulties. Accordingly, possibilities to represent LGBTQ+ teens enjoying stereotypical adolescent experiences are reduced.

Mainstream representation has traditionally shown queer youth as a state which lacks or is desirous of heteronormativity, rather than a legitimate existence in and of itself. This is perhaps because when writing adolescence, which is often defined as a period of ephemerality and personal exploration, writing traumatic or straight-oriented versions of queer youth is more achievable for a large writers room with an LGBTQ+ minority. This is especially true for the writing of trans stories in an industry in which transgender writers ‘have received representation at levels lower than the UK population estimate of 0.8%’.⁴

When young characters’ primary motivations are compliance with the heterosexual matrix, LGTBQ+ existence is automatically Othered. As such, depictions of queer joy are both less likely and less achievable. This is especially prevalent for queer teens of colour on TV, whose representation is doubly affected by both heteronormative and racial prejudices.

Trigger warning: the following paragraph mentions sexual violence. This is the ONLY mention of sexual violence in the body of this newsletter.

A huge part of Heartstopper’s success thus lies in its decision to break away from the adultification of its teenager characters. Joe, Nick and their group of friends aren’t sexualised and never do anything more than kiss on-screen. This, again, is uncommon for popular representations of adolescence and provides an affirming portrayal of non-sexual intimacy for queer teens. The importance of this should not be overlooked, given the disproportionate amount of sexual exploitation and violence experienced by young LGBTQ+ people.⁵

Heartstopper thus repackages the typical explorations of LGTBQ+ youth we see in popular media⁠. It re-imagines how growing up queer should look and offers LGBTQ+ audiences an ‘alternative nostalgia’ for a happy adolescence they might not have experienced themselves. Youth, and the joyful representation of such, is therefore at the centre of the show’s heart-warming triumph.

Rolling with the L, G, B and T

Another distinguishing feature of Heartstopper is that it doesn’t only focus on queer masculinity. The show’s main set of characters also features three queer girls, Darcy Olsson (played by Kizzy Edgell), Tara Jones (played Corinna Brown), and Elle (played by Yasmin Finney). The latter two roles are played by women of colour.

Elle, who is trans, is one of several LGBTQ+ characters to get the Heartstopper treatment. By this, I mean that she is afforded the rarity of a storyline which isn’t hijacked by oppression and queer trauma. Finney has herself pointed this out, signalling the ‘rarity’ of trans stories on TV which don’t ‘delve into gender dysphoria or depression’.⁶ The show takes care to never deadname Elle and begins when she is already enrolled in Higgs’ Girl School, rather than at Truham Boys (where she was previously). This shows a dedication to trans ‘narratives [which] are more varied and nuanced’ and ‘offer[s an] alternativ[e] to the once dominant narrative of transgender as “transitioning.”’⁷ We don’t see any actual transphobia on-screen, it is only referenced as happening in the past. The writers’ choice to represent trans joy is especially critical right now, as the community experiences a period of negative hypervisibility. Moreover, offering the role to a trans actress helps deconstruct dangerous misconceptions about the performativity of queer and trans identities. Such misconceptions have a proven link to heightened violence against the community.

While Tara Jones’ story, like the lead Charlie’s, also deals with discrimination, the show offers more prominence to the joy found in her relationship with Darcy. Their joy, in fact, is what encourages Nick to face his blossoming feelings for Charlie and to embrace his bisexuality. The friendship we see develop between the various LGBTQ+ characters provides further nuance to the show’s depiction of queer youth. On the small screen, writers have routinely isolated LGBTQ+ characters within heterosexual environments and offered far less prominence to queer friendships than to romantic or sexual relationships. The show calls attention to the importance of queer platonic community and its value when coming to terms with self and sexuality. Heartstopper prioritises the joy of friendship as well as romance and, by representing more than just a single vision of queer life, offers an essential re-imagining of LGBTQ+ representation on-screen.

Visuals and colour

As mentioned, Alice Oseman wrote the script for the series, which co-opts some visual elements of its source material. The show’s creative vision is whimsical and sentimental, which is expressed through the use of 2D animation. Across eight episodes, we see a sprinkling of white comic book panels, hearts, birds and, of course, leaves which ‘occasionally blow across the frame’ which are a ‘signature of the comic’.⁸ These visual indicators of characters’ emotions pay homage to the original material and are the cherry atop the show’s youthful, butterflies-in-the-tummy charm. This serves to connect the world of the comics with that of the TV show which, despite its distinct use of colour, still feels familiar to the black and white world of the original.

One of Heartstopper’s artistic touches which magnifies the underlying story is the use of colours blue and yellow. These two colours, with opposite associations in traditional colour psychology (happiness and sad, activity and calmness) appear in almost every shot. This is sometimes more obvious, such as on school walls, or is done more covertly, such as in the ties in Elle’s hair or the lighting of a YouTube video a character is watching. They are also not necessarily traditional choices for a colour palette, as blue and yellow are not analogous nor are they complimentary.

Blue and yellow appear in more muted form in shots where Charlie or Nick are isolated or unhappy, and reappear with much stronger saturations when the two are together, especially when they are sharing a romantic moment.

See the examples below:

The use of these two recurring colours in almost every aspect of Heartstopper’s visual world reinforces a slight distance from our reality. The recurrence of blue and yellow throughout almost every scene and setting creates a continuous visual story and establishes a space for young queer people which is more coherent and accepting than our own. We are offered a glimpse at a world which is brighter and more optimistic than current reality.

Once you pick up on the blue and yellow pattern, you can’t help but notice how the viewer is bombarded with it. Blue and yellow are both primary colours, which conjures associations with purity and youth, and Heartstopper constantly refers back to these hues as a part of its storytelling. This is because ‘whether it be the primary hue of a recurring colour scheme, or the repetition of specific colours throughout a film, single consistent colours in a story are used as associations…we associate that colour to a certain subject or an idea.’⁹

The two colours are also distinctly different, just like our two protagonists, but are nonetheless shown to belong together in the world of the show. These whimsical elements remind the audience of the playful and childlike qualities of the characters, who are still young and coming-of-age on screen.

Though the writers and producers of the show take care to make sure the story is not all light, the final offering is still a bright, colourful and joyful vision of queer adolescence. This is a vision which, based on the world’s reaction to Heartstopper, has been sorely wanted and sorely missed.

Other honourable mentions

Here are some other nods to why Heartstopper is great that I didn’t have time/ space to go into:

• Nick’s single-parent family dynamic is never questioned nor is it the subject of some sad backstory or traumatic flashback. This legitimises it for the viewer; plain and simple, it’s just a happy two-person family. (There might be exploration of this down the line in the series, as is done in the later volumes of the comic, but it’s still great to see, nonetheless).

• Heartstopper does away with the ‘jealous straight’ trope and instead shows Imogen (Rhea Norwood), who is rebuffed by Nick, as an understanding friend who doesn’t hold his rejection against him. Nick is likewise sympathetic in his rebuttal of her affections and the two behave like real life teenagers, who are friends, would.

• When Nick’s friends make homophobic comments, he doesn’t laugh along. He rightly calls out their behaviour, which counters a lot of representation of self-effacing LGTBQ+ teens we’ve seen historically on-screen.

• Though there is limited contribution from the show’s adult characters, those we do see are wholly supportive (Olivia Colman as Nick’s mum and Fisayo Akinade as Mr. Ajayi). This refreshing break from tradition frames adults as encouraging rather than abusive or oppressive figures. This is important, for example, in Nick’s coming out scene, which showcases the positive influence parental support can have for LGTBQ+ teens.

Conclusion

There really isn’t enough room here to go into every detail of Heartstopper and why it’s had such a pronounced effect on queer audiences. I hope I’ve offered some small insight into why it’s so special. Please go out and watch or re-watch it for yourselves. God knows, we could all do with a little more of Heartstopper’s untiring hope for the future after the past two years.

Thanks for reading. Speak soon.

1. Ava Laure Parsemain, The Pedagogy of Queer TV, 2019, p.40.

2. Anamarija Horvat, Screening Queer Memory: LGBTQ Pasts in Contemporary Film and Television, 2021, p. 63.

3. Owen Jones, Heartstopper is dazzlingly brilliant TV – I wish my lonely younger self could have seen it, The Guardian, 2022.

4. Mark Layton, CDN highlights UK industry’s “lack of real progress” in improving diversity, Television Business International, 2022.

5. (This content mentions of sexual violence) UCLA Williams Institute press release on LGBT exposure to violence, Human Rights Campaign information on sexual assault and the LGBT community.

6. Ellie Ring, Meet Yasmin Finney: The trans actress stealing our hearts as Elle in Heartstopper, The Tab, 2022.

7. Jamie Capuzza and Leland Spencer, Regressing, Progressing, or Transgressing on the Small Screen? Transgender Characters on U.S. Scripted Television Series, Communication Quarterly, vol. 65, 2017, p. 225.

8. Kase Wickman, Why Has Everyone Fallen in Love With Heartstopper?, Vanity Fair, 2022.

9. The Film Cartography, (this video contains imagery which may not be suitable for people with photo-sensitive epilepsy) Colour in Storytelling, 2016.