Welcome to the Weekend Binge. Every Friday, we’ll suggest a binge-able title designed to keep you from getting too stir crazy. Check back throughout the weekend for even more gloriously queer entertainment.
The Uproarious: Sex Education
Asa Butterfield and the ever-awesome Gillian Anderson lead this Netflix comedy about the son of a famous sex therapist…who sort of becomes the default sex therapist for his private high school. Butterfield plays Otis, said teen, as a man so overwhelmed by sex he doesn’t really stop to explore his own sexuality. That becomes more and more difficult as he begins to feel an attraction to Ola (Patricia Allison), a beautiful young woman in his class.
Sex Education makes fun of high school sex comedies with its own frankness, as well as its constant satire of the public’s sexual ignorance. (Season 2 sees an outbreak of “airborne chlamydia,” sending parents into a panic). The show also benefits from a storyline involving Otis’ best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), a gay Nigerian immigrant struggling to reconcile his queerness with his family and culture. Neurotic and sexually frank as its main character, Sex Education plays like an anathema to the work of John Hughes…or possibly the show he was never bold enough to make.
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Streams on Netflix.
ThinkPIease
I need a therapist. I have so many issues!
HDTex
You were great when we did it all those times!
hayesj
I highly recommend this show. It is sweet and funny and every actor in it is at the top of their game. Enjoy!
G-Man
This was such a cute show and it was great seeing Gillian in the role that she played as well.
elemirion
I was hoping this was an announcement of season 3. but no. Its a really funny show, if you can get past the teenage angst.
Spidey137
It has been renewed for a 3rd season. Cannot recommend this highly enough. The title put me off for a while, but it is a genuinely funny and sweet series well played by a top-notch young cast and the ever fabulous Gillian Anderson. Plus, no spoilers, there is a terrific gay storyline that builds to a nice resolution in the fantastic 2nd season finale.
barryaksarben
really good show
Hillers
Anyone else get the distinct impression that little Asa there is family? Anyone? No one? Bueller? Bueller?
jjose712
And another show that thinks it great to portray the relationship between a bully and his victim as a great love story
LegionKeign
Oh, Honey, really?
Spidey137
Obviously valid. But a lot times bullies are bullies because they are battling inner demons. The show does a great job of “redeeming” Eric by bringing to life that battle. Most gay folks internalize their pain, but Eric manifests his loneliness in anger until he accepts who he truly is.
jjose712
LegionKeign Yeah, really, and it’s a trend. Suddenly you can’t make your classic woman who falls in love with her rapist, but of course you can do the gay who falls in love with the guy who beat the crap out of him.
And it’s done again and again and again
Spidey137 That would be great if they don’t pair them and make them a couple, because it was not a soft bullying.
It’s not that it is unrealistic that bullies are sometimes gays, what’s unrealistic is the fact that the victim fell for them (and most bullies who are gays come out years later not in high school).
And we have the same on 13 RW, a show that made a tremendous effort in redeem all their villains (the problem is that all their villains generally go too far).
Maybe in a show with so many gay characters (and gay actors) is easier to forgive, but the relationship between Winston and Monty was difficult to shallow because it’s difficult to understand how a rich kid who is confident and out became obsessed with the guy who beat the crap out of him. Curiously it’s Monty’s ghost (in which is a very obvious romantic scene) the one who puts some sense on the kids brain saying he is watching their relationship through pink glasses and wants to believe everything was going to be wonderful which is obviously not the truth.
My problem is that this kind of storyline is made constantly on teen shows. In my opinion one of the keys why Love, Víctor became a hit is that they didn’t look for a dark or shocking storyline (right now some teen shows are incredibly depressing)