Going back to (queer) High school

As Netflix continues to cancel LGBTQ+ shows, Emily Garside reflects on the importance of representation on screen and how queer teen TV, such as Heartstopper, has helped heal part of her younger self

There has been a surge in Queer-themed dramas set in high schools or colleges (using the American term, as many of these stories are set in the US). Similarly, the most concentrated and diverse Queer stories can now be found in the Young Adult or New Adult sections of bookstores. It's wonderful that teenagers and young adults today have access to such a wide range of stories involving Queer characters. However, are they the only ones consuming these stories? Anecdotally, it seems not. A larger proportion of the audience for Queer Teen stories consists of older people – those in their late 20s, 30s, and beyond. It's not just people with Queer teens of their own seeking to understand their experiences, but rather adults who are reliving their high school years through these stories.

I’m one of those people. In the 90s, I grew up with a boom in teen TV, from homegrown shows like Grange Hill and Byker Grove to the plethora of American imports from Saved by the Bell and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But none of them ever felt ‘for’ me. They were so focused on dating and sex, and as at the time, a person who thought I was bisexual but later would learn I was asexual, I never felt more alien than when I watched Teen TV. But as an adult? I adore it. Both the Queer kind and the straight kind. But especially Queer Teen drama. Why is that? What does it offer older Queer folks? Is it weird? There’s much to unpack both around the general popularity but also how older Queer folks engage with teen drama.

Teen drama is a significant experience for everyone and often represents the first time young people can relate to their own struggles and triumphs on screen. These dramas offer a lot - first crushes for many, storylines that, though more dramatic, mirror the challenges teens face, and narratives that resonate with them in that crucial in-between space, not quite children but not yet adults. Teen dramas in the '90s and early '00s were adept at addressing a variety of issues affecting teens - from everyday school struggles to topics like drugs, sex, pregnancy, and conflicts with parents. However, LGBTQ+ storylines were largely absent during that time. Queer storylines were often shown as standalone "issue of the week" or as educational moments, rather than seamlessly integrated into the everyday fabric of teen shows. As a result, many Queer Millennials grew up without seeing themselves represented. It wasn’t that there was nothing in the '90s and early 00s. There was just very little, and what there was…sometimes was left wanting.

Things started to change in the late 90s. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is probably a show most 90s teens will cite as one of the first times they saw Queer characters at the heart of a Teen drama. In the form of canonically Queer - and central - character Willow and her girlfriend Tara against the backdrop of the supernatural teen drama. Willow and Tara enjoyed a brief but lovely relationship which for many was the first time seeing Queer women in a committed, loving relationship on TV, particularly in a Teen setting. However, it was cut short with the killing off of Tara in season Six of the show. It was a classic ‘bury your gays’ moment, contingent with the kind of Queer representation in TV that was either tokenistic or cut short. Willow was an exception as she was a central character before her queerness was part of the narrative, placing her queerness front and centre (at least until it was cut short). The offerings were usually sidelined elsewhere, like Jack McPhee in Dawson’s Creek and Rickie Vasquez in My So Called Life. Both of these were smaller supporting roles, and their stories, though at times focused on LGBTQ+ ‘issues’ like coming out, were minor in comparison to the predominantly straight teen casts.

Tara and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Why did it matter that we grew up without Queer stories? And more importantly, without teen Queer stories? TV is an important element in many lives. It's a tool for learning about the world and ourselves. And for teenagers learning to navigate who they are, stories that help us learn about ourselves become important. It’s also about having stories that reflect the world teenagers inhabit. When teens have outgrown ‘kids’ TV but aren’t ready for whatever the trend in adult drama is offering, they need stories that reflect their experience. Sometimes, this is the classic High School and College story; sometimes, it is more ‘aspirational’ young adult narratives. Often, with shows like Gilmore Girls or Gossip Girl, the shows are designed to ‘grow up’ with their target generation. So, as viewers, we sit with them through high school and college and then leave them as we (both) go out into the ‘real world’.

For Queer teens at that time, there was no shared TV experience to map our lives onto. We had no Rory Gilmore or, more aspirationally, Blair Waldorf to look up to, no Dawson Leerey (so far away from my experience was Dawson’s Creek. I was today years old when I found out his surname). It may sound silly not to have a show to ‘look up to’ even if that show is the vampire-killing adventures of some teenagers. But being a Queer teen is already alienating, and a lack of TV representation feeds into that. Take, for example, the simple notion of ‘everyone fancies Dawson’ (I assume they did), and you’re the Queer girl of the class who doesn’t fancy Dawson or perhaps the gay guy who does instead of Joey (who for non-90s teens, was in fact a girl something I also found out much later). Everyone gets really invested in which boyfriend Rory will pick in Gilmore Girls, and you’re expected to have an opinion based on your own preferences, but your preference would be none of them. Or everyone is very into Buffy Summers, but actually, you’d prefer Spike or Xander. So instead of teen TV doing what it should do and making you feel seen, sharing experiences with those on screen, it just fuels the alienation.

The cast of Dawson’s Creek

While nobody expected anyone to live the life on Saved by the Bell or Gossip Girl or even the wilder adventures of Byker Grove (it certainly put a generation off paint balling - IYKYK), what you were supposed to do was emulate a version of those teen dramas. You were supposed to want to hang around waiting for boys or girls to fancy you. You were supposed to be thinking about the hot boys on the football/rugby team or the hot girls watching said team (depending on which side of the heteronormative fence you fell). But if you liked the wrong type of thing, or perhaps worse, none at all, TV told you that you were doing being a teen wrong.

That’s before, too, we unravel dressing in a heteronoramtive way, often also to attract the opposite gender. But also that girls were supposed to want to emulate the again super heteronormative fashions of teen shows; short skirts, long hair, and lots of make-up. Boys were supposed to dress in a masculine but obviously ‘cool’ way, have the right (short) haircut, and, of course, both genders were supposed to have an ‘ideal’ body shape. Personal expression in Teen TV land got you put in the ‘geeks, ’ ‘goths’, or another outsider group, which was at least one element true to real life. But as a Queer person, if you wanted to express yourself through clothes, hair or make-up in a way that didn’t conform, TV was there to remind you that wasn’t the ‘right’ way to do it. And without Queer stories on TV, the Queer teens of the 90s and 00s were left reminded they were somehow on the outside.

As an Asexual teenager (though I didn’t know it at the time, primarily due to a lack of representation), Queer TV and Teen TV still feel complicated. As much as I find myself loving it now, as an asexual teenager, the greatest torture (and the reason I didn’t really watch any) of teen TV was feeling even more of a ‘freak’ than I already did. I spent my teen years pretending to ‘fancy’ the ‘right’ boys. What teen TV did in my teen years, too, was drive home just how ‘abnormal’ a life I was living. In revisiting these stories for this article, it's clear how much that remains true. It feels like a profound piece of teen life is still missing; it couldn’t have been fixed by my favourite character, liking a girl, though that would have been better than nothing. But on thinking about everyone else’s Queer dreams for TV drama, I’m reminded how much on the outside, even of Queer narratives, I still am. The only place where I see myself reflected is in contemporary high school drama. In Issac in Heartstopper and Cash from Heartbreak High. In ‘adult’ Queer drama, we still rarely, cannonically exist. So in the interim, I’ve watched the rest of the Queer community stories move on without me.

Isaac Henderson in Heartstopper

They moved on slowly, badly at times, and in a way that would ultimately perhaps drive millennials back to high school looking for something just like me. Things looked up for a while in the 90s, with the staple of any British household, the teatime soap opera seemingly like it would pave the way forward; probably one of the first ‘exposures’ to Queerness for British teens in the 90s was Brookside’s Lesbian kiss. It was 1994 (the year of Jurassic Park for some 90s contextualising), and characters Beth Jordache (played by Anna Friel) and Margaret Clemence (played by Nicola Stephenson) kissed on the teatime soap. Brookside had already been a leader in Queer characters in soaps with the gay couple Gordon and Chris back in the 1980s. However, they were not shown kissing on screen, making the lesbian kiss headline news. Why was this quite so significant? Because of the time of day, it was broadcast pre-watershed (pre-9 pm). Previous same-sex kisses, of which there had been only a handful, had all been broadcast on ‘later night’ TV, a place that would come to be the home of Queer stories as they grew.

Also significant is that in Britain, soap was at least an equivalent of teen drama for many teens of the 90s. In an age before streaming, and when cable TV was still a luxury teens spent their after-school time watching soaps, and they were, and are, often at the forefront of both representation and social issues in the UK. Brookside, as noted, had gay characters in the 90s, and Eastenders, too, having gay characters from 1987 (one played by Stonewall founder Michael Cashman). Fewer sensationalists and those who grew up in less ‘cool’ households may remember Zoe Tate, a resident lesbian of Emmerdale. If even the quiet (save the sensationalist murders, affairs and more) soap could mean that in the 90s, it looked like Queer characters and stories were established everywhere. But that was far from reality. Soaps were the only stop-gap before the very ‘adult’ programming that was Queer representation. When Eastenders included its gay characters, it was accused by the tabloids of ‘encouraging’ people to be gay. Proof also that nothing changes…

Queer stories in the 90s - soap opera exceptions aside - belonged in the ‘late night’ aka ‘naughty’ spaces.  Queer TV in the 90s was very much a ‘late-night affair’. Take the iconic Queer as Folk. Iconic because it was groundbreaking, boundary-pushing and for its sexual content, a very ‘late night Channel 4 offering’. Again, having to explain the 90s, there were four, later five channels in the UK. The BBC were for serious ‘quality’ drama offerings (think Downton before Downton). ITV was for more ‘fun’, some say ‘lowbrow’ drama, think, well, Midsomer Murders. Meanwhile, the new addition to the roster, Channel 4, wanted to be something new, different, and cool. And in the late 90s, this showed the kind of programming other channels wouldn’t. This was partly in irreverent chat shows like TFI Friday, which saw Chris Evans interviewing celebrities in his heyday, mixed with ‘adult’ themed games on a late-night chat show. Or Eurortrash, a show that can be experienced more than explained. And on the drama end of the spectrum, the cool, down with the kid's new channel recognised a niche; Queer programs. And while Queer as Folk is the obvious reference being home-grown they were also the first UK broadcaster to show the iconic Tales of the City.

90s teens then grew up associating Queerness on screen with late-night TV and ‘adult’ programs and while they got some representation in either Stuart and Vince or the residents of Barbary Lane, this bar a few characters in each skipped over the teen era and were forced straight into adult storylines. Queer as Folk in 1999. Funny, camp, hedonistic, Vince and best friend Stuart were both a cultural moment of late 90s TV - the risqué boundary pushing epitome of late night Channel 4 drama - and a cultural moment of their own. Because Vince and Stuart might have been the first gay men some people saw on TV. Growing up under Section 28 for the UK then, a time when the mantra was ‘don’t say gay’ and our gay characters were hidden away, felt like a double whammy of skipping over the teen years and straight into adulthood.

So, teens of previous decades really did have to lean into shows that were not made for them. This included clinging perhaps to the occasional Queer character who popped up in things like procedural dramas - ER, Law and Order and other long-running ensemble-type shows which actually have always been good at including LGBTQ+ characters - the advantage being with such large casts, and in the days of long 22-24 episode seasons there was space and scope to include a multitude of identities, stories and characters on an episode by episode basis. Grey's Anatomy eventually took that a step further by including many LGBTQ+ characters as central, recurring characters.

Without teen TV then, there was a stop-gap of at least ‘teen friendly’ shows to watch. Sitcoms attempted to fill that void, often with a mixed bag of Queer offerings. Carol and Susan in Friends minor characters, often used as part of a joke about how bad the main character Ross was at marriage. Still, they also did have a wedding on TV in the 90s that was treated as a positive storyline, so maybe not as bad as it may seem. Despite her later fall from grace, Ellen DeGeneres made huge headlines when she came out alongside her TV alter ego. And while her show was cancelled the following year, it did mean a huge step forward in representation. Even Seinfeld, arguably the most heterosexual of sitcoms of the 90s, won a GLAAD award for the episode ‘The Outing’. And, of course, in 2001, Will&Grace landed on screens, the first post-Ellen sitcom to centre gay characters. While Will & Grace divides some audiences and at times leaned on cliches, it was a positive, happy and teen, even family-friendly depiction of happy LGBTQ+ people on screen at a time when there was very little.

Cast of Will and Grace

And for those of us who grew up without teen stories, without people our age who looked like us on TV, that began to feel like enough. Instead of teens and young adults, we had older characters in worlds nothing like our own - be they fabulous Manchester lofts with wild sex lives or glamorous Doctors in fictional cities, we took what we could get. We accepted good enough. The thing was, too, the community was still scared; AIDS was still decimating the community and causing fear stoked by Section 28 and rampant homophobia in the broader community. In short Queer stories were considered with, at best, caution, at worst, fear and discrimination when they did materialise. And for teens and children, ‘gay’ was still to be treated as a cautionary tale. 

Things began to shift by around 2010, and while it’s hard retrospectively to credit Glee with very much what it did offer, particularly to musical theatre-inclined LGBTQ+ viewers was an ensemble show where queer characters had almost as much story time as straight ones (although nobody can entirely steal the limelight from one Rachel Berry). Elsewhere, shows like Degrassi, now also in its ‘reboot’ era with Degrassi, the Next Class, continued to pick up the baton of LGBTQ+ representation and grow their ensemble of Queer characters. In the UK too, CBBC and other kids shows began to include more queer characters. At times, as reboots of more familiar 90s and 00s show - a reboot of Grange Hill included gay characters, unlike its 90s counterpart. Slowly, steadily, shows aimed at teens, this time with either a strong LGBTQ+ presence or eventually an LGBTQ+ focus, began to emerge. Gradually too, mainstream TV began to catch up, no longer just hiding Queer characters in late-night slots. Sure, there were still more ‘adult’ shows like the US Queer as Folk and Looking designed as gay shows for gay people. Or historic set dramas, looking back at the community history - a plethora of Ryan Murphy-led shows for better and worse from the fantasy of Hollywood to the more reality-grounded Assassination of Guiliani Versarce. Even diversifying stories from history like Pose foregrounded Trans sisters of Colour rather than only cis white male stories that traditionally took most airtime. These were hugely important, but perhaps more so was the casualisation of queer characters, those that would populate shows like Grey's Anatomy, Chicago Fire or 911. Where the story wasn't a character's Queerness but simply part of their identity, and at last, slowly, a diversity of identities both in terms of sexuality and other characteristics.

And this trickled down to teen shows. Somewhere between Glee and Love Victor, a dam seemed to break, and executives finally realised that showing Queer characters on TV wasn’t going to scandalise the nation or turn kids gay. Granted, some people still believed that, but really, what happened was those Queer kids who grew up with no Queer TV finally got into positions where they were making TV. And then TV finally got Queer.

As we turned into the 2020s, this began to crystalise; shows like Love Victor, Pretty Little Liars, What We Do in the Shadows, Never Have I Ever, One Day at a Time, The Babysitters Club (a new version of the iconic 90s books) Young Royals, The Bold Type, Tiny Pretty Things, Euphoria, Elite, Riverdale…the list could go on. A mix of High School/College set shows about Teen life or young-adult, post-college set shows that have always been aspirational viewing for teens who already feel they’ve ‘outgrown’ the High School drama. Not to say all of these were good representations or even good television, but there was for the first time choice of Queer representation in TV aimed at young adults, and that has felt revolutionary. No longer either a token ‘story of the week,’ Queer characters were either fully integrated into the story or were the story. Both felt revolutionary after being either sidelined or only taking centre stage for a fleeting, often negative appearance.

Most importantly, perhaps, though, is the upsurge in shows that are about teens but explicitly and deliberately centre queer narratives. Again they are far from a perfect set of offerings, and no, they don’t encompass all experiences (yet), but they exist, and that has, for many Queer folks, felt revolutionary in itself. So we have, to use some of the more famous examples, Sex Education which has a plethora of diverse queer storylines, to Love Victor, which has a gay romance at its heart, or a rebooted Heartbreak High, which has queer and trans characters even an asexual character at the heart of its central cast. There are more teen series with more queer characters than ever before, and while not all of them get everything right, there’s a sense of growing representation and growing understanding of the community.

In the 2020s then, Queer Teen Drama has maybe at last arrived. And as much as the target audience of teens and young adults engage with these shows, there are perhaps just as many older fans of ‘Teen’ shows. But why?

Firstly, absence. It had been a long time coming. Curiosity, if nothing else, would inspire many to watch. Secondly, the overall amount of Queer TV relative to heterosexual-dominated stories is still small. Take out of that preferences against different genres, geographical locations and more; there’s not a lot of Queer TV, even if things have got better. And also…they’re good TV, both of the ‘Queer’ kind and in general. The greatest myth of the endless streaming service is that there’s a plethora of quality TV, which isn’t the case; a lot of contemporary TV is not great. Similarly, historically Queer centred TV and film have not been of the highest quality, mainly due to it being sidelined, underfunded and generally not recognised as a ‘marketable’ product. And here we come down to the most unromantic part of the success and appeal of Queer Teen TV shows; they are meant to be marketable, high-revenue shows, and they are…good TV. If we take the Heartstopper and Love Victor examples of Netflix and Disney, respectively, both are designed as flagship shows for the teen demographic. This is a key demographic for both (arguably more so for Disney for obvious reasons), which means it is highly profitable. Therefore, it makes sense to make good shows for that demographic. Also, cute romcom shows with cute casts make for good (easy) marketing.

So, in contrast to Queer stories of old, which were given no budget or attention when being made and even less after that, these are given both; a decent budget, production support and marketed properly. Why? For maximum profitability from a key demographic. Having recognised that teens respond to Queer dramas, the big production companies would be remiss not to exploit that. A happy by-product of that becomes, in these cases, the profitable product, a quality one that is likely sustained for at least a few seasons. This phenomenon also exploits the gulf between other, usually adult-targeted Queer shows that are infamously given limited support and cancelled really quickly, such as A League of Their Own or Our Flag Means Death. Queer is supported…as long as it’s viewed as profitable. And, in further cynical reality, once there’s one hit - so take the omnipresent Heartstopper that has been, let’s face it, a cash spinner for Netflix as a flagship show, the obvious solution is to find the ‘next Heartstopper’ so it is on one, less about representation more about marketability.

The cast of Heartstopper

Moving away slightly from the more cynical edge of ‘marketability’ but still considering the industry side of these shows, there’s a bit of a ‘make what you’d want to see’ in all creatives and a simple fact of age ranges, those writing shows are now…the ones who missed out on these shows as a teen. They are the Millenials in their 30s and 40s who grew up without the teen shows they are now writing. Those adults grew up and started making TV. And while not all of them made Queer TV, and not all of them made High School drama - some made sci-fi, horror or more - but some maybe chose to heal their inner teenager and write a version of High School or College for TV they wish they’d had. So, these teen dramas are often written and created by older millennials who didn’t have the chance to express these things as teens and who now, like their viewers, can share the stories they never could. Or a way to right the wrongs of what they didn’t get on TV in their teens.

As a creative, too, there is an appeal to teen drama in general: it simply is a microcosm of the emotional rollercoaster of life contained in a recognisable space that audiences will identify equally. The minor ups and downs of love, life, and identity become amplified in teen drama - that’s why it's so ripe for writing drama. If, as an adult, you’re writing an overblown love story, it’s considered unrealistic, but for teenagers, it's just…life. It makes for good stories.

But there’s also an element in the ‘they’re good TV’ that is about the style of TV: fun, fluffy, low-key shows, and often an easy watch. That’s not to detract from the quality of the programmes, but watching a high-school drama about two teens falling in love, is ‘light entertainment’ and, on some level Queer or not, stressed-out elder Millenials could do with an escape. They’re enduring the financial burden of growing up into a forever crashing economy and witnessing ‘unprecedented historical events’ every other week. Is it any wonder their TV of choice is teenage love stories where perhaps the biggest drama is whether they’ll get to the prom? It’s on some level the same reason we watch a romcom, slapstick comedy, or a soap opera: low stakes, low brain power escapism.

In watching Queer teen drama, for Queer adults is also; to get the happy ending that wasn’t possible in High School or even college, or even as a young adult. Heatstopper gives many older viewers one thing - the happy gay romance - they wish they’d had as teenagers. Teen drama, more often than not too, offers that elusive Queer narrative, the Happy Ending (not that kind, well in Schitt’s Creek, that was also true). Unless it’s the kind of teen drama that prides itself on a dark twist and turn, the usual way things go is that they get together in the end. They may or may not become a musical theatre star or fashion designer, too (nobody said we had moved on from cliches in this process). And as Queer adults, we still crave that happy ending.

We’re also told as adults, we should be more serious. Not have that rollercoaster of emotions that teens have. But what if we didn’t get a chance to go through that rollercoaster as teens? By now our stories must be more ‘grown up’ and more ‘serious’.’ In contrast, the teen ups and downs tap into the heart of what many of us - particularly the queer outcasts in life - continue to live through, and that’s why they feel so relevant to queer viewers.  But it’s also because aside from a few notable exceptions - like the referenced Schitt’s Creek, adult Queer drama does remain firmly stuck in the ‘adult’ camp or the more tokenistic approach, or sadly the ‘bury your gays’ approach. Many Queer stories centre either on the sexual - which isn’t the whole experience for many as much as it's important - or suffering, and we’ve got a long way to go in adult narratives to bring an element of Queer joy but also a diversification in the stories we tell. We’re still stuck, perhaps in a moment of needing to exorcise all the bad things the community has gone through and continues to go through in our stories. And they’re valuable and important. But then the sweet, fun teen Queer narratives offer an escape from that. And perhaps a hope for future generations.

But what impact does it have on them? Aside from a rose-tinted nostalgic escape?

But of course, there is a deeper element at play; it’s that for fear of sounding like an over-used TikTok phrase, ‘healing your inner child’ or, in this case, teen. The reality is that older viewers didn’t have that kind of teen experience on screen and off. Of course, even today’s real teenagers don’t have the same experience as those on screen in the same way straight. The Heartsopper version of High School is a fantasy; ask anyone who has been in earshot of any British Secondary school in recent years. Insults and ideas about being ‘gay’ still are prevalent. But also, nobody watching Gossip Girl was under any illusion their lives actually looked like that, and nobody was saying straight folks were silly for watching something starkly different from the local comprehensive school they were attending in Newport. Teens weren’t living like Saved by the Bell teens…but they had a version of it. We had a world so many worlds away that we might as well have been watching sci-fi. So by watching today’s Queer Teen shows, which offer a fantasy version of a Queer high school experience, Queer adults get to experience what our straight peers were able to ten, fifteen, twenty or more years ago. Better late than never.

But it can be more than that, opening up a world of Queerness that was denied to us as teenagers. As a teenager in the 90s and early 00s then, I remembered ‘gay’ to be something brushed over, considered in secret. If there were Queer characters on any of the shows I watched, I learned not to speak of them, especially not to my parents or even really to my peers. Gay wasn’t a thing we talked about at home or in school other than to hurl it as an insult. Therefore even if I had seen Queer folks on TV, I wouldn’t have had anyone to talk to about them. I first properly watched Queer TV when I was in University, away from the prying eyes of parents but also still somewhat in secret, not a thing to be shared even with flatmates, the VHS tapes of Queer as Folk and later DVDs of The L Word. Later, reminiscing about Willow being a favourite character on Buffy became a slight code an ‘are you…’ even if I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was…feeling affinity with Willow at least suggested a safe person to talk to. That, too, became the power of TV. 

The classic ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ also comes into play here, in that for many, discovering their sexuality came later than perhaps today’s young people simply because there wasn’t the representation to show them the possibilities. There’s much cynical conversation in tabloids and online about ‘more’ gay kids’ today than ‘in our day’, which can be in some ways boiled down to because kids are more aware that’s a possibility, rather than just feeling simply ‘different’.

I have found this for my own identity - there is more language for talking about asexuality in just two teen shows - Heartstopper and Heartbreak High than in all the adult Queer TV currently on offer. More ways to understand a label I would adopt for myself in shows designed for people young enough to be my children. Queer folks not from the more ‘dominant’ identity groups find themselves looking to Teen TV because in them they finally do get to see themselves, even if it is in someone a generation younger. We used never to say ‘gay’ out loud, and I know so many remember how hurtful that was to be erased that way. I never hear my identity said out loud or see people who represent it. I often feel invisible in my community. So, if that means watching Teen TV  to find someone like me, I’ll do that until the rest of the stories catch up.

Queer elder Millenials, Gen X, and probably even some Boomers enjoy Queer Teen drama made today….Is there anything wrong with loving it?

In short, no. Nobody bats an eyelid that straight people rewatch Grease 100 times over as 40-something adults and 60-year-olds are still watching Dirty Dancing. Even for 90s teens, there is a sense that watching American Pie is an act of nostalgia. The angst, adventures, and possibilities of teen and young adult years will always be alluring for dramas. And for those who somehow ‘lost’ those years to not being themselves, perhaps there will always be an escape to be had there. When the truth is simple and sad, we either enjoy the show or fill in for something we never had.  We don’t want to be teens now (no, thank you); we just want nostalgia for something we never had.

As an Asexual person, I realise, with aching sadness, that I’m still looking, still hoping for a version of High School where I belong and a story that reflects that. In writing this, it was with aching sadness that I realised other people my age have that now. They didn’t get to live it, which is sad, but they get a hopeful version of what could have been. That’s why revisiting teen stories as an adult is the same as rewatching Dirty Dancing when you’re far too old to be a baby in the corner - just gayer.

Ok, Dirty Dancing was already pretty gay.