Did anyone else fall out of Heartstopper as the got older? I loved Heartstopper while I was in HS, I loved the characters, I loved the representation, the story line was cute and real. And Alice talks about a lot of serious topics, self discovery, bullying, mental health
But as I get older (and to be honest when it started to show up more) I feel very uncomfortable with how often the TEENAGERS are shown to be drinking and how ….steamy? Nick and Charlie’s relationship is becoming
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude and I don’t think something is inherently more sexual just because it’s gay, but, as I’ve entered my 20’s, I don’t want to read/watch TEENAGERS have sex or explore sex. I also understand that the drinking age is lower in EU than it is in the US, they are still underage drinking.
I personally don’t think we should show High School students (EU equivalent of HS) drinking and having sex as normal. There are young teens who are going to look into Heartstopper and see themselves, and that’s wonderful! And then they are going to see those 15/16/17 year olds drinking and getting drunk whenever the opportunity presents itself.
And Nick and Charlie again are 16/17ish in the later chapters, like ya they had the sex ed talk at school, but then I feel like they became obsessed with it and were having steamy make out sessions whenever they could, and I just think relationships are more then that
And I know there was also some type of self growth of Charlie becoming confident in his body after facing his ED
But every time I see a show or movie depicting TEENAGERS drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having sex, I think 1-nothing would change if they set this in a college and these were all consenting adults, and 2- there is a room full of ADULTS who wrote this, grown adults who decided that the TEENS have to do drugs and drink and have sex
I’m not saying Alice is gross or has mal-intentions by writing these underage characters this way, I’m just tired of this being shown as the norm for teenagers.
“Oh you just didn’t go to parties in HS” you’re kinda right, I didn’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I also actually had a really wide group of friends, I was on the swim team so I had sports friends, I was in theater so I had theater friends, I was in FFA so I had Ag friends, and I have the friends from elementary school I’ve known all my life. I went to plenty of hang outs, pasta feeds before races, and closing night cast parties, and never once was there drugs or alcohol.
But it’s not that I wasn’t just not around it, I’ve not been invited to parties bc “you don’t drink, I’m not going to put you in the position” and I’m totally fine with that! Sometimes you don’t get invited to the party bc you don’t do crack! And that’s just how it is! BUT! Just because there are real life teens doing these things does not mean we should be advertising it as “the norm” to impressionable teens.
They are already going on a self discovery journey, and feel peer pressure at school, and now they are going to look at these characters, and see themselves, and see they are drinking and having sex, and that peer pressure is just going to be reinforced more.
And this is without me getting into Nick and Charlie’s whole codependency thing, which is a post of itself
In conclusion, I do still think Nick and Charlie are wonderful representation for a lot of different things, figuring out your sexuality, mental illness, troubles with family, and I still love so much of Alice’s work, I Was Born For This, Solitaire, Loveless, Radio Silance, they’re all great, I just really don’t enjoy the direction Heartstopper took, and I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way
