Heart Break High Addresses Queer Issues In New Light, Its Worth A Watch

Heart Break high 2022, an Australian Netflix Series, is a teenage drama about heartbreaks, friendship, betrayal, and most importantly sex education. The creator of the show Hannah Carroll Chapman has rebooted the iconic 90s TV series Heartbreak High for the Gen Z audience.

The series aesthetic vibes are colourful and bright. The whole drama starts with a mural painting, basically a hook-up map on the wall of the school basement drawn by Amerie (Ayesha Madon) and Harper (Asher Yasbincek).

Things kick off with a friendship torn apart between both, but the reason is not the detailed incest map, spoiler alert. Amerie feels, she is betrayed by Harper, and Harper feels Amerie was never there for her. These misunderstandings pour into more drama, especially when the love affairs of both are entangled.

Heart Break High 2022 Review

The revelations of the incest map force college authorities to arrange sex education classes for the students whose sex life was marked on the map. The series parallelly portrays the individual lives of these kids and at the same time intersects their roads. Although, students are adamant to attend the class SLTs conducted by Miss Jojo Obah (Chika Ikogwe), an English teacher at Hartley High. Everything from consent to peer pressure and queerness to the teacher-student bond is explored.

The series traces on father-queer son bond. Darren, a Black, queer, non-binary teenage boy, and his relationship with his father is a new thing to watch, hardly portrayed in this manner. It literally takes you to the highs and lows of the bond. It depicts what it is to be queer and the father of a queer boy. Darren (James Majoos) is shown sensitive and rigid about the idea that no parents understand what it is to be queer. Whereas, parents are trying to cope but not that easy to do because it is exhausting and too much at times. For instance, miss gendering and using wrong pronouns.

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There is a scene in which it becomes confusing for Darren’s parents to keep up with their pronouns - They & Them. Parents try hard to use the right one, but they forget to get it accurate. The struggle is visible and this is what it is in real life too. The cisgender who believes in inclusivity - be it parents trying hard to keep up with it. The acceptance is there, but the world of them and they are yet unknown. The drama sensitively portrays the struggle between the two. It can serve as a starter book to explore queer parental bonds.

Also, Darren's love story is not about sex, but a genuine bond of love and care unlike how LGBTQIA+ characters are usually portrayed. Darren and a drug dealer named Cash (Jett James) love story is heart throbbing. Also, Cash’s life represents what life is really like for young people in Australia today. Another interesting character is Quinni (Chloé Hayden), who plays an autistic queer woman role. The writer doesn’t paint her in pity, in fact, empathises with her. This type of broad intersectionality is rare onscreen but the show gets it correctly. The cast seems interesting and inclusive because the majority of them are queer and people of colour.

Somewhere, drama seems unrealistic, too much. But the performance and depths of each character cover it up. The dramatisation is also a wholesome ride of emotions - comedy, anger, pain, and aww vibes too. The show reaffirms the definition of friendship in a different life. However, Harper and Amerie throughout the series, lock horns with each other. Who betrays who? Who mends what? For that, the show is worth a watch.

The views expressed are the author's own.