When looking at high-school teen dramadies, I’d say about 80% are American, 15% are British, and the remaining 5% is any other high-school series out there. I mostly watch shows from the 95%, but once in a while I get to watch a really cool series that wouldn’t usually be on my radar, like Skam or Young Royals. Heartbreak High is apparently a famous Australian series from the 90s, that got a reboot on Netflix this year. Since Netflix had a lot of misses in the teen section lately, I didn’t have high expectations. But I love a high-school drama so I gave it a go.
The show follows the Juniors of Hartley High, centering mostly on Amerie. The show starts with Amerie’s best friend, Harper, suddenly icing her out, with Amerie having no idea what is the reason. On top of that, a map (made by Amerie and Harper) describing all the sexual connections between the students is discovered by the school, and Amerie takes the blame. As a result of that, Amerie looses her popularity and friends, which forces her to befriend an outcast duo — Quinnie and Darren. The series continues with the highs and lows of typical high-school life, as well as Amerie trying to figure out what caused her and Harper to fall out.
That’s it for the dry summary, let’s talk queer rep and general highlights. First and foremost, it is as queer as expected for a teen show in 2022, which is very queer (and that’s great!). Starting with my personal favorites, first is Darren — a non-binary student who is just everything that is cool and gay and wonderful. Darren get’s involved with Cash, who’s orientation is not explicitly stated, but he’s giving a-spec vibes, which is very cool and refreshing to see, especially in a show discussing sexual freedom and revolves so much around sex.
Darren’s best friend — Quinnie, is another favorite of mine. Quinnie is taken straight out of my TikTok For You Page, being a neurodivergent Lesbian. As she starts a relationship with another student, Sasha, we get to see a lot of her struggles with being a person with autism, as well as her struggles with societies perception of her. She challenges Sasha’s prejudice, and faces her with her performative allyship. We love to see it.
I especially like how the show makes a point of showing the new generation of misogyny — the fake performative feminism. Men that claim to be feminists and celebrate women, but still enable and participate in toxic behaviors. For example, claiming to celebrate women’s sexuality, but still shame them when it’s not sex with you. Pretending to be a “soft boy”, sensitive, wearing nail polish and pearls, but still talking shit with your friends about the girls you slept with. This might be a first-world problem, but it’s cool that it’s out of TikTok and into mainstream media.
The show also tries to touch on other topics, such as racism, sexual assault and mental health, and it does it well enough, but you can’t win them all. It’s mostly under developed concepts, and the show doesn’t have time to deal with so many plot lines.
Other honorable mentions — I love the styling, it’s very trendy and Gen-Z, but each character has their own unique angle. The actors are good, better than the usual Netflix high-school cast, and really diverse.
All around, I liked it a lot. It’s maybe not the most realistic, and nothing like my high-school experience, but I enjoyed it. 4.5/5.
