Heartstopper is a British television show on Netflix that centers around two British boys and their love story as well as the experiences of growing up Queer. Nick and Charlie, along with their friends, represent many different aspects of growing up in general along with growing up as LGBTQ+. The show specifically emphasizes self-love and acceptance along with taking the time to discover yourself. One of our main characters, Nick comes to acceptance of his sexuality throughout the show as we see his and Charlie\u2019s relationship progress. Part of why Nick\u2019s story is so impactful is the space that he\u2019s fortunately been given to discover himself. Charlie, despite finding it difficult to hide their relationship at school, respects Nick and allows him to take his time, and does not pressure him. Nick\u2019s mom allows him to comfortably come out to her by not rushing him or jumping assumptions. She treats him with love and support and accepts him like he is. Nick\u2019s story is one of many storylines in the show that revolve around self-acceptance during the stages of growing up. Overall, this show places much emphasis on the importance of self-acceptance along with finding confidence in expressing yourself.
In this way, Heartstopper is similar to all the works we have read in class. They all grapple with self-acceptance regarding sexuality and creating space for themselves. It should be noted that while it holds similar themes, Heartstopper does contain more hopeful content than the other media we have read in class, but regardless it does still cover the theme of self love and acceptance like the readings of this class. For example, Saedee Jones covers his journey of coming to acceptance of his gender expression and his identity as a Gay Black man despite biases and discrimination. The specific issues each author grapples with both differ and intersect due to different intersectional identities and histories, but general themes stay the same. The authors and the show aim to reclaim their stories and experiences and to show their journeys to self-love to help others like them not to feel alone. They also give voice to many experiences and bring representation into the media space. By doing so, they validate the experiences of the unheard and motivate others like them to accept their identity and feel comfortable speaking on them in media spaces.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heartstopper is a British television show on Netflix that centers around two British boys and their love story as well as the experiences of growing up Queer. Nick and Charlie, along with their friends, represent many different aspects of growing up in general along with growing up as LGBTQ+. The show specifically emphasizes self-love and … Continue reading Coming to Self Acceptance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}