2023-09-20 15:33:19
It all started, about nine years ago, with a simple question: what would happen if we put a teenage sex therapist in a high school? The screenwriter and playwright made her Laurie Nunn while dreaming of developing his own teenage fiction. “I have always loved the ‘teen’ universe,” he explains to us in a video call interview. “Both the movies of that style and the books and the ‘young adult’ series. I found the idea of a sex therapist to be fun. But, as I progressed in writing, I realized that this series was an opportunity to have conversations about sexuality and identity.
That series is called ‘Sex education’ (NetflixThursday, the 21st) and in that title is contained its mission: Nunn wants to use sex and sexuality to educate us about ourselves, about the world, about relationships. “Educate, but if possible do it in an entertaining way,” he says. “Without falling into the sermon.”
At once a tribute to and a refutation of the legacy of John Hughes, king of ‘teen’ cinema in the eighties, ‘Sex Education’ captures the vibrant colors of those wonderful? years at the same time that it is presented as a corrective of some deficiencies. “Our main director in the first three seasons [Ben Taylor] He was obsessed with Hughes. He was fascinated by the visual iconicity of his films. But, at the same time, right now you see those romantic comedies from the eighties, and even from the nineties or early two thousand, and in all of them the most questionable things happen.” Nunn quotes “a lot of non-consensual kisses“, quite relevant note right now. “Conversations about love, sex and relationships have evolved a lot, especially since the MeToo, and I think our series takes what is most inspiring from those films while trying to ask other questions.”
Analysis of the ethical posture
In the fourth and, unfortunately, final season of this heated comedy-drama, we meet Otis again (Asa Butterfield) y Maeve (Emma Mackey) at a delicate moment in their not yet consummated relationship. She studies in the United States. He is still in England and his ‘photopenes’ They leave something to be desired. To make matters worse, Otis has to deal with O (Thaddea Graham), a sex therapist who got there before him and is better at online self-promotion.
That unstoppable O is the living representation of the spirit of Cavendish College, a progressive, ‘queer’ center with mental health among its priorities: its students have access to daily meditation, silent discos, sound baths and yoga. A kind of ‘woke’ paradise where not everything is as ideal as it seems. “Many of us who make the show, myself included, see ourselves as very liberal, very progressive, but it’s important to do a little self-examination and admit that we all have flaws.” That moral boasting or ethical posturing is worthy of affectionate parody, but at the same time, Nunn supports the Cavendish students one hundred percent: “They are all full of hope. I have great respect for that. Only with that kind of idealism you can make the world change for the better.”
Always sexual comedy
‘Sex education’ was ahead of youth series like ‘Genera+ion’ or ‘Heartstopper’ in its commitment to true diversity. “But it’s not like we were intentionally looking for that,” says Nunn. “Everything arose naturally from four characters: Otis, Maeve, [el abiertamente gay] Eric [Ncuti Gatwa] y Jean [la madre de Otis, encarnada por Gillian Anderson]. We surrounded them with, simply, characters that we found interesting. For my part, I see the series as part of an evolution: it could never have existed without ‘Girls’which helped a greater open-mindedness on screen.”
Trying to move away from tokenism, Nunn set out to enrich the trans narrative in this final season. “We already had the character of [el estudiante no binario] Cal [Dua Saleh] and we wanted to delve deeper into its plot. But at the same time we believed that it was very important to have multiple trans perspectives. “We worked hand in hand with various consultants or intimacy coordinators to make sure that what we were telling was authentic and had the necessary nuances.”
Along with reflections on the inhumane deadlines of British healthcare for trans people, we find more festive, often very graphic, elements in the series. ‘Sex education’ is still a sex comedy. “Oh, sure. The most important thing is that the series is fun. We can go to dark places, but we try to balance all that with happy parts, and even treat serious aspects with a certain lightness. The idea is to make you cry and laugh. It’s the kind of story that seems more human to me.
Will we see them again?
Late returns of series that were once iconic are becoming less rare, although not always necessary. Nunn does not rule out something similar with ‘Sex Education’, and not just for the money: “I have invested a lot of emotion in these characters. It will seem strange to me not to continue writing about their lives. Of course, I am open to visiting them again at some point in the future. the future”. Maybe this is not goodbye, friends, but just a see you later.
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