Sex Education: A Review
The show Sex Education is living up to its name, y’all — for realz!
I shy away from comedies. I love to laugh, but I generally doubt they will deliver something smart and funny and believable. I will risk it, however, for shows that seem to feature characters, settings, and situations highlighting groups who don’t get much screen-time (think Atypical, Dear White People, Jane the Virgin…). I didn’t expect much from Sex Education, but it came across as something that might have a queer angle, so I gave it a go. I was immediately turned off by the gratuitous sex, allusions to sex and…well…sex. I mean, they’re high school students (even if played by actors pushing 30).
Recently, a friend I trust recommended I give the show another try. They are from Brazil with only three years of English under their belt. They also happen to be a neuroscientist. They have little patience for subtlety and sentiment (they hated Dear Evan Hansen). Their surprise recommendation of a teen soap opera peaked my curious, and I decided, however reluctantly, to give the hit British show another chance. Allowing I’d missed something under the hoards of teen libidos run amok, I watched the pilot for a second time.
Same as the first time, I wasn’t impressed, and was ready to flip to Fear the Walking Dead, when the sex clinic happened.
I’ll back track. At the show intro we meet Otis (Asa Butterfield), an awkward teenager whose mother (played with apt tautness by Gillian Anderson of x-files fame) happens to be a therapist specializing in relationships and sex. I know, all very titillating. When an outbreak of Chlamydia causes a school-wide panic, Otis takes on the role of peer sex counselor at his school, as part of an operation run with partner Maeve (Emma Mackey), a loner with a head for business. Maeve also lives in a trailer park. Toss in a gay best friend (Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa), the school “slag”, a jock, a bully, some mean girls and a dictatorial head master and it’s the same old teen romcom schlock. Will Otis and Maeve get together? Will the gay friend find romance among the normies? Who is doing whom in the bathroom stall. Typical mindless sexy fun. Except it isn’t.
Where sexy in mass media is usually a question of “to have or not to have” or, on a good day, how to have it better, Sex Education delivers on its title in every episode, exploring the not so sexy side—the downright “ugly” side—of sex. Otis presents an opportunity for a teenager to be armed with way more knowledge (accurate information) about bodies and practices than your average high-schooler. In the meantime, the adults are going through their own changes (not with the students, gratefully), and seeking their own answers about things they weren’t taught in school either.
The show trades realism for an opportunity to weave important lessons about sexuality, sexual health and gender identity into a clever, funny, and often moving story. The information is delivered with surprising sobriety and frankness. It presents a wide range of behavioral models for navigating relationships, changing bodies (puberty to menopause and beyond), sexual intercourse and all the shit (there’s even an episode that addresses “cleaning out” before anal sex) that comes with it.
There’s plenty of antics and scatalogical humor as I expected. The thoughtfulness of the show outweighs the lame elements by far, though. Many painfully awkward moments (including ones involving poop) are normalized in a world where everyone (everyone) is trying to figure sh*t out.
