When Sex Education first premiered in 2019, it was hailed as equal parts thoughtful and lewd. Through its diverse cast of teenage characters, Netflix’s hit show explores stigmatized subjects — abortion, sexual assault, body acceptance, masturbation, sexual hang-ups, and mental health — and typical high school age awkwardness all while living up to its name. It deftly informs audiences about safe-sex (and sex positive) practices, among other topics, without feeling clinical.
Three seasons in (and the fourth recently announced), this balance is part of Sex Education’s brilliance. The British teen dramedy follows archetypal normie Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) as he opens an amateur sex clinic to help students of Moordale Secondary with their sexual woes. Alongside him is the sarcastic-but-soft Maeve (Emma Mackey) and best friend Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa). How is an awkward virgin well-versed enough to bestow his wisdom on to others? His mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson), is a celebrity sex therapist — and has a habit of psychoanalysing her son.
To build its world, creator Laurie Nunn lifts teen comedy tropes from various subgenres and makes them new. Most episodes open with a raunchy sex scene reminiscent of late-90s or 2000s teen sex comedies à la EuroTrip, Superbad, and American Pie, and the frankness in which characters discuss their sex lives (or lack thereof) follows suit. But its retro-modern wardrobe, bright color palette, and experimentation with tropes are more in the vein of John Hughes. The characters are given room to make mistakes and evolve past their insecurities.
This makes for a series that is both nostalgic and refreshing. While reminiscent of past media centered around the ever-romanticized high school years, Sex Education does something most of its predecessors didn’t attempt. By reaching past the raunch, the show finds sincerity in teenage anxieties. Every character’s experience is treated with dignity, no matter how embarrassing their problem. The series addresses everything from erectile dysfunction to not being able to give a blow job because of an overactive gag reflex. These scenarios elicit laughs, yes, but we’re laughing with the characters, not at them. This distinction is an important one. Young people often feel shame as they explore themselves and each other. By depicting their characters honestly, Sex Education normalizes the messiest bits of adolescence. Beyond teenagers, the adults in Sex Education are given the same space to learn about their desires, faults, and areas for growth–a detail not typically explored in stories centered around high school.
Short-lived series Freaks and Geeks molded a similar world, but Judd Apatow’s cult classic, like its contemporaries, was limited by its lack of inclusive storytelling. In the few episodes where it veered outside of heteronormative norms, the scenes weren’t handled with the same care found in Sex Education, which features a range of queer storylines and characters. Both series create arcs by pushing characters together that normally wouldn’t interact. The former sees one-time mathlete and nerd Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) move from geek to freak status, joining ranks with her school’s burnouts. Maeve, too, joins a quiz team. She hides her brilliance because of her fear of failure and inability to be vulnerable. Despite her smarts, she doesn’t believe she is good enough. On the exterior, she appears like Breakfast Club’s Bender (Judd Nelson) or Apatow’s freaks but she’s written more like 10 Things I Hate About You’s Kat (Julia Stiles). Season 3 sees promising opportunities come her way as she begins to let her guard down, grapple with her troubled home life, and do something she’s struggled with throughout the series run: ask for help.
Though protagonist Otis may be a straight, white male, the halls of Moordale are filled with stories that usually wouldn’t receive screen time. In season 2, Anwar (Chaneil Kular) is with his boyfriend Nick (Tom Atkinson) when things go awry; he doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know how to douche. Fellow student Rahim (Sami Outalbali) later steps in to give a detailed lesson, but encourages Anwar to talk openly with his partner. The moment is so detailed that anyone who watches can walk away knowing how it’s done. And that’s the magic of Sex Education: The questions posed by Moordale students are ones that young people likely wonder about but are too embarrassed to ask. The series gives helpful, affirming advice that can be used outside in the real world. At the same time, it’s engaging, funny, and heartwarming.
In season 3, viewers are given a glimpse of queer culture outside of the western world when Eric visits his family in Nigeria. Instead of making the moment painful, it is celebratory while still acknowledging the dangers of being out in a country where being LGBTQ is criminalized. Gatwa told Variety that shooting the scene was a special moment for him. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Fucking hell, we’re on a Netflix set, this is about to go out to the entire world, and we’re showcasing this beautiful culture that doesn’t get shown a lot.’ It felt very powerful for me in my journey in life as an actor, as a human, and it felt like a homecoming.”
Even side characters like Lily (Tanya Reynolds), whose alien sexual fantasies are integral to her personality, are given depth beyond surface level identity. When she’s publicly shamed by new headmistress Hope Haddon (Jemima Kirke) for having her extraterrestrial erotica published by a local newspaper, the lesson is that she deserves acceptance, not mockery. Other awkward characters, like Superbad’s Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Please), aka McLovin’, exist purely for entertainment. Apatow’s 2007 comedy weaves the story of high school boys hoping to lose their virginities before graduation. One of them being over-the-top nerdy, awkward-but-bold Fogell, who is defined by his desperation for sex and want to be cool. When he loses his virginity, it’s played off as ridiculous in its impossibility. Though he is loved by his classmates, he is never fleshed out beyond his geek stereotype. Lily, while just as nerdy and horny, is written with more empathy. She could have easily been made into a caricature, but instead is given room to develop beyond her eccentricities as a friend, individual, and partner–especially in the latest season.
One of the series’ most known scenes revolves around Aimee Gibbs (Aimee Lou Wood), a sweet and sometimes ditzy popular girl. When she’s sexually assaulted in season 2 and shares the horrific experience with other girls in detention (yes, very Breakfast Club meets Mean Girls), they band together in support of getting her help. Aimee deals with the ramifications in a realistic way as she tries to brush off the assault, struggles to be intimate with her boyfriend, and pushes away friends. Throughout seasons 2 and 3, Aimee seeks help through therapy and being more open about her needs with those in her circle.
Nunn based the scene on a personal experience, but it’s one most women will relate to. It’s also a far cry from rape jokes littered in teenage media, including several of Hughes’ films. In Sixteen Candles, Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) makes a passing joke that he could “violate” his drunk, passed-out girlfriend, the popular Caroline (Haviland Morris). On rewatch, the scene’s casual delivery is jarring. Breakfast Club also normalizes harassment in a scene where Bender looks up Claire’s (Molly Ringwald) skirt. Though Bender either mocks or sexualizes Claire, he still wins her affections in the end.
In the debaucherous Eurotrip, Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) is subjected to multiple scenes that are indicative of sexual violence, including a horde of men on a nude beach chasing her down. The film’s other two characters, Scott and Jacob, treat almost every woman they meet as potential sexual conquests. The 2004 flick is certainly of the time, but shows like Sex Education reiterate the importance of consent while showing the damaging nature of sexual violence. It also illustrates that raunch can be employed in a meaningful way, sans the side of rape culture.
Sex Education takes on a universal feel in its styling, borrowing much of its tropes from American teen media while still being vaguely set somewhere in Britain. It attempts to not only represent, but add dimension to a bevy of diverse stories, voices, and issues. American Pie and its ilk may have boner and virgin jokes aplenty, but Sex Education’s power comes from folding together tenderness and raunch in a way that doesn’t condescend groups in the process (unlike its predecessors). Season 3 saw the characters grow up, fall in and out of love, and change directions. Here’s to another season of learning alongside the students of Moordale Secondary.
