So, let me tell you: when the character you can identify the most with is presented as a "psycho" and all those ways in which you are alike are used to amplify the weirdness, the perversity and the derangement - that's how you know the world loves and accepts you.
Some background: it's the British "Skins", the second season. Yes, I know open-mindedness is a lot to ask of a series where the sole gay (male) character only gets personal episodes when joint with another character (the straight ones are entitled to their own personal episodes).
Don't look for a "Maxxie" episode, it's "Maxxie & Anwar" (yeah, let's pair up the Muslim and the gay; neither of them deserve our full focus, really) or "Tony & Maxxie". Well, this season another queer character is introduced, her name is Sketch (a wonderful name, don't you think?). She falls in love with Maxxie, the gay boy, and stalks him. Oh, and did I forget to mention she binds her chest? Ugh! That's a sure sign she's fucked up. Why would any female person want to bind their chest? Further - it's a single-parent household, and the parent is disabled - in a wheelchair. Another hint; disabled parents are bad parents who can't raise children (therefore, their children grown up to be some lying, scheming, gender-nonconforming creeps). Oh, and, if I'm not mistaken, Sketch is the only female character who we see masturbating in the whole series (a boy is shown jerking off pretty regularly)... but she's wearing Maxxie's clothes at that moment, so I suppose her manliness allows her to be able to please herself. All the other girls, the real ones, obviously need a dick for that. But Sketch is twisted, so she masturbates.
Another interesting part of the story is the drama teacher. The guy's an asshole who kisses the girl with the leading role in the play against her will "to show the way to do it", who touches her ass when she walks by, who basically harasses her sexually.
Sketch asks him to give her the lead role instead (the lead boy is Maxxie), and when he refuses, tells the principle that the teacher harassed her. The teacher is fired, I think arrested, too. His life is ruined by the lies of that cunning Sketch. The fact that he literally got what he deserved is completely jammed out. The girl who he was harassing didn't say a word; it's not her business, right? Nobody needs to know. Sketch speaking out is presented as abnormal. Even the mere fact she falls for a gay boy is supposed to convince us that's she's crazy.
And - of course - Sketch is not conventionally pretty. Because we all know ugly people are evil.
Sketch does a lot of wrong things: stalks Maxxie, breaks into his apartment, touches his stuff, gives vomit-inducing pills to the lead girl to take her place in the play. I agree that's fucked up. But all the background: the genderqueering, the desire for someone of a different sexual orientation, the desire to please oneself, the single disabled parent... That is not, in any way, wrong. That is not, in any way, shameful. And that does not add up to Sketch's weirdness in any. fucking. way.
I'm done here.
Some background: it's the British "Skins", the second season. Yes, I know open-mindedness is a lot to ask of a series where the sole gay (male) character only gets personal episodes when joint with another character (the straight ones are entitled to their own personal episodes).
Don't look for a "Maxxie" episode, it's "Maxxie & Anwar" (yeah, let's pair up the Muslim and the gay; neither of them deserve our full focus, really) or "Tony & Maxxie". Well, this season another queer character is introduced, her name is Sketch (a wonderful name, don't you think?). She falls in love with Maxxie, the gay boy, and stalks him. Oh, and did I forget to mention she binds her chest? Ugh! That's a sure sign she's fucked up. Why would any female person want to bind their chest? Further - it's a single-parent household, and the parent is disabled - in a wheelchair. Another hint; disabled parents are bad parents who can't raise children (therefore, their children grown up to be some lying, scheming, gender-nonconforming creeps). Oh, and, if I'm not mistaken, Sketch is the only female character who we see masturbating in the whole series (a boy is shown jerking off pretty regularly)... but she's wearing Maxxie's clothes at that moment, so I suppose her manliness allows her to be able to please herself. All the other girls, the real ones, obviously need a dick for that. But Sketch is twisted, so she masturbates.
Another interesting part of the story is the drama teacher. The guy's an asshole who kisses the girl with the leading role in the play against her will "to show the way to do it", who touches her ass when she walks by, who basically harasses her sexually.
Sketch asks him to give her the lead role instead (the lead boy is Maxxie), and when he refuses, tells the principle that the teacher harassed her. The teacher is fired, I think arrested, too. His life is ruined by the lies of that cunning Sketch. The fact that he literally got what he deserved is completely jammed out. The girl who he was harassing didn't say a word; it's not her business, right? Nobody needs to know. Sketch speaking out is presented as abnormal. Even the mere fact she falls for a gay boy is supposed to convince us that's she's crazy.
And - of course - Sketch is not conventionally pretty. Because we all know ugly people are evil.
Sketch does a lot of wrong things: stalks Maxxie, breaks into his apartment, touches his stuff, gives vomit-inducing pills to the lead girl to take her place in the play. I agree that's fucked up. But all the background: the genderqueering, the desire for someone of a different sexual orientation, the desire to please oneself, the single disabled parent... That is not, in any way, wrong. That is not, in any way, shameful. And that does not add up to Sketch's weirdness in any. fucking. way.
I'm done here.