Euros Lyn | Heartstopper: Bully / 2022 [Season 1, Episode 7]

the mirror cracks

by Douglas Messerli

 

Alice Oseman (screenplay), Euros Lyn (director) Heartstopper: Bully / 2022 [Season 1, Episode 7] [27 minutes]

 

Again in the very first frames of this tearful TV series, the substance of the story is revealed, this time by Tori (Jenny Walser), Charlie’s older sister, after being finally told outright by her brother that Nick and he have begun an intense relationship; she agrees to keep it a secret. But you can see that she’s disturbed, particularly since she knows what her brother has gone through. She’s evidently pleased about his going out with other friends, but you can perceive that she’s worried, which is, after all, what this episode is all about: a return to the bullying world which so many gay boys have to endure in order to come to terms with their life. And the issue here, most obviously, is what it all might mean for the neophyte Nick.

     Even the first moments of this film take us back to his abusive former relationship with the horrible Ben Hope (Sebastian Croft), a self-hating gay who can’t and perhaps ever will fully accept his sexuality. These are often the bullies who hate other gays with a desire of vengeance and coverup bluff.

 

    Charlie is attending an event where Nick has promised the bullies won’t show up, but even Charlie’s father Julio (Joseph Balderrama) is bothered, and we know that Charlie is now going to encounter the world he has previously attempted to skirt. “It’s going to be all right,” he assures his father, when we know it’s going to be a very rough night.  

   They’re just going to a movie, but it is the kind of evening where even there in the halls of the dark heaven of dreams you might be attacked. Charlie can’t even consume the requisite popcorn. But suddenly and rather amazingly Nick has given his beloved Charlie a nickname, “Char,” which strangely means everything has changed. They’ve entered a private world, just between the two of them.

      There is, of course, the usual secretive hand-holding, the crackle of emotions if not the crack of corn beneath the teeth (after all this was a graphic fiction, recreated with animated moments).  Love in movie-theaters is a gay genre all by itself.

      But the bully here, Harry Greene (Cormac Hyde-Corrin) cannot resist abusing Nick’s new friend. “Do you like Harry Styles? He’s pretty sexy.” a comment which might suggest his own sublimated need to be loved by someone like Charlie. But when he adds, “What about Nick?” Charlie chokes up and returns back to his denial. “Nick’s not even my type.”

     Despite the open refusal, meant to protect him of course, Nick still demands Harry stop. Such intrusions make for only more suspicion, which is precisely what Charlie is attempting to deflect. Nick chases after, but Charlie admits what every gay has long ago lied about: “Honestly, I’m used to it.” The film knows that a gay boy can never become used to the open abuse. It’s simply a ruse to escape from the one you want to protect from the hurt you’ve suffered.

      There is always more when you’re under such gang attacks, Ben confronts him asking his ex-lover it it’s really true that Nick and he are a couple. Like Christ’s disciple Peter, Charlie denies again, allowing Ben to attack him where it truly hurts: “As if anyone would go out with someone as desperate as you. You actually thought I liked you? You were just there like some tragic loser with barely any friends, who ate lunch alone and let bullies walk over you. I never liked you. I’m not even gay. I just felt really sorry for you.”

    All is a splendid coverup of his own feelings while doing the very bullying he presumably is dismissing. Oh, that’s the wonder of such beasts, whitewashing themselves from the act they are in the midst of committing. Attack and denial at the very same instance: these magic tricks are what bullies do best. How can you talk to even an understanding and sensitive father about that? Young kids carry burdens they don’t even know they needn’t. Guilt is embedded in the blood of being different from even their parents who love and might seek to protect them from such hate.

     And then it gets worse as Nick attempts to return and confront his rugby friends about their abuse, which ends in a nasty battle where he too, ferried to safety by his mother, can’t truly share the problem of his black eye. With the wonderful Olivia Coleman as a mother, any son might finally open up: “I lost it. I’m just so angry at myself for not seeing all my friends…suck.” It’s an important recognition that all gay or bi boys must make, straight kids not only hate, they just don’t understand what it means to be someone who is perceived to be “abnormal,” to be moving off it a direction that they have not even had to consider as a path to recognize themselves.

     She realizes that Charlie is “a very special friend,” and comprehends the suffering he is going through. I wish more gay films would focus on the suffering the parents who do understand and sympathize but can’t possibly resolve their son’s or daughter’s suffering by openly confronting them. Not all parents are monsters, even as they must endure the process as well. They too must come “out,” perhaps even a greater challenge for the old than the young. Coleman’s performance brought this home. Nick’s simple two-word admission says everything: “He is.”

     Both boys suffer internally the consequences of the other's behavior. It pulls them apart at the very moment when they have grown so close.

     But at least, Charlie soon discovers, Nick is willing to fight for him, that the things he has "gotten used to" are not permissible and are worth fighting about. Charlie doesn’t want Nick to dump his friends for him, but Nick admits that even the nice ones just “stood there,” not responding, not rejecting the hurtful words of the bullies. We have clearly entered new terrain.

   Charlie returns to the corner where he has hidden out for so many days in his art teacher’s, Mr Ajayi’s, protective den long before this series began.

     And Tao is now sorry for having himself verbally been sparring with the bullies, trying to protect his beloved friend. Sometimes just ignoring hate is the best route. But he has done precisely what Nick now is demanding Charlie do, to stand up to hate. But how?

     Charlie certainly doesn’t seem to have an answer. And Elle admits that Harry did the same to her, never confronting it, never even seeking the help of a teacher. And finally in the midst of this, slow-minded Tao realizes that Nick and Charlie are really a couple, that what everybody knew about, he has been thoroughly blind.

     Elle visits Tao at his house, his mother being thoroughly welcoming—parents in this first season at least are more than accommodating. Tao, however, is confused about another matter. Why hasn’t Charlie shared the truth with him. Did the new friendship matter more than their love?

Young people, we perceive, already have developed such jealous loves. Tao admits that he is, after all afraid of being alone, and Elle shares the fact that she too felt that angst. Being alone for a young person is a fierce terror, I recall. It’s why we often seek what an acquaintance recently described as “alternate friends,” not people with whom we might truly feel a kinship, but those we know also have no friends, a kind of second-rate substitute for those for whom we truly might seek a relationship. They know it but are just as appreciative to find a new friendship, even as a substitute; and we lie to one another, as I did as a child, pretending we were naturally akin, while knowing each other was all we had left. Even friendships can be burdens when you know in your heart they’re not truly serious, which is why bullies like Ben can so easily dig into your guts. Losers hang out with losers, and that’s how they come define themselves. Coming out is not just declaring but adjusting to the limitations of everything you’ve previously done to protect yourself, all the lies you have told yourself and others. And it never truly ends. The guilt goes on forever. And then it gets worse, when late in life you discover some of the people you most wanted to be wanted to be with you.

      But I’ve gone off the tracks. This series makes me do that.

     As Charlie attempts to back out of his lovely relationship with Nick, Tao saves the day by actually engaging in hand-to-hand combat with bully Harry Greene. And although Nick quickly rushes in the save the day, Tao is angry about Charlie’s inability to be honest with him. Charlie is left with what he can only perceive as another burned bridge. The mirror has cracked.

 

Los Angeles, November 7, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2024).