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Aafter six books, three TV seasons and a the last filmHeartstopper has come to an end. Often referred to as the best show on TV, the Netflix adaptation Alice OsemanA small LGBTQ+ group, which started life as an internet joke, is a legitimate culture, which turns its two heads – Kit Connor and Joe Locke – household names, while racking up tens of millions of views. Since publication, the Heartstopper series has sold over 10m copies worldwide, including around 1.3m in the UK alone.
However these figures only tell one side of the Heartstopper story. At the queer and feminist bookshop where I work part-time in Sheffield, young people who come immediately attracted copies of Oseman’s books, and often take pictures of the now permanent window showed Nick and Charlie, a family on the heart of the story. I see the happy faces of silly young people when they see that we have the book in stock, even though they probably already have it at home.
I saw something similar in 2023 when I was invited to speak to an LGBTQ+ group at a high school in London. I was there to talk about history and my work as a journalist. However, when the students heard that I had asked Oseman, what they wanted to discuss with Heartstopper. I saw how much Oseman’s varied and interesting representation meant to them, how Nick and Charlie’s love story continued to bring them so much joy.
For adults, Heartstopper has had similar results. When the show premieres in 2022, many older people express their love for the show, while admitting the sadness they feel for not having it in their youth. Although Heartstopper was not made for a mature audience – it is, obviously, a children’s TV show – for stupid people like me, who grew up under the tyranny of Section 28, which prohibits the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality in schools, it was difficult not to feel a little sorry for the love and acceptance of Mtima queer in many cases.
That all the books and TV shows were giving LGBTQ+ people of all ages, but especially young people, the way to save the victims was not lost – as Connor said recently. interview: “It is the greatest thing that can happen to any of us.”
Maybe that’s why, despite his bad reputation, Heartstopper has kept his political appeal. Although it had no bite, say, Russell T Davies‘s It is Sin or film like 120 BPMOseman and the show’s producer, Patrick Walters, didn’t manage the headlines. For example, the third season highlighted the bait-and-switch techniques used by the media after Elle, a young teenager played by Yasmin Finney, is asked to discuss her art on a local radio station, only for the host to try to drag Elle into a heated debate about transgender identity. Likewise, in Heartstopper Forever, Netflix’s latest film, Elle advocates for the banning of hormone blockers for trans youth, and the restoration of trans rights in the UK more broadly. She said: “If I was a few years younger, I wouldn’t even be able to legally take hormone replacement therapy.”
Heartstopper also touched on other big issues, such as mental health, self-harm and eating disorders. The television series has sometimes been criticized for feeling like a school special, its flashy version of the main series focusing more on educating and motivating its young audience than on serious drama. But as Oseman said recently interview: “It was always my goal with Heartstopper to find a middle line, a balance, between showing these stories in a real way and keeping that tone, like, ‘It’s going to be okay and things are going to be okay.’
The anger surrounding the youth show Heartstopper is understandable, especially when many LGBTQ+ youth feel isolated and engage in dangerous activities such as using sex apps at a young age. Movies like the latest version of Paris Lees memoir, How a Girl Feelsas well as old shows like Skinsthey are probably the most accurate indicators of a cockroach’s developmental disorder.
LGBTQ+ youth need to show the reality of their lives. But they also have to run away happily. Young adults are still more likely to experience mental health problems, according to a 2024 study The Trevor Project and show how many of the LGBTQ+ youth reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or self-harm. At times, Heartstopper can seem like a fantasy, but the significance of seeing young adults survive and thrive is not to be underestimated.
In fact, this is probably more important than ever. According to Glaad’s annual scholarship When it comes to LGBTQ+ representation in film, there has been a decline in the number of characters on the silver screen over the past three years. This follows what is happening on TV, where the number of LGBTQ + on the screen has also decreased since 2021. Combine this with the global rise of anti-LGBTQ + rhetoric, the rise of hate crimes, especially for trans people, and the restoration of trans rights in the UK, and it must feel like a very difficult and scary time to be a young person.
When I think about this, I think back to the high school LGBTQ+ group I spoke to in 2023. Recently reports of schools banning stories by queer authors and growing censorship in libraries, in the UK and the US, I hope their interest in queer stories can be preserved and protected, and that they continue to see themselves on the screen and on the bookshelves for years to come.
Whether Heartstopper really is forever, as the film suggests, remains to be seen: Oseman said he wants to write for the big guys, while Locke and Connor are going to Hollywood. But even as Nick and Charlie’s story comes to an end, the importance of happy stories remains. Seeing the impact firsthand, for young people to lose hope and the reassurance they can provide can be very embarrassing.
