Queer Stories Strike Back! ‘Heartstopper,’ ‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ and ‘Bottoms’ Lead a New Surge of LGBTQ Content
Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Within a three-week time span this August, audiences have been able to watch two British teenage boys wrestle with when to come out as a couple to their school (in Season 2 of the Netflix series “Heartstopper”), the first son and the prince of England make passionate love in a plush Parisian hotel suite (in the Amazon Prime Video rom-com “Red, White & Royal Blue”) and a pair of lesbian BFFs start a fight club at their high school to cajole the hottest cheerleaders to sleep with them (in the MGM sex comedy “Bottoms”).
This is, to put it mildly, unusual. “When I started out, you’d have one queer show in the U.K. on TV a year — or every other year — and that was it,” says “Heartstopper” executive producer Patrick Walters. “It was a niche thing: One and done, and then we move on to more ‘mainstream’ stories.” Instead, this month boasts the greatest concentration of high-profile queer content in recent memory.
On Max, the DC animated series “Harley Quinn” and “Sex and the City” sequel series “And Just Like That” have been exploring queer characters’ messy attempts at long-term relationships.
Meanwhile, the new season of the FX comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” boasts a cast of perpetually horny pansexual vampires who help throw a magically inappropriate Pride parade on Staten Island.
