Some Thoughts About Love, Victor

Stop me if this sounds familiar:

A teen drama with a protagonist who meets a sweet, popular character who is a love interest; another love interest; a jock who is an asshole; a quirky friend; a insecure person who wants to be popular; and other background characters.  Over the course of several episodes, the protagonist struggles with who they really like while also trying to fit in and live their life.

If you're saying that this sounds like a perfectly ordinary teen drama, you would be correct.  And Love, Victor has all of these.  What sets the show apart is that the main romantic pairing is a same-sex pair.  The ordinariness of the plot of Love, Victor is the very thing that makes it extraordinary.  Much like Love, Simon, the 2018 coming of age/teen rom-com film whose world Love, Victor is set in, the show sets out to be run of the mill with a same-sex couple as the primary pairing.  It has all the tropes and standard elements of the many, many teen dramas that proceeded it with that little twist.  And that is, as I said, what makes it so extraordinary.

I remember growing up and having characters coming out of the closet be a Sweeps moment.  It was a Big Deal.  So having a show where the character is known to be queer and the show is about them coming to terms with that shows the progress that has been made.  Don't get me wrong, we aren't at the Promised Land yet, but we have come a good distance.

The other thing that makes Love, Victor so great is that Victor is a Latino.  Most queer characters who are leading characters in shows or movies made by major studios (as opposed to supporting or part of an ensemble) have been white males.  There are exceptions to this (of course), but they have been just that, the exception to the rule.

I have to admit to a large amount of trepidation when I first heard about the show.  Early on, it sounded like they were going to turn the movie into a tv series, which would have been a major mistake.  When they announced that the show would have new characters, but set at the same high school, it eased a lot of my fears.  I loved that the show had Victor DMing Simon to get advice and to tell Simon what was going on in his life.  That gave the show a wonderful connection to the movie and allowed us to continue to be connected to Simon and Bram even though they weren't at the high school anymore.  In a similar vein, I loved seeing Ms. Albright as the vice principal in the first episode.  Again, it connected the show to the movie and gave us a very good reason for Victor to hear about and start communicating with Simon.

That being said, there were a couple of things I wish the show had done differently.  First, I was not particularly happy that the only options presented in terms of sexual orientation were gay/lesbian or straight.  There was no discussion that Victor might be bi or pan, which are very real orientations and are severely underrepresented on tv and in movies.  The other issue is a familiar one.  Michael Cimino, who plays Victor, is straight.  While he did an awesome job and obviously cares very deeply about how he presented Victor's struggles, it is always better to have a queer actor play a queer character because they can bring authenticity to the role and the struggle of coming to terms with who you are.

With that, I can't say there was anything else I was unhappy about.  The show had an episode that focused on the queer community and the way that the community really can be a family of people who want to cheer each other on and support each other as we work on coming out and figuring out who we are.  I also loved that Simon and Bram had roommates of various orientations, gender identities, pronouns, and gender presentations.  Again, representation matters.  When we can see people who are like us, or when the straight world can see the variety of people who are a part of the queer community, it helps everyone.  This is not to say that we don't have a way to go, but you have to start somewhere.

I think my favorite episode was the eighth episode where Victor went to New York to meet Simon.  That was the episode I talked about in the last paragraph.  It had great speeches from Bram who showed Victor that there are all sorts of people in the queer community, Justin (played by Tommy Dorfman) who explained how (for many, if not most, queer people) the person they showed to the world before they came out is a costume and how who they are after they come out is their authentic self, and then from Simon who explained to Victor why his roommates knew about what Victor told him.  The fact that Victor was able to admit why he was afraid to come out, which was followed by a group hug, was also wonderful, as was his admission at the end that that night was the best of his life.

Another awesome scene was when Victor came out to Felix and Felix admitted that he didn't know the perfect thing to say, but that nothing had to change between them.  That sort of unquestioning acceptance and affirmation is better than any long, flowery speech.  It was a short, simple declaration followed by a hug that let Victor know that he had at least one person in his life who would not turn their back on him.  It doesn't get much better than that.

I do have to admit to not being fond of the way Victor hurt Mia.  I will grant that he was not intending to be hurtful, but he hurt her deeply nonetheless.  I get why he didn't tell her when he was intending to, due to the fact that her father announced that not only was his girlfriend pregnant, but they were also getting married.  Throwing in the fact that he was gay would have made an already messy situation even messier, so I get the hesitation there.  Unfortunately, she discovered that he was gay on her own when she saw him kissing Benji.  That is never a good situation.

I really hope the show comes back for a second season because the way they ended the first is totally begging for another season.  Victor's parents announced that they are seperating, at least temporarily, and the episode ended with Victor announcing the fact that he is gay.  If we don't get to see how everyone deals with that, I will be really upset.

Overall, the show was well acted, Victor's struggles were eminently relatable, and the characters were developed in a way that allowed them to break free of some of the constricting boxes that characters are often thrust into.  If you like teen dramas, Love, Victor is well worth watching and enjoying.

Some thoughts on 13 Reasons Why *SPOILERS*

Last night, I finished the series finale of 13 Reasons Why.  I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the show, but I do know that there are a lot of people who didn't for various reasons.  Thinking about the show, I would say that, like the characters on the show, it was well intentioned but deeply flawed, messy, and problematic.  In other words, it was very, very human.

The show is definitely not a show I would recommend to everyone.  If you suffer from depression or anxiety, suffered sexual assault, or are easily triggered, it is not the show for you.  They do have warnings on the show about watching with friends or a trusted adult, but it is really heavy and can be emotionally draining.  And there are definitely scenes that are really hard to watch.

I think the biggest problem is that they didn't always handle storylines very well.  In the final season, they had Justin get HIV which progressed to AIDS in the space of a year or so.  Based of what I have read, HIV doesn't proceed quite that quickly, even if it is untreated.  That honestly seemed like it was more for shock than anything else and I cannot say that I appreciated it at all.  Also, there really wasn't a whole lot of groundwork laid for that, which is another problem.  Granted, there were the dark blotches on his face, neck, and back, which I have seen in other movies/shows where someone has AIDS, so that might have been them trying to hint at what was coming, but it still felt so sudden that it seemed to be more exploitative and not something that they really needed to do.

Another storyline that was problematic for some people was the arc in Season 3 when Bryce was trying to redeem himself.  Personally, I didn't have a problem with it because I believe that anyone who is truly sorry and tries to make amends can be redeemed.  Here the flaw was more in the execution and the fact that it was Bryce; a rich, white, cis, heterosexual male.  I do think that he truly realized that he had committed truly monstrous acts or enabled people to commit monstrous acts in his name, but he did seem genuinely sorry for what he had done and was trying to atone for it.  Unlike some people in real life, he didn't just mouth platitudes about how he was sorry, he seemed to truly mean it.  That being said, the fact that they didn't give Monty (a Latino) the same opportunity strikes me as tone deaf and not a good thing.

I can say that I appreciated the way that they deepened all of the characters after the first season.  Just like in real life, there are people who screw up in a major way, but they are not simply bad people.  Rather, they are products of their environment and don't always realize how hurtful their actions are.  Or they try and protect the people they love and end up hurting other people, either on accident or on purpose.  Like I said, flawed and messy.  None of the characters could really claim the moral high ground.  Each of them made some rather shocking actions that caused a lot of damage.  For example, Clay took a picture of Tyler naked and spread it around school to get revenge (he said it was justice, but it was truly revenge) after hearing about how Tyler had taken pictures of Courtney and Hannah kissing.  There are so many more I could cite, but I won't.

I also appreciated that the show did have several queer characters and people of color (some of whom were also queer).  That sort of representation is a good thing and, in every case except one, the person was accepted and embraced by the people around them.  I will say that having Alex kiss Zach and get a boyfriend in the last season (he never defined his orientation) was a little odd because there had been no indication in prior seasons that he was into guys at all.  I don't know if they decided to have him be queer between seasons 3 and 4, if it was a long-term plan that was never indicated, or if it was something that Miles (who is in a relationship with Connor Jessup, but has never defined his sexuality that I know of) pushed for, but it was so sudden that it also felt a little exploitative.  He had only ever indicated that he was interested in Jessica in the past and had never looked at guys or anything, so it could have been prepared for a little better.

As I said, I did appreciate the series overall and definitely enjoyed it, but that doesn't make me blind to its flaws.  I am sure there may be flaws that I either missed or didn't see as flaws, but no one sees everything.  If you think the show is for you, I would give it a look.