Australia’s Heartbreak High remake: A full season review

If you grew up in Australia during the 1990’s, chances are you were a fan of Heartbreak High. It was iconic at the time, and part of Aussie teen schedules on the daily. Well, it’s over 20 years on now, and the show has gotten a makeover and a reboot care of Netflix. Gen Z is in the house with this one folks, and they are revolutionizing storytelling for the masses. 

Q+ Magazine is covering Heartbreak High because it has varied and incredibly present queer representation. One of the main characters is a nonbinary black person, the show also serves the sapphics a couple of incredible storylines, the gay boys are in the house waving their rainbow flags (even if they’re doing it from the closet) and in an incredible rarity for mainstream television, the asexual community joins the chat. 

The show also boasts autistic representation, Indigenous Australian characters, Asian characters, Indian characters, mental health struggles, and of course, plenty of heterosexual archetypes to satisfy the straight folks. Everyone is welcome at the table in Heartbreak High and it seems like one would be hard pressed not to find themselves in this community of hormonal and coming-of-age kids. 

Because there are so many side stories that all intertwine and connect as one, instead of going through a plot overview with y’all, we’re going to pull out and highlight the things that rocked our socks off, and shed some light on areas we think folks should be talking about. Buckle up, Heartbreak High is a wild ride. 

Heartbreak High: Disclaimers

Before anyone makes the decision to commit to this show, one should know that like many other Australian drama’s, Heartbreak High doesn’t shy away from the difficult subjects. 

There is rampant drug use and drinking among the youth in this show, and almost all of their pursuits are centered on sex and the procurement of it. If you’re watching from overseas, it might behoove you to remember that the legal drinking age in Australia is 18, and many kids are able to legally drink while they’re finishing out their final year of school. However, that’s not to say that we think all the substance abuse that takes place in this show is legal. These kids are definitely not all 18. 

And so often, as with storylines about substance abuse, there is also a storyline about sexual abuse and rape that is connected to these behaviors. 

One of the characters also experiences some pretty severe violence at home due to their parents’ mental state. And there is also a pretty scary, violent interaction between a police officer and an Indigenous character that is really important, but might be triggering for some. 

The queer representation

Darren (James Majoos) is nonbinary and doing what they can to live their most fabulous life. They are out at school and well accepted as such by their teachers and their peers. At home, however, their step-father is struggling to come to terms with Darren’s gender identity, and isn’t making much of an effort to work with Darren’s pronouns and expectations. 

Darren is frustrated that their mother isn’t doing more to stand up for them and advocate for them in relation to their stepdad, and tension inevitably erupts at home. Darren’s mother asks Darren to go and spend some time living with their biological father instead. At first we didn’t think this was going to go well. Darren’s dad is a typical presenting heterosexual Australian dude. However, this character epitomizes the adage of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ because this man becomes Darren’s biggest cheerleader and advocate in life. 

Darren is kind of in love with Cash (Will McDonald), who – SURPRISE – is a totally closeted gay. He is part of the local drug dealing ring and tries his absolute best to hide his sexuality. But he can’t hide it from Darren, and he realizes after spending just a teensy bit of time with Darren, that he doesn’t want to (he just wants to hide it from his drug dealing buddies). 

Things get physical between the two, but Darren gets wickedly hurt when Cash keeps trying to prevent things from going all the way. While the word ‘asexual’ isn’t ever used in this season, the creators of Heartbreak High are clearly setting Cash up to come out as asexual if there is a second season. 

Cash tries really hard to communicate to Darren that he doesn’t want to have sex with anyone (however, he makes it really clear he loves the kissing and the touching and the hugging and all that other stuff) but Darren takes it personally and walks away. 

Quinni (Chloe Hayden) is autistic and very gay. She is also besties with Darren. Quinni’s autism has prevented her from forming romantic relationships with others, because mostly, folks don’t understand what autism is. But then along comes Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran): gay, into Quinni, and seemingly understanding of her autism. At first, it’s great. Sasha does lots of things that others before her haven’t been willing to do for Quinni. 

However, it doesn’t take long before Sasha starts treating Quinni like something she has to take care of, rather than someone she should just love. Quinni knows herself well enough and respects herself enough to call Sasha out on this ableist behavior and the two hit pretty rocky waters. 

There is also a sneaky threesome that is thrown into the mix by three characters that appear to be heterosexual, however it’s unclear at the moment whether that was anything intentionally queer, or whether it was a drug-fueled, horned dog, one night stand. We know, okay! We know!

Queer placement

Since it’s our prerogative here at Q+ Magazine to review and evaluate content from a queer perspective, it would be wrong of us not to mention the way that the queer kids in this show are really just mixed in with the rest of the school population. 

What we mean to say is, there is a complete absence of homophobia in this show. The queer kids are friends with the straight kids and they all form part of a larger social circle. While the queer kids do have queer besties (queers need queers, we all know that) they also have straight besties, too. 

No one is teasing or bullying anyone else because of their gender or sexuality preference and at Heartbreak High, queer is completely and totally normalized. With the exception of Cash’s character – who seems to be struggling to explain his sexuality even to himself – the queer kids are out and present, just like the heterosexual kids are, and heterosexuality is not the default. 

This was utterly shocking to us (in the very best way) because almost no queer media is being made where this occurs. If real life is going to get better for our queer kids in schools, heterosexual kids need to see examples of this where queer kids are not othered. Where it’s not the norm to have to come out, because one’s sexuality shouldn’t matter. Love is love, your body, your choice, and all that. 

Heartbreak High is leaving everyone for dust in that regard. 

We loved it. We really, really did. Folks everywhere are always shouting from the rooftops that there isn’t enough positive representation for our queer youth that is realistic. Well, Heartbreak High is here to serve you up all the things you’ve ever wished for. 

We just have to say one thing, and we know this isn’t queer, but why are these kids not wearing school uniforms at school? It’s a requirement for all school kids in Australia. This felt like a bit of an abnormality in Australian representation to satisfy potential American audiences. Either way, we just wanted y’all to know, that’s probably the most unrealistic part of the show!

---

Heartbreak High is available to stream on Netflix now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!