There are so many parallels between where My So-Called Life leaves off and Heartstopper begins. The reflected feelings of attraction to someone who can’t help but reject you. The intimate yearning of a teenager for the distant (intriguing) boy, who kisses you in secret and refuses to acknowledge you in the halls. It’s a devastating blow to a young person’s confidence to be forever questioning how much your … person actually cares about you.
Just like Angela, Charlie’s self-confidence and yearning for emotional connection are ignored. Ben clearly assigns no value to Charlie’s feelings and desires, and thus, by extension (as far as Charlie internalizes) he has no value.
Angela of course remains within the bubble of her ache and yearning. Despite crushing her self-confidence, she continues to want this. So she continues to seek him out.
By the end of Heartstopper‘s first episode, though, Charlie moves beyond this infatuation that doesn’t serve him. His involvement with Ben has clearly worn down at his confidence and self worth.
The behaviour displayed by Ben during that first episode, up until Charlie refuses to engage anymore in a relationship that continues to devalue him, is often a parallel of how Jordan Catalano treats Angela in My So-Called Life.
From Ben’s first introduction (outside his brief texts), he interrupts Charlie talking with a kiss. Effectively an I don’t particularly care what you have to say kind of interruption. You can see the moment of disappointment, but Charlie brushes it off. It’s a shadow of 30 years prior, when Jordan interrupts Angela by kissing her (for the first time) while she was literally speaking words. Unlike Charlie, who has clearly kissed Ben before (many times), Angela pushes him aside:
“Quit it! I was talking. I don’t open that wide at the dentist.”
Angela Chase, “Dancing in the Dark” Ep2 MSCL
Ben then leaves with a curt “Still don’t tell anyone about this, yeah?” Unwilling to be seen together, unwilling to acknowledge the other’s presence publicly. Ben is particularly dickish in his outward disgust towards Charlie, where Jordan Catalano is unreadably avoidant. Both set up their partners with false expectations, ghosting or ditching them with little to no notice. Effectively communicating: you are not, in fact, my priority.
And finally, of course, as Charlie witnesses Ben kissing a girl at the school gates is in some ways more outrageously disrespectful than Jordan sleeping with Angela’s friend shortly after breaking things off, they feel similarly crushing. The disrespect that has underlined all previous interactions up to now, and beats down on Angela/Charlie’s confidence.
The difference is that Angela is still in the midst of her infatuation by the end of the iconic first season of MSCL. She continues to pursue the spark of something when Jordan tries again. Whereas Charlie spots something better on the horizon. He meets Nick Nelson who is kind to him, friendly, interested in talking and playing MarioKart. Charlie begins to feel his own worth, at least enough to refuse to continue existing on Ben’s timetable.
The fairytale love story that follows for Charlie underscores how important it is to move on from people and relationships that don’t create a space for you to be (and be appreciated for) your true self.
If Angela had watched Heartstopper, would she have recognized some of the red flags in Jordan Catalano consistently ignoring her? Then again, do I really want to believe that Jordan wasn’t coming around? At the end of MSCL’s single season, the fantasy lives on, in that promise of a relationship continued. Their story wasn’t done, mostly because Angela continues to yearn for his attentions. Maybe it would be possible for Angela to come into her own and bring him along with her. It is possible that Jordan would have learned in a way that Ben simply wasn’t ready was too much of a selfish dick for. Maybe we want to hold on to this fantasy for Angela a little bit longer.
But maybe viewers need to be reminded that we have the right to better. That the first boy who decides to kiss you isn’t always right for you, especially if he pretends he doesn’t know you sometimes. That a happily-ever-after might be in your future if you let go of the mediocre-ever-now.
