I’ve never seen the Netflix show Sex Education. Have no desire to. The most I know about it is that the trailer used to uncomfortably autoplay whenever the kids were around, and eventually my son got so intrigued by it that he got grounded for binge watching it when he wasn’t allowed to.
But then I heard that Season 2 ends with some sort of Romeo and Juliet thing (and, honestly, doesn’t every high school drama eventually involve some sort of Romeo and Juliet thing?) and I thought, I’ll probably have to end up watching that.
Luckily I don’t! The whole Romeo and Juliet thing is available on YouTube. Ready?
It’s pretty awful and I’m glad I didn’t put up with two seasons of a show I wasn’t interested in just to get to this.
It’s like a weird a Darren Nichols (Slings & Arrows) production staged by middle school students who learned what sex is from watching ABC Shondaland dramas. Everybody’s just kind of bumping and grinding on each other like that’s how babies are made.
People say text things, but there’s hardly any Shakespeare content. Benvolio talks to Romeo’s parents. Romeo and Juliet meet. I think Mercutio got some lines? He’s the one that talks about idle brains, right?
I like to be open minded, though. Somebody who has watched the whole show tell me, would it have been better if I had any sort of context for the characters? Romeo is reluctant to be there. The show does get interrupted and there is a “hold my hand” moment that must have been some sort of big deal. And then a dude comes in and shuts down the whole show. From my Shakespeare only seat those things were all negatives, but maybe for someone who saw this as “Sex Education with Shakespeare” rather than the other way around, those things were a highlight to some lengthy story arc?
Yes. It will make a lot more sense with the context of the show. Because “Sex Education” is a show essentially about communication, and how we as people miscommunicate and can improve.
Romeo & Juliet is essentially a play about tragedy striking when we fail to communicate properly. No character has the correct information to be able to make correct decisions, and thus people die.
Given the theme of the show and the play, embedding a one in another makes perfect sense.