Young Royals: And The Incredibly Simple Reasons It Was Exactly What We Needed
- Lina McGovern
- Aug 20, 2021
- 11 min read
Young Royals. The show that nobody saw coming, and the show that everybody absolutely needed and loved. This show udebuted in July of 2021 and when I first saw the series title and trailer on my Netflix home page, I thought to myself, “Eh. I’ll get to it later. It doesn’t really seem like my taste.” But then, I saw people talking about it and saying how amazing it was! People related it to my favorite book (Red, White, And Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston), calling it a masterpiece, and making memes and fan art that popped up all over my instagram explore page. I promptly went to my Netflix account and read the description of the show which is as follows: “Prince Wilhelm adjusts to life at his prestigious new barding school, but following his heart proves more challenging than he anticipated.” At this point I thought it (the show) would be intriguing so I added it to my list while I continued binging my last Netflix obsession. That is until I got a very frantic call from a friend ordering me to watch it immediately so that we could talk about it together. They told me it was so good and entertaining; as well as an amazing point in queer representation. Ok now I had to watch this. Here I am, a few weeks later, having finished the show twice so far, and I have a lot to say about how much I loved it and how perfect it was for this point in time. So these are my top 5 favorite things about Young Royals and why they help to benefit society as a whole. (Disclaimer: there will be spoilers ahead so if you haven’t seen the show already and don’t want any spoilers, go watch the show and come back when you have finished it!)
1. Teens Playing Teens
Let’s talk about the first simple thing this show has done that made an impact on viewers: having a teenager play a teenage role. One of the biggest problems in media since the beginning of time has been the way adults have been given the roles of teenage characters. We have seen this in shows like Euphoria or movies like Grease, where characters are supposed to be high-schoolers/teenagers for the majority (if not the entirety) of the plot, and who we see playing the role is most definitely not a teenage high-schooler. The problem with this is that it sets a very unrealistic beauty standard for the real teens. As a teenager, you are expected to look like a grown adult, sound like a grown adult, and— most of the time— practically be a grown adult. Seeing an adult on screen, playing somebody who is supposed to be your age, and not seeing the same thing in the mirror causes very bad issues for the teens who are consuming this content.
When you watch this content, you are bound to have a very harsh self image during your teenage years. You see this person whom you are supposed to be able to relate to, but for some reason you just can’t. You feel lost and disconnected because you don’t see any of yourself in this character. You don’t have the facial hair, or the boobs, or the height, or the clear skin. You feel like you must be behind somehow, but don’t fully understand how.
Now, in July of 2021, we have a breakthrough. 18 year old Edvin Ryding plays one of the main characters Wilhelm. When we see Ryding play this character, we finally see somebody we can relate to. He looks like us, he talks like us, and we can actually see a bit of ourselves in him and his character. Casting a teen to play a teenage role seems like the simplest thing in the world, and the farthest possible thing from rocket science on the planet. However, it is hardly done in the film industry. Being able to see Ryding play this character, we feel seen for the first time. Wilhelm isn’t somebody who is hyper-sexualized for his age. He isn’t some unreachable beauty standard. He is beautiful because he looks like us. He is loved because he is relatable. He is relatable because he is accurately presented to be like us, and not what some adult/older generation thinks we are like.
2. Realistic Body Image
On a similar note, we had gotten a good representation scale for realistic bodies in teenagers. We got rep for short girls, tall girls, fat girls, skinny girls, people with acne, people of multiple races and skin tones, etc. This show opened up to the idea that it is statistically and realistically impossible to have an entire school of only cisgender, straight, skinny, conventionally attractive, white people.
This representation is crucial in the battle for being more self confident and self accepting as a teenager— or person of any age for that matter— in this century. The biggest thing that I personally valued was the fact that most of the major characters had acne/acne scars. This plays a big part in the accurate representation of teenager appearance. I am so sick of seeing grown adults with perfect skin playing roles of youth adolescence and putting in no effort to even looking half way accurate along the way. When we see Wilhelm for the first time, one of the first things I noticed and appreciated was the noticeable acne/acne scars. The first thing I though was “finally, somebody who looks like a teenager!” It was so nice to see somebody who looks like me. Somebody who does a good job at representing what it is really like to be a teenager and look like one.
Another aspect of the body scale was the rep with Felice. Felice is a curvy woman of color who goes to Hillerska with the rest of the characters. She is a main character that we see often throughout the series and we get to watch her grow comfortable with herself along the way. One good point in the show is when she is at Wilhelm’s initiation party and notices that her hair is curly. “Do you know how long it takes to make it straight?!” She says to Sarah when she points it out. But Sarah just replies by telling her that it looks good curly and that she shouldn’t stress about straightening it. We also see Felice stress about wearing her mother’s dress to the Lucia party. During this mini arc she tells her friends several times that the dress won’t fit because she is too big for it. During the arc, we see her come to terms with her body and her priorities when she resolves the issue by giving the dress and role of Lucia to Sarah.
We actually see a few different sets of representation in races when it comes to students at Hillerska! The most obvious being Felice and Simon, however there are also mini/background characters who make appearances as well throughout the series. We also see a good amount in rep for different sizes in other characters in other wats as well. We see tall women like Madison, short men like Simon, black women like Felice, short women like Sarah, and many more different sides of the body spectrum. It was really nice to see a show that had such a good level of teenage body accuracy and acceptance!
3. Queer Representation
The next point on the list is the amount of queer representation. Obviously the show centers around gay men, however, I think this show dives a bit deeper than just being gay. This show not only had two main characters be queer in some way (it was never specified what Wilhelm identified as exactly though we do know that Simon is gay), but it also took on the challenge of accepting yourself, allowing others to accept you, and facing the idea of coming out all together. And if that isn’t enough for you, they took it a step further and included a boarding school and royal setting. This changes the whole game. This isn’t just some boy figuring out he likes guys. This is a young prince who has a title to uphold, doesn’t want the title, is forced to go away to a boarding school,—and at this point he is getting really upset with his royal status— then figures out that he likes men. In this show, we have a boy who already hates his life. He doesn’t feel normal, he can’t make good friends, and he can’t make any decisions for himself without the crown butting in. Once Wilhelm transfers to Hillerska, he meets other royal status/higher class students, and he is told that these are the kind of people he can make friends with.
Wilhelm doesn’t care for these people too much and he ends up meeting a choir boy named Simon. Simon is everything Wilhelm wishes he could be. He is a non-residential student with no higher class status to appeal to. He is openly gay, and able to express his emotions freely for the most part. Once they get to know each other, they get very close very fast. Wilhelm sees Simon as his only friend and the only real person at the school. Simon is the reason that Wilhelm comes to love Hillerska. After their first kiss, Wilhelm tells Simon to forget it ever happened because he didn’t mean it. But after he says this to Simon, there is a scene in the show when Wilhelm gets high with some of the other students at a party, and he ends up ditching the party to lay alone in a sport field. As he lays alone in the grass he calls Simon and tells him that everyone is fake. “All of the people are fake, they are metal. But I like you, and that is real.” He is vulnerable to another person for the first time and it was incredible. Simon comes to pick him up and take him back to his dorm, and they end up sharing their emotions and deciding to make things (secretly) official. So now they are a couple.
This series showed what it was like to figure out how you identify, while also taking into consideration what your place in the world is. They kept their relationship a secret because Wil is the prince. Once they hook up for the first time, it is in Wilhelm dorm room. August (Wil’s cousin) ends up seeing Wilhelm and takes a video as a prank, not yet realizing that the person he is with is a man, and that the man is Simon. The video ends up getting posted onto social media by August and that is the climax of the show. Because of this, Simon and Wilhelm struggle to keep up their secret relationship. Wilhelm and the royal family do some damage control and act as though it never happened, and Simon goes into hiding and avoids the public eye as much as he can. The best and most accurately represented moment in the show (in my opinion) was the moment when Simon tells Wilhelm he has to come out and tell the public the truth. He tells Wil that this would help him to feel free and independent. He says that this way, they can be together and not have to hide. Wilhelm ends up not coming out to anybody and makes a statement that it wasn’t him in the video. Because of this, Simon and Will break up and Simon tells Wil that he “doesn’t want to be anyone’s secret.” And that is the end of their relationship in season one. We were all upset to see them break up, but we all have to take into consideration the circumstances to this break up.
If you were a prince, you would be in the public eye 24/7. Everything you do would be watched, recorded, spoken about, and referenced all of the time. Now imagine that you are a prince, and you are queer. How do you go about that? You are a prince, however you are also now a minority that is very looked down upon in your country. How do you handle that? As much as we all hated the break up, and as much as we all still ship it and hope they get back together in (hopefully) season two, this was the most realistic option for them at this time.
4. Neurodivergent Representation
Onto the Neurodivergent spectrum in this series. In this show, there were two main topics covered as well as some good representation of mental health struggles. The first topic being Sarah with her Aspergers and ADHD. This show did a good job at showing how somebody with Aspergers handles everyday interaction and life. In one episode she is asked about why she loves horses so much and why she is so good with them. She responds by saying that she thinks it might be her Aspergers (If you don’t know, Aspergers is a developmental disorder affecting the ability to effectively socialize and communicate). Throughout the show she talks about her struggles in making friends at Hillerska. She says she likes it there, but she doesn’t need any friends. She tells us numerous times that she doesn’t need friends and that she is fine on her own. We see this up until she starts making friends with Felice. They grow a nice bond throughout the show and you can see how much it means to them both. The climax of their friendship is when they go to the Lucia party an Felice gives up her spot as Lucia and gives it to Felice. This act of kindness goes such a long way for their friendship and for Sarah’s ability to interact and socialize with people at the school. She finally has something that connects her to this school and the people in it.
Another example is August and his “ADHD.” August is a drug addict and has trouble with anxiety and the coping of his fathers suicide. The point I would like to focus on for the representation aspect is the moment when August goes to the school counselor to be assessed for ADHD. At this point, he has run out of ADHD medication (that he doesn’t really need) and needs more from his friend/dealer. When he can’t get any more from him, he is using a diagnosis as a last resort to get his drugs. When he goes to the counselor, he is told that the assessment will take s couple of weeks to do, and that it isn’t a 5 minute Buzzfeed quiz process. I liked that this was something that was brought up. People make the false assumption all of the time that ADHD is just something that can be diagnosed in a few minutes. This isn’t a personality quiz, this is a genuine medical assessment. And to have an accurate diagnosis, it takes a while. It was very good to hear some accurate ideas being brought up to teach people how ADHD diagnoses really work.
5. Multilingual Communication
Now onto the final point in this listicle: multilingual communication methods throughout the show. I am not just talking about the fact that you can use English subtitles, or a text to speech language switch. I am referring to the fact that this show uses multiple languages throughout the series. The main language is Swedish. However, we also get snippets of people speaking Spanish and English in the show as well.
This was so nice to have. Seeing people in different life styles being authentic to themselves was such a big refresher. It helps to push the idea that not every person in one area speaks the same language, or speaks a language the same way. At school, everybody speaks Swedish, but at home, Simon and Sarah speak Spanish to their mother, and in her dorm or with friends, Madison speaks English. The idea that people can look how they want, speak how they want, and sleep with who they want, is so amazing to me. We are finally getting to a point in society where people are realizing that it is not only racist/homophobic/sexist to only include one type of person; but it is also statistically inaccurate to do so. You can’t have a whole boarding school without having women there, without having gay/trans/queer people there, or without having POC there as well. Everybody deserves a good form of accurate representation, and I think that this show was an amazing outlet for that.
Outro
Obviously I have very strong opinions about this show and how it was written and presented to us. I think it was exactly the kind of show we needed right now and I think now was the perfect time. This show helps to normalize queer people, racial equality, neuro-equality, and lingual equality as well. It teaches us to be brave and embrace ourselves no matter where we fall on a spectrum or where/who we are in life. The cast and crew did an amazing job at bringing this show to life and I cannot thank them enough for getting this amazing project available worldwide. Thank you to Lisa Ambjorn for creating the show, thank you to Rojda Sekersoz for directing the show. And thank you to Edvin Ryding and Omar Rudberg for bringing Wilhelm and Simon to life. I hope you guys enjoy this listicle as much as I loved writing it. I love you all, and if you haven’t seen Young Royals, go watch it!
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