This year commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Pride parade. Since most cities in the world had to cancel parades and public events related to this month, we can always use this time to binge TV shows portraying queer stories. Here are some of the best ones on Netflix.
Tales of the City
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City is a miniseries that premiered in 2019 on Netflix. It is based on the Tales of the City novel series by Armistead Maupin and continues the miniseries that first aired in 1993.
Laura Linney, Paul Gross, Olympia Dukakis, and Barbara Garrick reprised their roles from the previous miniseries and films that focused on several gay characters. The show tells the story of one living complex in San Francisco through the years. The owner of Barbary Lane is Anna Madrigal, a 90-year-old transgender woman. The 2019 adaptation follows Linney’s Mary Ann comeback to the city and her adopted daughter Shawna, played by Ellen Page.
I am Not Okay With This
I Am Not Okay with This is a coming-of-age series, based on the comic book of the same name by Charles Forsman. It was released on Netflix on February 26, 2020.
The show centers Sydney Novak (Sophia Lillis), a 17-year old living with her mother and younger brother a year after the death of her father. As she realizes she has special superpowers, she also starts developing emotions for her best friend. Her queerness reflects her uniqueness and makes this show relevant to current times.
The show also stars Wyatt Oleff as Stan Barber, Sydney’s neighbor and friend, Sofia Bryant as Dina, Sydney’s best friend on whom she has a crush, and Kathleen Rose Perkins as Maggie Novak, Sydney’s widowed mother.
Never Have I Ever
Never Have I Ever is another coming of age series on our list. Starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, the show is about an Indian American high school student dealing with the death of her father. The series has been described as a “watershed moment for South Asian representation in Hollywood” and has been praised for breaking Asian stereotypes.
With exceptional supporting characters, such as her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), her cousin, Kamala (Richa Moorjani), her best friend, Eleanor (Ramona Young), her high school crush, Paxton (Darren Barnet), and her nemesis, Ben (Jaren Lewison), it’s Fabiola’s (Lee Rodriguez) plot and coming out story that brought this show to our list. Although she’s not the main character, Fabiola’s coming out storyline is one that lifted the show.
Feel Good
Feel Good is a British show created by Mae Martin and Joe Hampson. The six-part series premiered its first episode on Channel 4 and Netflix handled international distribution and released it internationally on 19 March 2020. On Rotten Tomatoes, the show has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 22 critics.
The show is centered around “stand-up comic Mae Martin who navigates a passionate, messy new relationship with her girlfriend, George, while dealing with the challenges of sobriety,” according to Netflix’s official logline.
Queer Eye
With a recent season 5 premiere, the fab five—Antoni Porowski, food and wine expert; Tan France, fashion expert; Karamo Brown, culture expert; Bobby Berk, design expert; and Jonathan Van Ness, grooming expert—star in the reboot of the Bravo series of the same name. While the original show was released in times where the queer community was only starting to get its rights and the recognition it deserves, the new version of the show comes in a new era of acceptance and is able to reach a larger audience.
In the show, each episode sees one hero receiving a life-changing makeover from the fab five. The fifth season was shot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the show has already been renewed for a sixth season, set to be filmed in Austin, Texas.
