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Nov 5, 2019

Big Mouth Season 3: Hormone Monsters Become Gay Positive

I've seen Season 3 of Big Mouth, and I'm happy to report that it's become much more LGBTQ-inclusive. And inclusive of everybody else. Among the supporting cast members are a kid in a wheelchair and a kid with autism.

Big Mouth is about a group of middle schoolers negotiating puberty, guided/ egged on by their hormone monsters: Maurice for most of the boys and Connie for most of the girls, although Nick gets Connie as well, leading him to question whether he is too feminine.

I thought that the hormone monsters were just personifications of the pubescents' interior state, but evidently they have an external reality.  There's a whole Human Management bureaucracy, with procedural manuals, meetings, and office parties.

While the monsters push for wild sexual excess, the kids are mostly worried about holding hands and "does he like me or like like me?"  Not that there isn't raunch:

When Jessi tries to get her first orgasm, we learn an awful lot about the vagina. Way more than I wanted to know.

The third season moves away from "I'm going through changes" to explore some of the issues of contemporary teenagers:  Attention-Deficit Disorder, cell phone addiction, nude selfies, sexual harassment,  "hot or not" lists.  The "Queer Eye" Fab Five show up to give Coach Steve a makeover.

There are three characters of gay interest:


1. Andrew Glouberman, whose extra-big penis causes him anxiety and consternation (yes, we see it).







2. Matthew, the swishy gay kid, has been previously consigned to making snarky comments.  Now he gets a boyfriend.

"You're going to put it in him!"  Maurice exclaims.  But for middle schoolers, just holding hands is enough.


3. Jay, who doesn't seem to have a hormone monster even though he masturbates a thousand times a day, kissed Matthew at the end of Season 2. This season he comes out as bisexual, which upsets his friends; they don't mind bisexual girls, but the thought of a guy finding them attractive is creepy.

But Jay doesn't actually date anyone other than pillows and couch cushions; most of his plots involve dealing with his negligent parents and abusive older brothers.

Maybe in Season 4.

See also: Big Mouth: The Hormone Monster Strikes Again



2 comments:

  1. There was a controversy about the difference between bisexual and pansexual, but I always assumed the difference was trans and nonbinary partners, which would make me bi. *signs "friends, not lovers" in that adorably comic book geek way*

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gay/heterosexual: interested in one sex only. Bisexual: interested in two sexes. Pansexual: Disagrees with the gender binary.

    ReplyDelete

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