Streaming Awkward Teenage Boyhood in Netflix's Sex Education

This paper analyses the (re)mediation of teenage boyhood in Netflix's British teen comedy-drama, Sex Education (Netflix 2019-2023), focusing on the series' central protagonist Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) and his characteristic awkwardness. Popular discourse constructs his awkwardness as central to the series' effective departure from the traditional gender norms that organise the teen drama series. However, while the promise of an alternative televisual boyhood is both refreshing and appealing, the search for a better category of 'being boy' continues to assign a set of gendered traits or behaviours to a distinctively sexed body. Drawing on the concept of awkward affective labour, the paper rearticulates Otis's awkwardness as a desirable trait subsumed in narratives of neoliberalism, where overcoming awkwardness and embracing the discomforts of adolescent boyhood are framed as valuable. The logic of Otis' enterprising coming-of-age narrative replicates the industrial logics of Netflix, where screening comfort and feminist narratives build audience preferences and are conducive to binge-watching.