Hulu’s ‘PEN15’ subverts teen-angst narrative
Everybody was awkward in middle school, but not everybody was awkward.
In Hulu’s new millennial-feminist comedy “PEN15,” series creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle are “31 going on 13,” playing younger versions of themselves alongside teenage actors. With 10 half-hour episodes available to stream on Feb. 8, the show borders on taboo-breaking in its depiction of adolescent sexuality, and it touches on all the hot buttons of today’s identity politics.
So why did this 46-something cisstraight-white critic dude not only love it but relate to it more than anything he’s seen on the screen maybe ever?
Maybe because I was that awkward, too.
“PEN15” (the visually punny title references a middle-school prank) joins a growing list of boundary-pushing, socially conscious dramedies that explore the lives in teenagers in candid, daring ways. Netflix has the terrific “Atypical” and the much-talked-about British series “Sex Education,” which is equally entertaining if not quite as subversive as it aims to be.
Like those shows, “PEN15” is incredibly smart about the way it explores the social dynamics shaping (and being shaped by) young adults — in this case, in the early 2000s. Social media is beginning to be a thing, including private chatrooms on America Online, the precursor to sexting. Storylines include an awakening to the subtle snubs of racism, drawn from the real-life Erskine’s experience growing up half Japanese, and a snapshot in the evolution of hookup culture with a mortifying re-enactment of Konkle’s first kiss.
No, Konkle — not only a star but a producer of series — did not actually kiss her young scene partner.The overarching gimmick of hurling two adult actors into a world of actual young people requires some creative visualizations to keep proper boundaries on set, but it also makes room for (not quite explicit) depictions of, say, 13-year-old Maya furiously masturbating in her bedroom, only to be confronted by the floating, frowning ghost of her grandfather.
Despite being very much a period piece (in more ways than one), “PEN15” is also of the moment in terms of its cultural politics. The current burst of feminine creativity and assertiveness in the public sphere, from politics to entertainment, has a long way to go before it achieves something like parity, but the emergence of strong voices like this show’s creators is a high-water mark in
‘PEN15’
Available for streaming on Hulu. my lifetime, even if it’s too early to declare a sea change.
But what really sets “PEN15” apart from similar “great content” is its radical, fearless sincerity. All of those hotbutton issues are there, but there are no sermons on bullying or micro-aggressions, just total immersion into the cringe-worthy lives of two 13-year-old girls who are bright and vivacious but, shall we say, a bit behind the curve in social development.
The “socially awkward” teen is another trope that applies to “Sex Education” and “Atypical” — add the movies “Lady Bird” and “Eighth Grade” for some gender balance — but compared with any of those titles, “PEN15” is just so much more brutal to its main characters, from Maya’s humiliation over being name “Ugis” (ugliest girl in school) to the way both girls, victims of bullying, become bullies themselves.
There’s an honesty about this particular view from the bottom of the adolescent hierarchy that just isn’t matched in similar narratives. Sacrificing vanity, Erskine and Konkle achieve that rarest of qualities, realness.
That’s not to say this is all “real.” Ironically, the emotional heart of the show — the sister-tight friendship of the two leads — is entirely made up, as Erskine and Konkle didn’t meet until college. I’m sure there are plenty of exaggerations and embellishments to pump up the comedy and the emotional stakes. It’s still art. But it’s less calculated, less structured and more willing to break with established narrative patterns.
Compare it with the much-praised “Sex Education,” which, for all of its diversity (and despite having a female showrunner), is still an “outsider white male” coming-of-age story at heart, with a familiar dominant-mother dynamic.
“PEN15” is something different. Much like its characters, it’s a outsider, a crazy, beautiful, silly outsider crashing the cool kids’ party. It’s the ultimate revenge of the nerds.