Young Royals and the Joys of Teen Television

BY KATE SHERMAN

THIS IS MY THIRD (and final) article for Intercut , and each has been, to some degree, focused on the lives and portrayals of young queer people on television. Simply, I suppose, I am a young queer person, and as such am generally drawn to stories about people like me. These characters take many forms, though: a group of misfit British high schoolers in Sex Education, the chaotic first year students in The Sex Lives of College Girls , and my most recent fascination –Sweden’s young prince and his boarding school beloved in Young Royals (with an honorable mention for the final paper I wrote about Derry Girls last year). Despite their differences, geographical and otherwise, many of these sto - ries trace similar patterns: growing up, coming out, coming into yourself. Thematically, I find more overlap in these shows than I do difference, and perhaps this is why I’ve sort-of accidentally put myself into a box, viewing-wise. I like the box, though, and am content to stay here for the time being, regardless of my own age and resistant crawl toward adulthood.

Really, I think this is exactly why I am so drawn to these shows: my hesitance to embrace “adulthood” in all of its complexities manifests itself in many ways, one of which is my desire to melt into stories about teens. Somehow, I am graduating in a mere two months, and that terrifying ever-after takes up most of my brain space as it is. So I choose not to spend all my TV time watching (quote unquote) prestige, shows like Succession or Severance. I also tend to abstain from shows that cut a bit too close to home: I don’t want to watch Girls, for example – for many reasons – but partly because I don’t want to be faced with my own lack of purpose when it’s already all I can think about. Instead, I pivot entirely, deciding to focus on the trials and tribulations of Young Royals, a show that both fulfills my desire for distraction and yet remains relevant enough to be engaging.

This is what I’m calling my ‘Teens in Love’ renaissance. Some of the shows I’ve already listed fall into this category, as well as a couple of others; I’ve recently started watching Skam, and I’ve seen Heartstopper more than once. But I want to focus on Young Royals , the 2021 Swedish Netflix drama that consumed much of my winter break. Young Royals stars Edvin Ryding and Omar Rudberg as Wilhelm and Simon, respectively, and follows Wille’s journey as the newfound crown prince of Sweden. He juggles royal duties with typical boarding school drama, focusing especially on his journey toward understanding his sexuality. Enter Simon, the socialist day student whose family doesn’t fit the wealthy, aristocratic mold of the rest of Hillerska School. Of course, the two fall for each other, and many of the usual tropes ensue: Simon must be kept a secret because Wille doesn’t want to come out, for one. Everything is turned up a notch under the royal spotlight, and familiar as many of these plot points feel, they remain dynamic and engaging; the highs feel high, the lows low.

I came to YR first through the internet and then through my friends. I’d heard my housemates gushing over Ryding and Rudberg – Swedish actors I had never heard of – and when I finally had time to start a new show I convinced my sister to join me. Soon we were peppering our sentences with random Swedish words we’d picked up, waiting all day until we could sink back into the couch and our Swedish drama. We are 22 and 27, and yet found ourselves obsessed with the lives of these high schoolers. My sister (the 27-yearold, to be clear) went on to recommend Young Royals to many of her friends, all her age and older. The show reliably hooked them all.

Young Royals strikes a delicate balance between realism and melodrama, I think, because much of the show deals with heavy, relevant topics. There are themes of drug abuse, manipulation, death, and mental illness threaded through the show’s two seasons, lending a dark edge to the surface-level silliness of a prince and his boarding school antics. As a show that centers a queer couple, YR takes this darkness fairly seriously; many of Wille’s struggles surround his fear of being accepted. At once, I find the show completely unrelatable and also familiar – both so far from my actual life that it’s almost voyeuristic to watch and yet still relevant to my own existence in the world. YR is good television: it’s dramatic, entertaining, sometimes ridiculous, and yet important nonetheless. Queer people deserve media about all kinds of queer people, royal or otherwise, young or old. There are certainly critiques to be made, and I won’t pretend the show is perfect. A common criticism of queer TV and movies surrounds its focus on coming out, and this show doesn’t escape that. Much of Wille’s storyline revolves around his difficulty coming to terms with and sharing his sexuality, rather than portraying him as already comfortable with it. Simon, for his part, is the opposite, entirely at peace with his sexuality and open with everyone about it. Some scenes certainly lean cheesy, but as soapy as YR can be it somehow still feels truthful. The characters are often confusing and complicated, their teenage desires interfering with their wonky moral compasses. They’re teens, after all, and royal or not, they’re messy. Young Royals is at times silly and at others serious, reliant on its exaggerated portrayal of life’s ups and downs. I like that YR balances tragedy with lightness, because it reminds me of my own resistance to reality. Again, I am thinking of my own viewing patterns and the box I’ve settled into. I find value in absorbing these stories, silly as they may seem to some. I enjoy rooting for Wille and Simon’s happiness, or for the growth of the characters in Sex Ed or Derry Girls . I don’t feel the need to immerse myself in prestige, because I think there’s worth in so many kinds of stories. I’ll have plenty of time to find myself in the adults of television; for now, I can pretend I liked high school more than I did, living life vicariously through a 16-year-old Swedish crown prince until I turn off the TV and am returned to my imminent adulthood.