Sex Education from Netflix: “Complex female characters”

Amateur analysis of the Netflix series using knowledge learnt in literature in English class

Anthony Li

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Sex Education by Netflix is definitely a great watch. It has got a lot of recommendations and the streaming number is high. The series got a new season confirmed to make shortly after a season was out too.

Image from IBC time.

To be honest, I just finish watching the first season, but I have watched quite a few spoilers for the second season. Then, I started to remind myself of those things I learnt from my Introduction to Literature in English class during my time in the community college. I started to feel like this whole series is a piece of literature and I hope I can analyse it.

I must have gone crazy, but here is what I feel anyway. You can have different feel and analyses of the whole story.

Here comes what I think based on what I know.

Image from Literary Hub.

One of the main plots of the story is about how Maeve and Otis run their sex clinic at school. As Maeve told Jackson at Aimee’s party that she likes “complex female characters” (S1E2), I believe that I should start by main female characters because they should be complex.

“She who intoxicates”

On Maeve Wiley

Image from Sex Education Wiki.

Please, do I look like I have a Cinderella complex? — Maeve. (S1E7)

By searching “Maeve name origin” on Google, I found that this first name is of Irish origin and it means “intoxicating” or “she who intoxicates”. Therefore, somehow people around her would get very excited or lose control of their normal behaviours. That means, the people would act differently when Maeve is around.

You can see how people react differently with and without Maeve during the series. For example, Aimee is braver when she is with Maeve while normally…

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Anthony Li

男班長 at KisaBBB’s Cantonese 101 (廣東話BB班) on YouTube (discontinued) | Proofreader in Central | Twitter/Instagram: merryanthony