Web Series Wednesday – Gay Mean Girls

By: Spring Marie Cullen

WHAT? Gay Mean Girls

BY: Heyishi Zhang

WHY SHOULD I WATCH?

Gay Mean Girls, a new web series based on a successful short film of the same name, follows unpopular teen Lucy Ching (Vicky Li) as she navigates the world of relationships in the LGBT community and strives to find her own identity. A true coming of age story, in eight episodes Lucy struggles with everything from self acceptance to queer friendships, all while trying to lend her hand to the perfect inclusive prom experience.

The series is very modern, in a great way. You don’t see a lot of shows bringing up topics like gaslighting and heteronormativity from the first episode and I was pleasantly surprised to see it discussed in such a raw and natural way, that’s still entertaining. It’s informative without being preachy and brings up issues seamlessly within the story. The show also boasts a handful of absolutely adorable characters who you can’t help but root for, making it impossible to pick a favorite..

And then there’s Clara (Jensen Porter). Porter plays the quintessential mean girl, the president of the prom committee who’s all kinds of problematic. You love to hate her and Porter has this Blair Waldorf-esque (“Gossip Girl”) charm she brings to Clara that makes her annoyingly likable. Still, she never says anything that really crosses a serious line into triggering territory for shock value, which some shows have a bad tendency to do.

Zhang created this series in an effort to validate young queer people of color struggling with acceptance, hoping to help them gain perspective on something she didn’t always understand herself. The contributing writers to the series are also all queer women of color who can relate to the subject matter heavily. I don’t want to give much away in my review, but the series did an amazing job of elaborating on the things that made their short film so successful. It’s the perfect web series to watch during Pride month and a show that I’m sure will hit home for a lot of viewers.

The series is set to premiere on June 19th at Tiff Next Wave and episodes will be available on YouTube shortly after.

WHERE CAN I WATCH? Episodes will be made available on June 21st on their YouTube channel.

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