Yesterday I posted a review of Sex Education, a series I recently watched and quite enjoyed. I wrote my post, published it, and reveled in its neat composition, when I remembered that there was one thing I failed to mention, though at the time of watching the show I felt like it was the most important aspect. At first I was gonna go back to edit it, but then I realized: what I want to talk about has little to do with the TV-series itself, and much more to do with its - fairly recent - historical context. (If you are not familiar with the show, or haven't read my post, I think it may be helpful to glance at it first.)
The Outbreak of a Common STD in an English School
In the first episode of the second season, the students returning to school are faced with a bit of chaos. A good number of their peers, but also numerous faculty members, are panicking about something: many of them wear masks on their faces (though many others don't), and running around frightened of a contagious disease. The disease turns out to be the widely known and well documented chlamydia: a sexually transmitted disease of bacterial origin. If untreated, it may cause such severe results as infertility or ectopic pregnancy, but that would mean putting up for months with a burning sensation in the urinary tract, without doing anything about it. Also, the infection can be treated with a simple regime of antibiotics, so while it could be potentially disastrous, practically it is relatively benign.
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These characteristics make chlamydia ideal for the story line of the series: It is something that we could all see happening to overly dramatic and less informed teenagers. Also, this creates an ideal setting to bring in the rational mind (in form of the mother of one of the students), who names the phenomenon by its name: mass hysteria, brought about by misinformation, shame, and fear. Oh, and by the way, masks don't do much to protect you!
Doesn't This Ring Any Bells? At All?
Okay, I hope my description managed to bring to mind certain similarities of a current bug that keeps going around these days. At least, that was my impression seeing the masks, the hysteric reactions, and the final rational explanation of this chlamydia outbreak in the first episode of the second season of Sex Education. That's when it hit me: This series isn't even that old! In fact, it just came out these last few years! So I had to make sure I was right:
The episode in question (together with the rest of the second season) was released on Netflix January 17th, 2020. At that time Covid-19 was merely a boogie-bug in China, not unlike the bird flu or the zika virus had once been: newsworthy for sure, but by no means front page material. Also, let's keep in mind that before it could be released the show had to be produced, not to mention written. And THAT had to happen sometime in 2019, in other words, long before the first case of Covid appeared.
So What Does This Tell Us? Where's the Explanation?
I guess the immediate knee-jerk reaction is to point out that Covid had been planed for years, and the writers of this show were all in on it! As much as I appreciate a good conspiracy theory, ... erm ... this just ain't one, sorry. On one hand it's too blatant, on the other hand, not in-depth enough. Plus, what would be the point of those pulling the Covid strings to include the writers of a British TV-show? It's not like it's something mainstream American with millions of viewers. (Though in the end Sex Education did turn out to be quite popular, with over 40 million viewers of the first season.)
The other alternative, at the risk of sounding boring, is still more appealing to me: a simple case of coincidence. This means none of the writers or directors knew about Covid, nor was it their intention to draw parallels to it. All they wanted to do, was to illustrate the form of mass hysteria that an outbreak of an otherwise benign disease could cause. It was an irony of fate that only weeks after airing the episode the entire world would find itself in precisely that kind of medical mass hysteria. The only difference being, that while in the show a reasonable approach prevailed by the end of the episode, the outbreak out in the real world... kept the hysteria going indefinitely!
And THAT Is The Scary Part!
Normally it's the other way round: Movies and TV present us a scenario blown into unrealistic proportions, where the stupidity of individuals as well as governments and other organizations bring the world to the brink of chaos, only to be realigned by the equally unrealistic heroism of one or a few exceptional individuals. Okay, that realignment still needs to happen in our world, but I should not be kidding myself: This is not a TV show!!! Or is it? Well, at least in the case of Sex Education, I wish it was! At least it seems more reasonable than what we are seeing in our actual reality over these last two seasons.