“But you can’t fight homophobia with homophobia!” Evan Marquez says. “But I helped you, didn’t I?” his friend replies.
“English Teacher” is a comedy/drama TV show (with a romance subplot) that attempts to capture the complexity of sexual orientation and gender identity from the perspective of a gay high school teacher, Evan Marquez, in the backdrop of Texas.
The show is strikingly and refreshingly contemporary (it just started airing this early September), and it’s wickedly funny, at times bawdy too (expect penis jokes). I guarantee you’ll have a smile on your face from the ‘bits’. If not, the playful back-and-forth of the characters will win you over. Its most problematic character, Coach Markie (the friend mentioned above in the first quote), is also the show’s most wholesome and, unexpectedly, best character.
At the same time, the show surprises you with sudden, ephemeral bursts of human drama, while always ending on a warm note. In one scene Evan is at his coworker Gwen’s house, and they’re talking about how her husband is digging a pool in the backyard by himself. It’s lighthearted—until Gwen says it’s good he’s distracting himself because he’s had a hard time lately looking for a job. Evan pauses, considering this information. Then the scene cuts to black. It’s a sudden tone shift, but it doesn’t feel out of place. It suggests a foreshadowing of a longer plot thread in a later episode. The drama that’s sprinkled throughout the show makes the characters feel more human, more complex, and more interesting.
Evan Marquez is played by Brian Jordan Alvarez who is an exceptionally confident and talented lead actor, writer, and producer for the “English Teacher”. Any show, or any piece of media, that explores topics of homosexuality and bigotry, especially as it directly relates to the current political climate—risks being insensitive or arrogant. A natural reaction to this is to overcompensate with timidity and not say enough, to let authenticity and honesty take a backseat to refrain from offending anyone. But Alvarez does the opposite. “English Teacher” is a show about contradictions and absurdities. At the same time, it wants its audience to know how approachable its sensitive topics are.
On a technical level, the cinematography is easy to follow. Like the show, the camera’s focus is primarily on the characters; the backgrounds are blurred away. The dialogue is colloquial and breezy. It’s fast-paced, giving the same sense of anxiety that our main character Evan experiences in his everyday life, with cut to black scene transitions acting as deep breaths in between.
“English Teacher” is an entertaining reminder that before gender identity and sexuality is political, it’s first and foremost human. Only five episodes have aired at the time of this review, but so far it’s punchy, it’s consistent, and it’s brilliant.