From Sex Education to Bombay Begums- a common story of resistance

Sex Education and Bombay Begums are two trending series on Netflix. Where Sex Education is set in a small town, Bombay Begum is set in the heart of Mumbai. Where the first one is a teen romantic comedy, the second one is a social drama.

They are not just two web series hailing from completely different parts of the world aka “the East and the West”, they have separate audience groups targeted. Following these circumstances, one might wonder, what can these two series possibly have in common?

Well, in a bird's eye view, it might appear that there's nothing common between them. But a closer look into the story telling reveals how the struggle of women has seamed the East and the West in the same thread.

Both of the series present audience with of women from diverse socio-economic context dealing with complicated situations on their own where all of them have “sexual harassment” as common experience. However, not limiting women into what happened to her, not confining them within the stories of harassments rather celebrating their emotions and achievements is indeed one of the most commendable part in these series.

Let’s get into the details starting with Sex Education. This romantic comedy is directed by Ben Taylor. It deals with a teens going through puberty and finding it difficult dealing with the hormone and adrenaline rush.

Justifying the genre, the series revolves around the love affair of a teenage couple Otis Milburn, son of a notable therapist of the town and Maeve Wiley, an almost homeless girl without any guardian having her back. They are played by Asa Butterfield and Emma Mackey, but these characters are not everything in this series.

The supporting characters are so well written that they provide new perspectives and layers to the series rather than merely supporting the central characters.

For example, teenagers would immediately relate to the character Aime Gibbs played by Aime Lou Wood who is a confused teenager coming of a privileged family in the series, clueless of what she wants in life.

There is Eric Effionga (played by Ncuti Gatwa), a homosexual teen and Ola Nyman a bisexual youngster from middle or lower middle-class families struggling with their gender identities in this world.

Characters from a diverse array come together helping Aime Gibbs who has developed a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after getting molested in a public bus. They reveal that irrespective of their social or economic position in the society, all of them have faced sexual harassment at least once in their life.

On the other hand, in Bombay Begum, the very name reflects that the series is about a group of women. Directed by Alankrita Srivastava, unlike most sub-continental series love affair is not in the centre of this series. It intends to deal with women’s struggle to get stablished in an exceedingly patriarchal world.

It puts already established Rani, the CEO of a leading bank played by Puja Bhatt in contrast to an aspiring professional Ayesha coming from a small town played by Plabita Bhorthakur. It has ambitious character like Fatima who juggles between what she wants and what is expected from her and Lily a chawl resident and a former cabaret dancer who wants people to respect her. The characters are played by Shahana Goswami and Amruta Subhash.

In the play of power, to achieve success, they outcast each other, they judge and they hold grudges. But all of them find a way to put their differences aside and fight together when Ayesha gets molested by a senior official and files a case against him.

Again, the audience come to a similar kind of revelation that experiencing sexual harassment is nothing new.

In both series, the victims undergo all sorts of dilemma in accepting what has happened. They find it difficult to summon up the courage to stand against it. When they do, women around them come forward lending a hand to deal with the challenge. This gesture stabilises the concept of sisterhood that is almost an obsolete concept in mainstream media.

For years women have been portrayed either as an epitome of goodness or the master of evil in series, movies, plays and telefilms. They are either overly glorified by enduring all injustice happening to them or thrown into the pitfall of being a witch, whereas as a human being it is absolutely alright to have grey lines in one’s character.

The multi-layered female characters in these two series have projected female characters with grey lines. They are coy, they are complicated, they are clueless, they are aggressive, rude and selfish and you judge them until you know their side of the story.

In both cases you will get mad at the characters but won’t be able to convict them as they are doing the best from their positions. In these two series, women fall apart, they cry, they lose hope, they make mistakes of their lives as a human being is supposed to do.

But they also fight back.

They refuse to be identified by what happened to them, they refuse to be recognised by the stories of abuse and harassment. They fight back not to prove the world anything but they fight back as a way of life and as a continuous process they keep finding their way forward.

Aime in Sex Education keeps searching what she should do in life, Ola finds solace in a friend. Ayesha in Bombay Begum still hangs out with colleagues and friends, finds her appropriate space in the office, Rani reaches where she wanted to reach.

They all celebrate their life. That is the resistance story that makes the two series similar and exceptional from others.