Seeing Myself in “The Society”
By: Alan Corley
Tags: Television, Queer, Netflix, Deaf, Personal Essay

Picture it: you have decided to start watching a new show, you get into the swing of things, start feeling the vibe they’re giving, then a character appears and there’s a sudden flash as you realise that in this character you see yourself. This can be for any number of reasons but at its core is the sensation of being seen and validated. This is what happened to me when the character of Sam Eliot was introduced in Netflix’s The Society. Now picture this: you’re excited for the second season, you’re following any announcement that comes along, then it is suddenly cancelled two weeks before the second season is due to start filming. This is also what happened to me.

Played by Sean Berdy, Sam is one of the teenagers of West Ham who suddenly find themselves trapped in a version of their town surrounded by miles of deep forest, and all other inhabitants gone. A riff on The Lord of the Flies, the show surprised this viewer (expecting a somewhat trashy but enjoyable teen drama) with just how well put together it was, with well-written characters and an engaging mystery at its core.

Sam Eliot (Sean Berdy)

One could consider Sam to be a main character but the show is such an ensemble piece that it is impossible really to point at a particular character and say that they are part of the core group. But what struck from the moment Sam appeared, signing to his parents and brother, was that he was deaf. This was a pleasant surprise as I hadn’t expected it — but then later we learn that Sam is also gay. As a deaf gay man, I was elated.

I had never seen a character like that in any show or movie before. Gay characters and disabled characters are still rarities in media, rarer still are those who intersect the two. Actor-writer Ryan O’Connell’s Netflix’s series Special centres on a gay man with Cerebral Palsy (well worth a watch by the way) — but with Sam, I saw me. Having been born with moderate to severe hearing loss and requiring the continuous use of hearing aids in my everyday life I know all too well how odd an experience it can be. When I first meet people they often don’t notice my hearing aids and are profoundly confused when I say I have to change my batteries and proceed to remove some from behind my ears. Sometimes people forget and make a light-hearted joke about deafness — there is never any malice in these comments but it’s fun to see them squirm when I tilt my head and say “What? Say that again.” It’s the little things.

I am perfectly at ease with my disability now, but up until the age of six or seven I refused to wear my hearing aids, calling them ugly and embarrassing. It was better to struggle to hear what was happening in the world around me than to use them. And though I have come to terms with who I am there was a period of several years, from the time I realised I didn’t like girls, that I hated that part of me. This would pass, the right girl would come along and I would have a family — that is what I told myself until one day I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. That wasn’t me. There weren’t any gay characters for me to look to for comfort (and this was only a few years ago). And even when there was a queer character, it seemed as if their queerness defined and confined them. It was representation sure, but more was needed. Coming to terms with being deaf was easier as my older brother is also deaf so I had this idea that it wasn’t just me. For there to be a character who embodied both these elements of myself that at various points in my life I hated, even now it means a lot to me. It meant a lot to see a major studio romcom focusing on a gay teen (Love, Simon, which also deals with the pain of being outed, which is something I have some experience with) and you can sure that somewhere there is a young teen who is also dealing with these things who is also looking to Sam and thinking: “That’s me. Maybe this isn’t so bad.”

Representation matters. I was talking to a friend about this subject recently and she told me of when it was revealed that CeCe Jones of Shake it Up (played by Bella Thorne) was dyslexic, it was a pivotal moment of her youth. Being dyslexic herself, she had never seen a character to be so open about their disorder — she felt seen. And therein lies the core of what it means to be represented in media; it makes you feel seen, like this thing you have been dealing with is not just exclusive to you, it validates you, even pushes you on.

Sam is a deaf gay character whose story isn’t defined by either of those two facts. He isn’t treated any different any of his peers, be that in the context of the show or on the written page. He is given just as much weight and definement as anyone else — he happened to be a gay deaf teen but what was more important was the strange situation is which he was wrapped up and how he interacted with his peers, all of whom either know sign language or don’t have difficulty communicating with him. It is a glimpse into an ideal situation (bar the whole being cut off from the rest of the world and descending into chaos thing) where the lines of communication are not defined by disability. His disability is not a hindrance. This is a level of accessibility that we should be striving to achieve, yet we remain stubbornly opposed to this. (In the interest of transparency I don’t know sign language but I am trying to expand my knowledge of it whenever I can.)

Grizz Visser (Jack Mulhern)

Nor is he ever defined by his sexuality; his romance with Grizz Visser (played by Jack Mulhern) is just part of the show’s DNA, a necessary part rather than a pairing shoehorned into the main plot. In a time of great fear and uncertainty they find comfort in each other, yet their relationship is fraught with complications. It is the maturity and deft touch that the writers handle this aspect of the series with that makes it such a breath of fresh air. It isn’t contrived nor does it ever feel hollow. It feels real, tender, even messy — as are any number of straight relationships in any other number of shows. This is also down to Berdy and Mulhern’s acting skills, which go a long way to sell us on the Sam/Grizz pairing.

Sam helped me. As much as I am comfortable within myself it can be hard, internally and externally. Upon finding out I was deaf, a guy stopped talking to me. There is a push in the LGBTQ+ community to be physically perfect but guess what? My perfect is different to your perfect and seeing a character that fully embraced the marginal members of this community really struck a chord with me. It normalised us as part of the community. Part of me has always felt odd trying to cope with these two facets of who I am and this isn’t something that can be truly explained. Either way, I am always hiding something. Whether that be my sexuality or my disability, in certain settings there is something in me that ends up pushed down. But why should that be so? I needed to feel seen. I and every queer/disabled/POC deserves to feel seen. Seeing yourself represented in media is a privilege largely reserved for a heteronormative audience which is why this one single character has changed my life.

Beyond all this, I genuinely think that The Society is one of Netflix’s best original series. Though perhaps not as splashy or immediately Tweetable as some of their other shows such as Stranger Things or Orange is the New Black, with a tension-strung atmosphere, great writing and performances and a mystery at its core that simply begs to be solved, it is more than worth another season (even just one more to wrap up the storyline). The television medium is a naturally fickle one, with shows coming and going without much fanfare or attention, some never even making it to air. Cancellations for any number of reasons is just part and parcel in this environment, but that doesn’t make a cancellation of a genuinely good show any less frustrating. Though I understand that the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the entertainment industry into disarray, this decision has me baffled. Why Netflix could not merely postpone filming by a few months confuses me. The cast were ready to film, the production crew was ready, the audience was ready to return to West Ham. We can all wait a little longer, as long as we get to see our favourite characters off and solve the mystery.

Photo by Fran Jacquier on Unsplash

It must be said that I teared up when I heard that this show had been cancelled, though I still hold out hope that it be revived due to demand or picked up any another network. This was due to pure frustration that we might not find out the truth behind the events of the show (my money is on a time-warp/parallel dimension), sympathy for the creatives, but most of all that Sam and Grizz wouldn’t see each other again as they promised in the season finale. That I wouldn’t get to see myself in Sam anymore. But as we’ve seen, shows can be cancelled and revived elsewhere. I pray this is the case for The Society.