The Problem with XO Kitty

Jenny Han has always been one of the best authors of teenage Rom-Com books, now called Tiktok books. Her book to movie and series adaptations have always been popular and have had many fans in awe. She’s had 2 series before XO Kitty: ' To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ and ‘ The Summer I Turned Pretty’.

XO Kitty was very different from its predecessors as it had an adequate and acceptable amount of representation. The new-queer cinema is taking over every form of entertainment, everyone is trying to scramble into being inclusive; including Jenny Hann.

In XO Kitty there are 4 queer characters, including the main character Kitty, herself. There is Kitty, Yuri, Q and Florian (Florian is a side character). Kudos to Jenny Han for trying to be this inclusive but there is still a lack of representation; what I would call ‘inaccurate representation’ or misrepresentation.

Yuri, Kitty, Q, Florian

All the characters at the end of Season 1 are out, open about their sexuality. Q and Florian were out before Kitty joined KISS, the Korean boarding school. We do get to know that Q’s family is homophobic; Florian’s grandparents are also homophobic and he isn’t allowed to come out to them. Both of these things are only mentioned once and overlooked. Failing to represent the depth of homophobia's effect on a queer person and their life and the way homophobia affects the entire queer community is missed. Plus, there is a total of two to three homophobic scenes in the entire series.

During, Season 1 we get to see Kitty and Yuri coming out to their parents. Kitty comes out to her dad, telling him that she’s really confused about her sexuality. Kitty’s dad doesn’t really seem to care and tells her that it’s okay to be confused and that it’s a part of growing up. He was supportive and happy that Kitty was safe and not hurt and Kitty coming out to him was normal. We see the same when Yuri comes out to her mom. Yuri's mom calls back Juliana (another side character and Yuri's girlfriend) to make Yuri happy.

This is what happens when queer characters are written by straight authors, they fail to portray the entire image; the entire image of the fear of coming out and the effects of living with homophobia day in and day out. If straight writers like Jenny Hann want to be inclusive, there is a certain way of doing it. It is not easy for queer people to come out to their families; it is not easy to face homophobia on a daily basis. These factors didn't have to be the entire story but this could have had more depth. I do believe, Jenny Haan tried but she didn't try hard enough to paint a proper picture of the struggles of being queer. Homophobia isn't something that deserves 2 sentences in the series and coming out isn't something you can just blurt out to your parents. Coming out is one of the biggest and hardest milestones for queer people and Jenny Hann made it seem so insignificant and easy, invalidating the many queer kids struggling with coming out.

Jenny Hann, the author

So, if you want to be inclusive and have representation, then represent the community in an appropriate and fitting way. This misrepresentation is harmful to young, queer, questioning teenagers watching XO Kitty probably felt invalidated and overlooked, developing a sense of hate for their families who won't or haven't accepted them like Yuri’s or Kitty’s family.

The second problem is the stereotypical way in which Q and Florian are portrayed as the 'gay best friend'. Q doesn't really have a story in some of the episodes except for being Kitty’s gay best friend. The gay best friend trope ‘upholds the idea that every sexuality that isn’t heterosexual is only allowed to exist as long as it fits into the straight world’. The gay best friend trope puts gay men into a box and only lets them exist through the light of another heterosexual character (even though Kitty is questioning her sexuality). The gay best friend trope creates only a surface-level character with no real issues of his own. To conclude we really need to move on from the gay best friend trope, it’s high time.

Moreover, representation needs to grow and cover sexuality and gender and be inclusive of non-binary, and transgender people. This is something that the media as a whole needs to work towards.

Putting it into perspective:

I do believe that Jenny Hann has really tried to be inclusive and represent the queer community. She has accidentally misinterpreted the queer community by being ignorant of their struggles.

XO Kitty is an upgrade from ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ and 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' but there is still a lot of space for growth, better representation and more inclusivity.

Kudos to Jenny Hann for making a somewhat inclusive Rom-Com as her audience is young teenagers; when she could have gotten a lot of backlash from conservative parents.