Let me pick these things apart, and talk about the gay crown prince, Wilhelm, first, and then the political stuff. Both the (fictional) gay love story and the critique of the (fictional) monarchy and non-democratic hierarchy make this series very compelling indeed. I've watched it twice. And I appreciated it even more the second time around.
To get this out of the way, yes there is a Swedish prince and he was at one time heir to the throne. But on January 1, 1980, the Swedish parliament passed, for the first time in European history, the feminist new law establishing absolute primogeniture. What that meant is that Crown Princess Victoria, the daughter of Carl Gustav and his wife Sylvia, became heir to the throne, and not her younger brother Prince Carl Philip (note: not Crown Prince; just prince), who had been heir up to that point, because he's the first-born male heir. Carl Philip was only seven and a half months old at the time, so I doubt he took the move as an insult. Instead he has had forty-three years to get used to his sister prepping to become future Queen of Sweden.
But first, let me get to the gay love story. Two Netflix streaming shows have made waves this year, both thrilling the loving bejeezuz out of the LGBT crowd, if I have assessed the scene correctly. As well they should. Both are superbly well-done: well-acted, well-written, unabashedly unapologetically pro-gay, and sweet as honey on sugar cubes. I'll stick to Young Royals for now, and leave Heartstopper for another time.
Wilhelm, usually called Wille (played by Edvin Ryding), heir to the Swedish throne is enrolled at the country's leading private boarding school. His mother, the queen, and practically everybody who's anybody in Sweden's Who's Who of noble families, went there. It is a hotbed of upper class twits who bully the non-upper class kids in their midst. These include the kid from the other side of the tracks, Simon (played by Omar Rudberg, a Venezuelan-Swede in real life). The casting director obviously worked at getting people to play the roles who fit expectations.
It's a coming out story. Both boys are sixteen. Simon has been out as gay for years, and has a wonderfully (divorced but) supportive mother and father, and he's very close to his sister, Sara (Frida Argento), who has Asperger's, a fact which enables her to stir up a lot of dust, furthering the plot in a school where everybody keeps secrets. Wille, on the other hand, is just discovering he has a strong attraction for this outspoken and self-aware classmate, Simon, and in no time they are making out to beat the band. Then there is August, a melodramatic bad guy (Malte Gårdinger), leader of a pack of bullies who follow him because he is a member of one of Sweden's oldest families, a first-class bully - and you can almost see him tying Wille and Simon to the railroad tracks. He is a member of the royal family and when things go sideways, Wille's mother, the queen, calls on August to "help out," thus making things even rougher for her son than he already has it.
The story revolves around the conflict Wille faces in having a life to share with his lover and having to live up to the hetero expectations put on him as crown prince. At sixteen, he's at the absolute edge of endurance and often collapses under the stress. Simon, loving and kindly as he is otherwise, is also unable to manage expectations that he will play second-fiddle to the kingdom and keep his love life secret. Young Royals is all about stress, frustration and hypocrisy. Great material for a powerful drama. The episodes are written with cliff-hangers, and I dare you to try not to binge.
As I implied, it's the political as much as the gay love story, that I find so compelling about this series. It portrays Sweden as a complex mix of what the world thinks it is - the world's most socially progressive country - on the one hand, and an inherently conservative place where people worry about what the world thinks of you and tradition matters. The kids are only in their mid-teens, but their parties are filled with alcohol and drugs and they are open to the world about their sexual interests and proclivities. Even the queen admits to her son that she is not bothered about his homosexuality; it's just that, as crown prince, he has a duty to be hypocritical and keep his sex life secret.
It's a fictional portrayal of the Swedish royals and Swedish nobility, in the same vein as The Crown is about British royals. And it almost dares reporters to knock on the real Queen Sylvia's door and ply her with questions about similarities to Wille's mother, the fictional queen. And ditto for the real Prince Carl Philip. I can just see somebody sticking a microphone in his face and asking, "I know you're married with children, but are you really hiding your homosexuality?" You may want to tell me I'm making too much of this inclination by fans to confuse actors for the characters they play. But I don't think I am. Look, for example, at what this poor kid, Kit Connor, who plays a bisexual lover in Heartstopper, is going through now that he's dating a woman. A whole bunch of gay folk are showing that while they like the L and the G in LGBT, they're not sincere about their support for their B brothers and sisters. (I'll wager these folk are even less sanguine about the T element, as well.) It's homophobes and entirely too many gay monosexuals joining up to be little shits these days. Further proof, for those who still need telling, that LGBT people are just folks trying to make a living and pay their taxes. Some are saints, some are sinners or in-between.
And, in the end, this is the actual focal point of the political side of this drama: in real life, the character of Simon is played by a young man who is openly bisexual. But Edvin, who plays Wille, refuses to talk about his sexuality. He could say, "I'm still trying to figure that out." That might well be the case. But he could also say, "I'm leaving it ambiguous, because if I come down on one side or another I'll just lose the fans from the side I don't come down on. And this is a business. And it's all about keeping everybody happy." So don't blame the fictional queen. There's much to be said for ambiguity and keeping the world guessing.
But while there's no way we can or should avoid the political aspects of coming out to the world, there's no reason we can't celebrate and fully enjoy an absolutely lovely gay love story. Which is what Young Royals is.
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