Animation
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
After losing his family to a demon attack, Tanjiro Kamado joins the Demon Slayer Corps to seek his revenge.
Josie Johnson is going through a lot at the moment.
Her mental health seems to plummet by the day. Her sister, Billie, (who hates her) is a magnet for toxic relationships. Her single mother Deb (who also hates her) takes gold-digging to a whole new level. And Josie is beginning to wonder if she might not be entirely straight.
When it comes to this family, “dysfunctional” is putting it mildly. Nevertheless, each of these women are determined to get what they want. Josie is going to become an artist and work up the courage to date another woman. Deb is going to marry her rich boyfriend and lock down a life of luxury. And Billie…well, Billie doesn’t have many goals beyond sleeping through as much of England as she can.
Yes, the Johnsons have a lot going on. But at the end of the day, family is family, and they’ve got each other’s backs — except for the many times when they don’t at all.
If you read the above summary and still wonder if Such Brave Girls comes with content issues, let’s put that uncertainty to bed: Yes, it does.
“Dark comedy” may be too gentle of a term for this British sitcom. Nothing is off the table, from suicide to sexuality to abortion. While the intention may be to show the rougher side of mental health struggles (in an interview, series creator and star Kat Sadler expressed frustration with seeing such issues treated “in either a very wholesome way or as this sexy, glamorous, dangerous thing”), the result is characters who came dangerously close to loathsome.
Of course, Josie’s homosexuality is a core issue on the show, and all three Johnson women share a shocking disregard for morality. Deb tells her daughters that a relationship without sex isn’t a relationship at all. Billie has an abortion in the first season, which she treats with as much significance as a dentist visit. While there aren’t many graphic situations shown, sex is a constant topic of conversation, and neither Josie, Billie nor Deb concern themselves with keeping their discussions tasteful.
No, there’s not much to admire about the Johnson family, but there’s somehow even less to appreciate about Such Brave Girls. What tries to be a daring, fearless depiction of mental health issues ends up being an uncomfortable experience with no moral compass to be found—and it’s one from which this reviewer recommends that you stay far, far away.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Josie has finally made it to art school, only for her mother, Deb, to force her into marrying Seb, the kind-but-clueless son of her rich boyfriend. While Josie tries to escape the wedding, sister Billie decides it’s time to sleep with her older boyfriend, and Seb tries to prove that he can make Josie happy.
Sexual dialogue persists throughout the episode, including graphic references to genitalia and sexual acts. Seb and his father Dev play a game of “shag, marry, kill” (“shag” being British slang for…well, you get it). Josie asks if Billie is using protection with her new boyfriend and makes a crude joke about her sister’s previous abortion. Billie responds that they aren’t sleeping together yet, and Deb tells Billie that her relationship isn’t real unless they’re having sex. When Billie finds out that her boyfriend is married, she decides to become his mistress, which Josie encourages is “the most feminist thing you can do.”
During an impromptu stag do (or a bachelor party, in American-speak), Seb makes a prank call threatening to shoot up a casino.
Guests drink socially at Josie and Seb’s wedding. Dev and Seb smoke cigars.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
After losing his family to a demon attack, Tanjiro Kamado joins the Demon Slayer Corps to seek his revenge.
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