Shows like Off Campus give me hope my children will have healthier relationships than I did
Off Campus isn’t just for young people, it’s also therapy for traumatised millennials
I started watching Off Campus for the escapist nostalgia of hot young passion that I'll never feel again as a married midlife woman, and stayed for the therapy it offered as a millennial still traumatised by some of my early relationships with men.
I also need to listen to my friends more - when they were all telling me earlier this year that I needed to watch queer ice hockey romance Heated Rivalry, my first thought was "Yea, no, that's definitely not for me." It was definitely for me, and I joined the hordes of women my age obsessed with it.
When I started getting messages about the Prime Video sensation that is Off Campus, I once again dismissed it as something I'd come back to at a later date, when I'd finished watching my age-appropriate shows.
And now I'm infatuated with it, in an almost unhealthy wanting to watch it non-stop, internet deep-diving the cast kind of way. While I was drawn in by the lusting, yearning, abs on display, frequent shower scenes and full-frontals, my biggest takeaway from the series is that I finally have hope that my children will have healthier relationships than I did after watching what played out in front of me.
For the uninitiated, the eight episodes follow ice hockey jock Garrett (Belmont Cameli,) who could get kicked out of college if he fails another class. He wants shy music major and all around legend in each of her classes, Hannah (Ella Bright), to tutor him.
Hannah is lusting after Justin (Josh Heuston), a sort of famous frontman of a band who also happens to attend the same college as her and Garrett, who has so far failed to notice she exists.
Garrett believes Justin will be into Hannah if he believes she's dating an ice hockey star, and proposes the pair fake date. The hope is for Hannah to get her man, and Garrett gets his tutoring in exchange for being her fake boyfriend.
When Hannah and Garrett inevitably fall in love while working through their past personal traumas and faking a relationship, we've so far got something littered with corny tropes that's been done too many times before, haven't we?
No, we absolutely have not. What we do get is something so radical, I could hardly believe my eyes. We'll start with something light: The characters have boundaries, implement them, and other people respect them without getting arsy.
Right, I eased you in gently, let's continue. So, the male characters can actually communicate, both with themselves and with other women. Yes, really.
When Garrett wants advice about the best way to give Hannah an orgasm, instead of making it a 'her' problem and fizzing with pent-up rage because he believes his manliness has let him down, he simply asks his friend and teammate Dean (Stephen Kalyn) what he should do.
And instead of taking the p**s out of Garrett for having questions about the female body and caring about Hannah's pleasure, before running off to laugh about him with all the other jocks, Dean creates a safe space for the conversation, gives some solid advice and wishes his friend luck.
In case you missed it, I also said that Garrett cares about Hannah's pleasure. The end game wasn't just to get her into bed, but make sure there was consent, while checking in to make sure she's OK and actually enjoys their encounters.
Before you all pass out, there's also another great thing about the show. It's completely sex positive for everyone. It's not just the men who get to announce they aren't into relationships and sleep around, the women can do it too, without shame. I know.
I know the too-good-to-be-true things are mounting up fast, but there's another. Women also support women. When I was growing up, girls were conditioned from a young age to always 'other' someone else to ensure their own safety within the pack.
This resulted in living in constant fear of being the one pushed out, and ongoing trust issues even in adult friendship groups. This simply does not happen in Off Campus. Eliminating mean girl tropes on screen is just so refreshing.
Now, this shouldn't be radical stuff, but for anyone growing up in the early 2000s, and basically anytime before that, this is jaw dropping TV.
Just about every girl I knew when we were having our first relationships in our teens and early 20s, were subject to boys and men bragging about their experiences with us and often saying shocking things about our bodies.
They were also dying to have sex with us, but when we let them, were apparently instantly repulsed by us and felt the need to let everyone know about said repulsion. There's nothing more misogynistic and head wrecking than that, when you're naturally anxious and have pre-existing body issues.
Consent was non-existent and hands up skirts in clubs was to be expected. From chatting with my friends, men seemed to do whatever the heck they wanted in bed and didn't even think to ask first if it was OK, it was just assumed by them that whatever they wanted, they could have.
It also wasn't until I was much older did anyone ask whether I'd enjoyed a sexual encounter and asked if my needs were being met. This is why watching young people have all the things I didn't in relationships when I was younger, made me tearful at times.
I fell into a state of reliving vicariously a time I'll never get back, through this excellent TV show. I found myself wishing I could be Hannah, for just one day. And don't get me started on how accessible she is to young girls and women tuning in...
In a world where women's bodies are Ozempic-levels thin on screen, Hannah has, gasp, a normal body. Many will see their own bodies reflected back at them watching her in Off Campus, which is the icing on the very important cake here.
In a manosphere world that's still trying to make desperate regressions back to the poor treatment of women of days we thought we'd left behind, Off Campus gives me hope my children will have much healthier relationships than I did.
I drum home to my boys the concepts of consent, body positivity, equality in the bedroom, and all the things I didn't have in my first relationships, while fighting off dangerous ideologies doing everything they can to teach them otherwise.
When they're old enough I think I'll add Off Campus into my teaching materials. It models every single thing I'm trying to get my teens to prioritise, and I'll never turn down an excuse to get out of my head and disappear into the university experience I wish I'd had, all over again.
All episodes of Off Campus are currently streaming on Prime Video.
