La Academia (Prime Video)

[overtherainbow]

I have only seen one episode, but it seems promising. One of the main characters is named Adrian and he is gay. It's weird it's not very obvious in the trailer. Maybe they wanted the shock factor? Idk. It's also sad that it's geo blocked. I have a prime subscription, but couldn't find it? I assume it's only avilable in Spain (and maybe Latin America?) What a shame.

Trailer:

[jjose712]

I was going to open a thead about it.

Adrián is in fact one of the main character, of course he is closeted and show plays with the fact that there are openly lesbian players in the female team (in this case is totally realistic).

I read it's not a great show but very entertaining

[overtherainbow]

Oh god. I just watched it. IT WAS HORRIBLE. Ugh. I really hated it. Episode 1-4 were good. Then it went downhill. I'll give this show a 4/10 because it had some good parts.... though most were bad.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Where to even start with this. Nothing made sense. His boyfriend was in a couple of episodes, then disappeared until the last episode. He had a boyfriend who adored him, yet he went after Jairo. Why?!?! Jairo was an asshole to him the entire time, yet he went for him and ditched his own boyfriend? Yet they were together again in the last episode.... because why? His boyfriend just accepted getting ditched then forgave him? SO stupid. His boyfriend barely got any screen time at all. It was so disappointing.

As for my second point... once again we get a more explicit straight "almost sex" scene than any gay scene. It made me sick. The double standard is sickening. It's vile. It's homohobic. It's offensive.

This show is nothing more than a cheap Ted Lesso knock off, without the heart and humor. It did everything worse. It's obvious it got it's inspiration from Ted Lasso, too bad it couldn't do better. The show felt like a PG-13 show. No actual sex, but the closest we got was a straight sex scene with the closeted guy. It was fairly gay up until episode 4, when the whole show shifted the focus to the straight characters, then nothing gay again until the kiss with Jairo, then he had one scene (a pathetic hug) with his boyfriend in the last episode. I feel like if they had made an adult, more explicit version, it would have been more successful. I wanted them to be more daring. Show the sex, show the shower. Dare to make a "gay" show. The MAIN character was gay yet he barely got any gay scenes. His actual boyfriend (who he treated like shit imo) barely got any screen time, he was just used as a plot device. His character was never developed at all, if he was he would have been pissed and tell Adrian to f*ck off. Having him accept everything Adrian did was just terrible writing. sure, it was curte that he was so supporting, but it made no sense. The boyfriend pops up when he is needed for the plot, otherwise he is nowhere to be seen. It was such weak storytelling. Their relationship should have been fleshed out a lot more.

These producers just want the publicity of a gay show, without making it actually gay. They spend more time on the straight characters than the main gay one. What happened to shows like Elite? I'm sick of shows where the gay character is a main character, yet get LESS screen time than the heteros. It happens all the time and I'm sick of it. It reeks of homophobia. They could have made Adrian's story more fleshed out, for example more arguments with his ACTUAL boyfriend. Have him struggle more with coming out, with coming out to his dad and teammates, with coming out publicly, yet very little actually played out on screen. I don't know if they were maybe hoping for a second season? Because the ending felt rushed and underwhelming.

OK, enough about the bad... I will say episodes 1-4 where the focus was mainly on Adrian was good, before the entire story shifted to the heteros for the next 4 episodes. The little screen time Adrian did get was good, although his scenes were full of tropes. It wasn't anything we haven't seen before. I did like his scenes with his boyfriend, they were very cute together. Too bad they only had like 5 scenes together during 9 episodes. I also liked the shower scene, it felt very real and relatable. That's the one scene I think they did right. You could feel Adrian's anxiety through the screen. And I give the producer credit for at least TRYING to make a tv show about a gay footballer. Too bad the producer wasn't successful. So yeah.... the show gets a very weak 4/10 from me. I doubt it will get a second season, because it wasn't very good. It's also telling that the show is geoblocked. It's like Prime Video never had faith in it to begin with.

[kellerbrady]

Thank god you saved me from wasting my time