the liberation of san junipero

Yesterday in a post on coming of age and Call Me by Your Name, I wrote:

People don’t know what to do with a 41-year-old who has not come of age, and who still loves like Elio loves. It scares them. But there has to be a chance for us. The models we see in TV and film and games (like Gone Home, Butterfly Soup, The Last of Us: Left Behind, etc.) of people coming of age and connecting deeply with others when they’re still young don’t accommodate all of us. Some of us have slipped through the cracks, and are still waiting to be seen and known and loved by someone we also want to see and know and love in the fullness of themselves. There have to be other possibilities for us. There just have to be. I can’t accept the alternative.

Today I remembered that there is one coming-of-age story that breaks the mold and gives me hope: “San Junipero,” the fourth episode of the third season of Black Mirror. 

In a beach town in the 1980s, the shy and awkward Yorkie (Halt and Catch Fire’s Mackenzie Davis) meets the exuberant and experienced Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw from, among other things, the excellent and underseen Beyond the Lights). In bed at Kelly’s place, Yorkie says:

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Kelly, without hesitation, says “Okay,” and Yorkie smiles and says “Okay.” 

After they have sex, Kelly is surprised to learn that this wasn’t just Yorkie’s first time with a woman, as she had suspected. Yorkie has never been with anyone before. It makes sense that Kelly would be surprised. Yorkie, after all, appears to be in perhaps her late 20s (Davis was in her late 20s when she filmed the episode), older than you might expect someone who has never really had a relationship to be. But although she’s surprised by the revelation, she doesn’t judge Yorkie for it at all, despite having herself had a lifetime full of love and sex and closeness (and the pain that can come with it).

The big revelation of “San Junipero” is that this world is a virtual one. Yorkie both is and isn’t actually a twenty-something. At 21, she came out to her parents, who reacted very badly. After that, Yorkie ran her car off the road and the resulting injuries left her quadriplegic. That was some 40 years ago. The virtual world of San Junipero gives her a chance to experience the youth she never had, the love and connection and closeness she missed out on.

I try not to dwell on it, but the truth is that I’ve missed out on some things, too. I used to fantasize about having the option to reload previous saved games in real life, to get another shot at empty years, to try and fill them up with something. I don’t get to do that. “San Junipero” feels like a coming-of-age story for those of us who didn’t get to come of age within the acceptable window. It’s a story of someone who finds a real connection when she’s older, a connection with someone who doesn’t judge her or pity her or make her feel ashamed or unloveable just because she hasn’t been loved before. That’s all I want. That’s all I can hope for.