The Awkward Stage in Life

The Netflix Original show Big Mouth by Nick Kroll is an animated series all about middle school students and all of their experiences going through puberty. These students go through some awkward moments, which people can relate to. I mean who didn't go through awkward moments at that stage in life? It shows a variety of life experiences such as first kisses, first period, random erections, fascination with sex, and much more.




The show is very vulgar and has a lot of inappropriate scenes. If you aren't the kind of person who finds swearing or sex jokes funny, then this definitely is not the show for you. One of the main characters is the Hormone Monster and he just might be the most vulgar character I have ever seen out of any show. Have you ever seen a show where someone is making a decision, and a mini angel and devil pop up on a character's shoulders to help that person make the decision? Well this is like that, only there is no angel and the Hormone Monster stands over six feet tall. He puts the character Andrew through awkward hormonal changes in just about every other scene in the show. Just about every one of them is sexual, which makes for some cringe-worthy yet funny scenes. At the beginning of the series the Hormone Monster makes Andrew do a lot of things that he truly doesn't want to do. But Andrew has no control over it because it is his hormones causing him to do it.




One of the main themes is trust. We see a lot different scenes where the main character Nick second guesses his trust in his friend Andrew. In one specific scene the character Andrew is helping Nick's girlfriend because she has her first period. Nick was expecting his girlfriend to meet him at the top of the Statue of Liberty to take a picture. When she doesn't show up, he starts looking for her and sees her hugging Andrew. He thinks that something was going on between them and gets mad at his friend and makes a huge deal out of it. Andrew then eventually explains that he was just helping her because she had her period. He then apologizes to Andrew for his overreaction. I feel like while this scene is very specific it outlines how people have trust issues even with their closest friends. Especially during a time where hormones are making you go through changes that you don't understand.




The show also depicts the main character Jessie going through puberty and how tough it is for her. She starts getting into fights with her mother, crying more, going through changes, and more. All of these changes she goes through she is guided by a hormone monster of her own called the Hormone Monstress. One of the scenes that was most interesting to me was the first scene where the Hormone Monstress introduces herself to Jessie. She tells her of all that is going to happen, how she will start calling her mother by her first name and screaming at her. Jessie tells her that she would never do that because she loves her mother, but five minutes later does it. While this is a very specific example, it shows the underlying theme that puberty makes you do things that you do not want to and you have not control over it.