Sunday, July 07, 2013

Wingin' It

Wingin' It is a Canadian children's TV series set in the fictional Bennett High School. The stories feature angels combined with everyday life of human school kids. But there is something about the TV series which is almost as absurd as the idea of human-angel interaction - and that is that all pupils at the school are heterosexual. Take, for instance, the episode shown last Friday: Magical Kiss-tery Tour.

The episode begins when Denise tries to help Carl gain the confidence he needs to tell Jane how he really feels about her. Denise suggests a 'kiss enchantment' would do the trick. Porter explains that it's a magic spell which gives you courage to kiss someone. Denise says "if you like them and they like you, you see fireworks." Porter says love magic is hard to get right, and then casts the spell.

Carl Montclaire: Jane - got something for you (He tries to plant a kiss on her)

Carl's kiss is magically deflected from Jane onto Melissa


Aside from Carl's quite sexist attitude towards Jane, it turns out that the magic only works when the two people haven't previously kissed each other. But Carl had kissed Jane once before, in the school play. That made the magic go awry, and his kiss was deflected towards Melissa.

Porter: Carl's kiss enchantment didn't allow Carl to kiss Jane ....

Denise: .... because they already had their first kiss. But Carl hadn't kissed Melissa. And since Melissa was the next girl he saw - smoocho!

Porter: And with that kiss, Carl passed the kiss enchantment onto her.

Denise: And now she's going to kiss somebody.

Denise explains that anyone who's been enchanted can't kiss the same person twice. So Carl won't be able to kiss Jane until the enchantment chain breaks. The spell book also says you can't kiss anyone else who's been enchanted. Worst of all is that the kiss enchantment can't be broken until an enchanted kisser kisses someone they really like. "And," stresses Denise, "I mean like-like."

Later we see how the spell affects other pupils at Bennett High. After each kiss a pink heart shape radiates outwards. Here are just some of the kisses from that episode.

Some of the many boy-girl encounters in Magical Kiss-tery Tour


Wingin' It is marketed by BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution which, I'm told, as a subsidiary of the BBC is signed up to Creative Diversity Network principles.

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