Why XO, Kitty Resonates Even Though It’s Silly AF

Written by Daphne Bryant

Are romcoms back? If you haven’t heard of XO, Kitty, the romantic comedy drama transforming the way we frame cultural identity, queer romance and teenagedom, you’re in for a treat.XO, Kitty is an American TV series and spinoff created by Jenny Han, who is also the creator of the To All The Boys film series/book trilogy. XO, Kitty picks up a few years after the events of the OG series, centering on Kitty Song Covey, Lara Jean’s younger sister who is now a high school student on a journey to find true love and connect with her mother’s Korean heritage. Kitty ends up applying for a semester abroad at K.I.S.S (Korean Independent School of Seoul), which turns into a very eventful and transformative year.

I’d heard about XO, Kitty but it was only this year that I rewatched S1, locked in for S2, and fell in love with the series. Like Never Have I Ever, another Netflix romcom series that stars a quirky POC teenager, XO, Kitty has a diverse cast, loads of drama, and a bingeable quality that makes it very hard to turn away. The show is a step above most Disney Channel series’, while still maintaining all of the nostalgic, feel-good fun that made those childhood shows so enjoyable in the first place.

Online many people have joked that XO, Kitty is the Diet Coke of K-dramas (and while this is a hilarious statement), I have to disagree. As stated earlier, XO, Kitty is an American show that happens to take place in Korea, but it’s not a K-drama. While I understand that it takes inspiration from a lot of the popular tropes and techniques used in this genre, XO, Kitty offers a fresh and original spin on the typical Netflix shows, and is intended for American audiences. We get raunchy humor, openly queer characters, and a wide range in the soundtrack that reflects both Kitty’s white American and Korean American identities. I think XO, Kitty exists in its own lane, so I’m squashing the comparisons here and now!

I think XO, Kitty resonates with people, regardless of age, because it isn’t ashamed of what it is. It’s intentionally cheesy and kind of cringe (I got so much second-hand embarrassment watching), but that’s the point. As the name implies, the show follows Kitty as she experiences a myriad of romantic adventures, but mayhem ensues. Of course it’s super fun fun getting to watch all of the drama unfold, but another highlight of the show is that it’s also about Kitty discovering herself. She makes an effort to learn more about her mother Eve Song’s time at K.I.S.S (as she too studied abroad), and in doing so finds out about Eve’s deepest friendship, which was with the S1 principal Jina Lim. She helps bring Jina, her son (who she initially gave up for adoption) and her son’s father Professor Lee together, and in S2 she finds her own family members, a great aunt and a cousin who live in a more rural area of Korea. The family scenes in S2 literally made me sob like a baby, and there’s really a lot of emotional depth when it comes to heritage and the way it’s portrayed. I think family ties (not just for Kitty but for everyone) really ground the show.

I do feel like I have to mention one of my biggest issues with Han’s storytelling, which is that she has a history of pairing her POC main characters with white counterparts (it’s the same problem that I have with a lot of Mindy Kaling’s and even Shonda Rhimes’ work). Obviously interracial dating is great and awesome and very common, but it’s a little exhausting when“ interracial” means we as women of color are constantly the love interest to a white man or woman. I’ve definitely been craving more stories about black love, or relationships that are interracial but between POC, where the cultural exchange is actually an exchange.

In that way, XO, Kitty is a real upgrade from To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before or Han’s other popular series, The Summer I Turned Pretty. I absolutely love that despite being wasian herself, Kitty has no white love interests. Her first love and boyfriend Dae is Korean, as is Yuri, her first girl crush, and Min Ho, who she will probably be endgame with. Another one of her S2 love interests, Praveena, is South Asian. I think it is really important and rare to see pairings of the same race or ethnicity in modern-day media, so I’m 100% here for it!

Another thing I love is how much justice the show does their queer characters. They are complex and nuanced and defeat so many stereotypes. For example, Q is part of what I call the “Core Four”, and is a half-Filipino, half-Iranian, masculine and openly gay character, whose main passions include track and the outdoors. Sure, he also loves gossip, but he’s way more than your archetypal GBF. While his first love interest Florian is very twink-y, his second love interest Jin is just as masculine as Q is (and actually struggles with heteronormative hypermasculinity in the first few episodes of which he appears). It makes me happy that we are shown variety in gay dynamics.

We also have some closeted characters, but their coming out stories are handled so delicately and come off authentically. For example, the fact that Yuri has to hide her lesbian identity by getting into a fake relationship sucks, and her eventual revelation and the fact that her father does not accept her is heartbreaking. However, it can’t be happy-go-lucky all of the time; we need that kind of storyline calling out the reality of being a queer person, especially considering the show is set in a country where it’s not as socially acceptable to be gay. Hopefully, for the younger people watching the show and going through similar situations, they will see these scenes and not feel so alone.

Kitty herself is bisexual, and dates both men and women in the show. Her gay awakening is scary relatable (falling for your best girl friend? It’s a recipe for disaster), and I like that we don’t make a big deal out of the fact that she’s bi (just the fact that she’s figuring all of this out while she’s already taken). Having a bisexual main character, and not just handing off the queer storylines to supporting characters, is really refreshing. 

This is what I mean when I say XO, Kitty resonates, even though it’s silly AF. The acting, the writing, the framing, it’s all classic AwesomenessTV, but it’s also a welcome change from a lot of the mainstream media we got in the 2000s and 2010s. XO, Kitty is almost single handedly making romcoms romantic again. I hope we see an influx of romcom series, especially ones that center BIPOC and queer voices, with main characters that are whimsical and magical, just like Kitty!