"Just to show: it's all very normal"
- wtFOCK as nominee for the Cavaria Media Award 2019
The website of 'çavaria' (Flemish advocate of LGBTI people and umbrella of LGBTI organizations) states:
"The Çavaria Media Award is awarded by çavaria to TV programs, radio shows, magazines, authors, editors, broadcasters, publishers, production houses, and so on, who made an exceptional contribution to the rights and well-being of LGBTI+ people in the past year.
Youth series 'wtFOCK' (Sputnik Media / VIJF) - The third season mainly revolved around Robbe IJzermans, played by Willem Herbots, and his budding relationship with Sander. The series portrayed a very realistic image of young people discovering their sexuality and does so in an explicit way. Because different characters are LGBT, 'wtFOCK' transcends clichés and contributes to the diversified representation of LGBT people. The series reaches a huge number of young people and, in addition to sexual identity, addresses many relevant themes such as mental and physical health, self-image, feminism, abuse, friendship, and so on. Çavaria underlines the importance of series such as 'wtFOCK' as an exemplary function for young people."
(44:38 - 53:35)
"We'll continue immediately with the second nominee for the Cavaria Media Award and that's 'wtFOCK'! Can I get your applause for Koen Freson from Sputnik Media and Klaas Cockx from SBS Belgium!"
"Koen and Klaas, welcome. So, 'wtFOCK' is an extremely popular youth series. 'Youth series', I'm stating it already, I don't think the people here are your target audience?"
Klaas: "Unless there are people here younger than 25?"
"I could check. Are there people in this hall - Sir technician, could you please turn on the light? - who saw 'wtFOCK'? Oh look, there are a few of them. For those who don't know it, could you briefly explain what 'wtFOCK''s about?"
Klaas: "Well, 'wtFOCK' is indeed a youth series and it follows the life of seventeen-year-olds in and outside of high school. It actually focuses on engaging stories, stuff young people go through every day. It's very relatable to anyone who's 16-17-18 years old and even older. What's special about it, is that we play around with the sense of reality. When something happens in the show, so for example breakfast at 7:58, then the clip will actually drop at 7:58. If something happens on a rave or party at 1:00 at night, then it'll be posted at 1:00 at night. So as a viewer, you'll have the impression of 'wow, that's happening right now'. Furthermore, all those character also have their own social media accounts, they communicate through that. So the story continues on social media. And if something happens - like last season - for example spraying a graffiti mural on a wall during the night, then it will actually appear on that wall the next day in Antwerp. So everyone has a feeling of 'wow, wtfock, this is truly happening'."
“And who did the mural? Somebody had to be the victim, right?"
Klaas: "The production took care of that and for a while, a cloth or something was covering it and then was removed the night before."
"There are also LGBT+ people in 'wtFOCK', but what caught the attention was that in the third season, the main character was... gay."
Koen: "Yes, that's correct!"
"And that was the main character?"
Koen: "That was the main in the third season. So every season follows a main character. The first was Jana, then Zoë and the third one was Robbe. And Robbe comes out during his season. That was maybe a bit special, that in a Flemish show the main character was gay, but that wasn't really the biggest issue."
"Yeah, it was actually not much of an issue, that the main character was homosexual."
Klaas: "No, essentially, the feelings are the same. If you fall in love as a young girl with a boy or a boy with a boy. But there were of course a couple of extra barriers he had to get through, to be open. And we didn't shy away from them. We've asked a lot of feedback - that was helpful - from young people in similar situations and heavily adapted the scenario to those experiences."
"We're going to watch a clip, because in 'wtFOCK', you've truly portrayed sex in a freeing, self-evident and beautiful way. Let's see."
*Vrijdag 22:21*
"Koen and Klaas, have you realized - have you noticed the impact this has had on the youth? It's the first time- and even the 'older youth' like me - the first time we've seen such a beautiful sex scene in such a realistic way on Flemish television."
Koen: "Well, the thing is, we've had some discussions about it. In what way we wanted to show things like that and I had a real fun conversation about that with the director, Tom Goris, If it's about two men, two women, a young girl. The way we're portraying this, shouldn't be different. It would be really hurtful to the community to still do it in a different way. Because, often, you see in other series that sex scenes between two men, they're either minimalized or too much. Our intention was to show it true to life, how it really is. I think we succeeded in that. I also think it's important that we succeeded. And I can imagine that for people who see this, especially young people who aren't used to seeing this in something that's specifically made for them, that it'll have an impact. But that was our intention. To show it: it's all very normal."
"You did a splendid job. Congratulations. Aside from sexual orientation, you also discuss a lot of relevant social themes. Will you be discussing such a theme in the next season too?"
Klaas: "Yes, every season has its own particular themes or focus."
"Can you give a little hint?"
Klaas: "The next season's main character is a muslim girl. It'll be about the tension between integration, different communities, polarization. It'll be shown in the same honest way without evading things. That's very important. We've always said we want to try and bring things not as we would like them to be, but the way they actually are. That's the intention."
"Where can we rewatch that scene?"
Klaas: "Everything is still on wtfock.be"
"Thank you very much, Klaas and Koen!"