Of his school days, Parker says “I think it’s so easy for us to look back at a certain time, and just put it all into one big box and be like, ‘It was all terrible’ when it wasn’t.” You’d still hear the term like, ‘That’s so gay’ in the derogatory sense all the time.” “I mean, school’s a tough time for everyone, so going through my journey of discovering my sexual identity and orientation in a school like this, back then, was a bit of a struggle.
“I made some incredible friends, had some amazing experiences, some amazing teachers but with that came all the challenges and hardships of being a teenager at high school,” he says. “I think it’s so easy for us to look back at a certain time, and just put it all into one big box and be like, ‘It was all terrible’ when it wasn’t. * Star Wars Episode II: The much-maligned, Kiwi-filled Attack of the Clones turns 20 * Top Gun: Maverick, Doctor Strange 2, Netflix's Senior Year among May's must see movies * Meltdown: Three Mile Island: Chilling Netflix doco reminds us when life imitated the movies Even his mum has since admitted she had concerns about how he would fit into that environment. Parker, who came out at 21, acknowledges it was not always easy being a closeted gay boy at what was a traditional boys’ school heavily focused on rugby and other sports. “This is a comedy special but it also looks into the idea of what is the role of all-male education from one of its harshest critics.”