The film delves into the complex lives of gay characters, exploring themes of abuse, identity, and memory. While the narrative is dark and features tragic outcomes, it portrays its LGBTQ+ characters with depth and agency, critically framing external forces like clerical abuse as the source of suffering rather than queer identity itself.

Bad Education offers a deeply complex and empathetic portrayal of a transsexual character, Zahara. While her life is marked by trauma, manipulation, and morally ambiguous actions, the film grants her significant agency and dignity, framing her struggles as consequences of external abuse rather than her identity. The narrative affirms her humanity and desires.

The film portrays the Catholic Church and its institutions as deeply corrupt and hypocritical, facilitating and covering up the sexual abuse of minors by priests. The narrative offers no significant counterbalancing positive portrayal, instead focusing on the devastating long-term impact of this institutional failure on the characters' lives.