Whatever It Takes, I Know I Can Make It Through: A Review of Degrassi: The Next Generation
by Robin Lyon

I’m 24, a working professional two years out of college, and I’m entirely obsessed with a Canadian high school drama.

And I’m not the only one.

Degrassi: The Next Generation is the hipper second coming of Degrassi Junior High, a Canadian show that aired on PBS in the late ‘80s. This modern incarnation now has its U.S. home on The N, the nighttime, teenage face of the educational cable network Noggin. Loyal to its origins, the new show is spun off of old characters, featuring some of the former students as parents and teachers, and each episode is named after an ‘80s song. The show has a fiercely devoted fan base, comprising actual teenagers, college students, and semi-closeted adults (including Jay and Silent Bob director Kevin Smith, who finagled himself a multi-episode guest-starring role as himself). It’s part after-school special, part teen drama, part soap opera, and entirely fantastic.

The show centers around the students at Degrassi Community School, and through its 5 seasons, it’s followed these students from 7th and 8th graders to high school juniors and seniors. Unlike most teen dramas, Degrassi doesn’t focus on one main character, or even one main group of friends. The show is about 20 or so Degrassi students, covering a full range of cliques and characters, with each episode focusing in on a few characters and one main storyline.

It’s through the characters that the show most succeeds. Its characters feel real, and it’s obvious what extreme care the show’s writers take in portraying them. One rare quality that helps here is that the actors are actually (actually!) the same age as the characters they play (and the acting, though occasionally weak, is at times amazingly strong). The characters physically change and grow as we get to know them, and issues seem to appear and develop at fairly natural points. The 7th-grade boys are small and prepubescent, heads shorter than the girls around them and their 8th-grade counterparts. Girls develop and their characters change as they begin to get male attention and become body conscious. The awkwardness is inherent, and the issues develop along with the characters. We see them grow older and change, and as this happens we see their friendships dissolve and develop.  They begin to define themselves, discover their passions, and deal with their lives.

By showing us a wide range of kids, Degrassi manages to tell everyone’s story with equal amounts of interest and complexity. The popular bitch is often the one who gives the best advice and stands up for her friends the most fiercely. The overweight girl with low self-esteem is in with the popular clique. The goody-goody goes goth and starts a rock band. Everyone is in a struggle to get through what their lives put in front of them. At their core, like them or not, they care about their friends and have struggles that keep them human.

The more you watch the show, the more complex each character and each moment becomes. There’s a subtle, brilliant moment in the second season that was entirely lost on me at first. The episode is centered around Ashley, the former class president who’s recently turned goth. She’s just gotten back together with her clean-cut, athletic, and popular boyfriend, Jimmy. They’re both happy to be back together, but she doesn’t feel like he’s accepting the new her. Their English class is placed into pairs to perform a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. Ashley is paired up with Craig Manning, and the two of them reinterpret the scene the other pairs have presented as romantic and comedic. They portray Petruchio’s attempts to change Kate as controlling and abusive. The moment is clearly about Ashley—what it means to her that her boyfriend can’t accept who she is, and whether or not she’s willing to change herself to please him. But that’s not it.

It’s just a moment, just a reaction. We see Craig (only a minor character in this particular episode), looking strangely familiar in the glasses that complete his costume. Their performance is good, strong, and intense. At the end of the scene, before the class and teacher applaud and comment, and as Ashley relaxes into her usual self, a brief look of realization and panic comes over Craig, and he quickly removes the glasses. Then, as if nothing has passed, he easefully becomes a part of the post-scene discussion with their teacher.  Looking more closely, we see that in his costume, Craig has come to look eerily like his abusive father. Craig, acting out the part of an abusive, controlling man, looks exactly like the father we saw terrorize him a season before, and has terrified himself.

The show is very issue-centered, and does have a certain after-school special quality to it. In its five seasons it’s covered just about every issue imaginable: child abuse, self-injury, sexual predators on the internet, date rape, sexual orientation, teenage pregnancy, abortion, and more recently, a school shooting and a school-wide gonorrhea outbreak. Just to name a few. The difference Degrassi and your average after-school special is it’s good. It manages to take each issue seriously without getting preachy. And it doesn’t pretend that everything can be fixed in half an hour. Most episodes end with a key moment of realization or change, but the resolution may take weeks, or never come at all. Characters remain consistent, and issues don’t disappear when the credits roll. The show also takes these issues beyond teaching us what’s right and wrong. They’re fulfilling—they show us a struggle and validate it.

Of course, a complicated look at controversial issues isn’t always something the U.S. can handle, and episodes have been edited and even unaired in the U.S. An episode in the 3rd season, in which Manny Santos discovers she’s pregnant and decides to have an abortion, was never aired. For U.S. viewers, the fact that she was ever pregnant (and that she’d even had sex) is only pieced together by later references and gossip. Despite the station’s squeamishness, the episode dealt with the issues—both pregnancy and abortion—in a very complicated, responsible and respectful way.

The show does work in big onsets of drama. It’s tagline on The N is after all, “Degrassi: It Goes There.” And there are times when these plot turns seem to be happening for the sake of ratings and flashy, attention grabbing commercials. But each dramatic event, each unexpected action can be matched to a characteristic and a series of events that has been building for weeks and will be dealt with long afterward.

Teenagers tend to be looking for something a little more strongly than the rest of us—often just a glimpse of themselves reflected back by someone else. They’re one of the largest consumer groups and are heavily marked toward. There’s a certain sense of responsibility involved, but for me it’s more about not wanting to exploit or misuse an instinct that’s so vital and central, at a time that is as well.

All teen dramas aim to target this desire, letting teenagers see somewhat familiar storylines play out the way they hope they’ll play out in their own lives, or see someone who’s life is so much more dramatic and exciting than their own. But beyond these, to feel your emotions and your existence validated, and to feel respected at a time when you’re rarely taken seriously can be extremely powerful. To give someone this feeling while actually respecting their experience and intelligence—now that’s just brilliance.

Degrassi is still, at its core, entertaining. It’s funny, intriguing, and satisfying. The what-crazy-shit-will-happen-next element keeps it fun and gets you hooked, but it’s the characters and the care with which they’re shown, it’s the respectful honesty, and the real emotion they pin down so well, that makes you love it, and surprises you into remembering perfectly how it felt that one time when you were sixteen….

May 15, 2006