Degrassi gives teens something that’s hard to find: an honest reflection.
DEGRASSI PROVES TEENAGERS WILL NEVER GET TIRED OF AN HONEST REFLECTION
The story, first floated during an original Degrassi cast reunion on Jonovision (that is a “Sloan” away from being the most ‘ 90s Canadian pop cultural phrase possible), goes like this: Aaron Spelling tried to buy the rights to to the quintessential teen drama for an American reboot, and when that failed, he just went ahead and created Beverly Hills 90210 on his own.
To some extent, Degrassi and Beverly Hills are a perfect little metaphor for the differences between Canada and America. One is set in a patched-together working-class area most non-Torontonians probably don’t even know is a real street. It stars a team of gawky adolescents so awkwardly real they sometimes seem to be reading cue cards crafted with their actual conversations. The other is set in a synecdoche for American aspiration, possibly the country’s most famous zip code even before it was splashed on a teen soap. It stars absurdly taught 20-somethings whose only claim to realistic teendom was unchecked horniness.
Whatever inspiration Spelling took from Degrassi, the two programs stopped being comparable pretty quickly. On 90210, any pretence of real-world issues were at best a backdrop for more scandalously sultry dramatics, where on Degrassi, sex appeal was something that pretty much always ended in an abortion or STD plot.
A quarter-century later, though, it’s hard not to see that as its best feature. Where 90210 has been lost in a sea of both fictional and “reality” descendants, each one grasping at ever more histrionic reveals, Degrassi continues to plug away. The latest iteration, Degrassi: Next Class, debuts this Friday on Netflix, where, if history is any guide, it’s likely to stick around for a long time. The beauty of Degrassi is that it keeps getting older, but teen problems stay the same age.
In fairness, nothing that has followed that first generation of Degrassi has been so reliably dowdy/unconsciously hoser- y. Compared to its slicker, more recent interpretations, that first group almost looks like someone snuck a piece of avant-garde socialist realism onto mainstream network airwaves. Still, if producing even the early-’90s equivalent of Drake was unthinkable for ODG ( original Degrassi), untethering itself from the intricate particulars of teen life was equally so for Next Generation.
Above all, it’s the sense of being trapped in decisions that shines through, which you could also simply call living with consequence. For all its occasional full-on shocks, like the shooting that put Jimmy in a wheelchair, almost everything that befalls the kids of Degrassi is both a direct consequence of seemingly inconsequential choices and something that lingers on their personality. This lack of resolution — or maybe you could call it permanent resolution, forever rolling along with them — was pretty revolutionary in the first series: it’s what kept a reasonably didactic, issue-of-the-week show from going full-on after-school special, not just offering life lessons but portraying lifestyles.
Two best friends — one a single mom who’s still pro-choice, the other a pro-lifer who can’t countenance murder — could respond to another girl’s pregnancy with compassion and contempt, respectively. Two decades later, a 14-year-old could have an abortion and … not particularly feel anything about it after. A couple can fight through the prejudice against interracial relationships, and then still end with a garden-variety act of teenage infidelity. Two decades later, a lesbian couple first has to overcome their discomfort with outside perceptions, and then eventually breaks up because of one’s career goals. The audience learns as much from each dramatic beat as from the way the characters’ lives keep rolling along.
There’s certainly no shortage of histrionics in Degrassi — even considering the series as separate elements would make the school the most absurdly eventful in all of Canada — but the utter matter-of-factness of the characters and the way their lives roll seems to be what keeps teenagers engaged, across actual generations now.
You can plug in modern controversies and dilemmas, but the basic premise — dramatic teen problems meeting prosaic teen lives — ensures Degrassi in any iteration will remain reflective of what it means to be a teenager. Perhaps even more so, as its competition continues to delve into scenarios that are essentially mystical, in socioeconomic status as much as just literally about vampires or whatever.
The secret sauce of Degrassi — and the element that Spelling missed in borrowing the concept — was that teens, like most of us, just want to see themselves. It’s easy to see teens being teens online, but it’s never been reflected in pop culture to a degree that approaches reality. If there’s any problem that awaits Degrassi, it might be that seeing oneself is getting easier. Still, some part of me thinks that even just a recognition that people other than your peers are also going or have gone through the same stuff will be enough to pull it through. After all, there’s still no solid proof that anyone ever gets tired of seeing themselves up on screen.