Trigger warning for mentions of suicide, death, school shooting and sexual assualt.
One of the most influential shows that I watched growing up was Degrassi: The Next Generation. It sits so special in my heart, because the week of my first episode of Degrassi was the same week that I was moving away from the school I had been going to since kindergarten. We had just three weeks left of fifth grade, and I was so angry at everything — things that aren’t a big deal, like not being able to go to the Kennedy Space Center as the yearly class field trip, or not being able to go to the fifth-grade end of the year banquet.
I had put on the TV angrily that night and the season 10 finale, “Drop the World,” was playing. Eli Goldsworthy brought a gun to school, crashed his car after a breakup, and Jenna gave birth to a baby. My anger calmed down because I was watching something that felt relatable. Ever since, I’ve watched every single episode that came out. Here’s the thing, though. Degrassi has a lot of GREAT qualities and at the same time, really BAD qualities. It’s super strange; half the time I’m so happy to see representation and awareness brought to very real issues, while other times things just don’t make sense.
For starters, the earlier seasons featured characters who felt like they really were in high school. The fashion felt like it was fit for school, while the later seasons showed characters like Clare, Ali and Jenna all wearing dresses and heels to school. At some point, Clare starts wearing a full on dress/blazer/tights/heels combination that feels more like she is a substitute character rather than a 16-year-old girl. It seems like the creators realized this, and suddenly their fashion became more relaxed and relatable.
Degrassi was also the first show I’d ever watched that handled intense topics such as domestic violence, gang violence and sexual assault. Being such a young age, my parents banned me from watching the show. Looking back on it, watching it so early only helped me be more aware and educated about what’s going on in the world. I rooted for these characters day by day, analyzed the incredible promotional videos, and created theories on what was going to happen.
What did bother me is that as I got emotionally involved in some plotlines, some things felt incredibly random or just dropped completely. After watching seasons 10 and 11, I went back and rewatched the entire show. The biggest “WTF” moment I had was the concept that Emma and Sean were meant for each other, but Degrassi wants to tell me that Spinner is actually the love of her life…what? It also drove me crazy how some storylines could have been incredibly powerful but fell short simply because they just dropped it. A lot of the times, the characters seem to never bring up things that warrant a follow up ever again — this includes Clare’s sexual assault storyline from her internship. This had a lot of buildup in the first half of Season 12, then immediately is never brought up again; this is a big downside since the story of her getting justice could have been incredibly inspirational to anybody in the same situation.
On the bright side, the friendships and relationships between characters is what drew me so close and connected with the characters on Degrassi. The representation amongst LGBTQ+ characters really means a lot to viewers watching the show, from Marco coming out and creating such a scandalous plotline to the later part of the show, where there isn’t much question about Imogen and her fluid sexuality. It’s never established if she is gay, bisexual or pansexual, but we just get the simple explanation that she just likes people, which is explanation enough for the show.
Now, I’m not going to lie. I’m a complete sucker for Eclare. Their relationship was an absolute rollercoaster, but the point of it is that if it’s meant to be, time can pass and you can grow better as people. They were an on-again, off-again relationship, but each time they got back together they understood each other more. When Campbell Saunders committed suicide and Eli found the body, Clare didn’t understand how to handle the situation, but with time and reconciliation, they grew and found themselves back.
Suicide and death in television shows are a touchy subject; one that Degrassi never shied away from visiting. A lot of research and thought went into writing the show that made it feel very real. Whenever a character went through something, whether it was happiness or pain, it resonated so well with the audience because of how great the show was.