Mama look I’m grown now!
– From Grown-ish, theme song by Chloe x Halle
If you are a college student, and you haven’t watched Grown-ish, what are you doing? This is the perfect sitcom to watch, especially during this trimester. Freeform’s Grown-ish is a spin-off of Black-ish (another great sitcom, by the way) following Zoey, the eldest of the Johnson family, as she leaves home to go to college at Cal U. Zoey’s character, played by the great Yara Shahidi, is a fashion major and is staying on campus to fully experience the college life.
College life—everyone says—is the best time of your life. So, once you’re there, your expectations are high and then the work begins. With all the studying, getting to know new people while discovering yourself, experiencing all sorts of new thing such as drugs, sex, alcohol, and love, college can get stressful. Grown-ish shows every little aspect of the real college experience, the struggles of getting work done, then getting caught up on guys, the finding who you are and being the best person you can be, the struggles of what to do after college, among other things. Zoey and her group of friends make their college experience feel like our own, no matter the year you are in; I guarantee you that you are going to feel related to at least one struggle shown.
As the show’s format is single-camera, you can feel the connection with Zoey. It stops being just a show; it feels personal, as if Zoey is your friend, and you are living her first college year with her (as you relive your first year if you are older). The best thing about this show is that they not only show the real aspects of college life but also shows the social aspects that affect students and everyone, such as race, colorism, interracial aspects, beliefs, riots, gun violence, sexual orientation, struggles of student-athletes, etc. The group of friends is filled with diversity, Black people, a Latina, a Jew, and an Indian.
As love and hooking up is important (for some), you follow Zoey as she has sex for the first time, has a serious boyfriend, gets her heart broken and then struggles to choose between three guys. The sitcom shows how love is nowadays, with social media and the oversharing. You also get to see how colorism affects Black relationships and how Black women struggle to find a partner because men prefer other races. Another struggle shown is for bisexual jew Nomi, who dates a woman that shames her for being bisexual and then goes off to date a guy, who is also bisexual, and then judges him for the same thing. Love is not shown in the someone meets someone and gets together, you get to see how everyone goes through some kind of struggle.
Every college student should watch Grown-ish because it portraits the real and raw college experience, the one where you laugh, cry, get your heart broken, you learn, you get woke about social problems, make friends, discover who you are, start getting ready for the future and become independent. All of this while wearing great outfits because Zoey serves some serious looks and hairstyles! You will fall in love with Zoey and every character in this sitcom and for sure you will identify with one of them. If you want to see how college life is to prepare yourself or you want to remember your college days or you want to go through your college experience, then this is the show for you.
Grown-ish just finished their first season two weeks ago with thirteen episodes, and it has been renewed for a second season! You can binge-watch all thirteen episodes on Hulu and then wait patiently for the second season.
Watch out world, I’m grown now!