Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures
Edited by Michele Byers
Sumach Press, $28.95, 320 pages
Here is a quick quiz: How many television shows from the 1980’s can you name that are aimed at teens? Here’s some help: Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, The Wonder Years. Now the second question: Name one other television series from the same time frame that relates better to teens, discusses deeper social issues, and shows better character development.
You might be hard pressed to find one, until the shows from the Degrassi series come to mind.
The Degrassi series of shows include The Kids from Degrassi, Degrassi Junior High, Degrassi High and Degrassi: the Next Generation. The shows spoke to teens in their own voice about sexuality, teen pregnancy, racism, money, drugs and alcohol, HIV/Aids, body image and relationships. The characters in the series were much deeper than typical two-dimensional characters in the majority of teen oriented TV shows. Incidents that impacted on the characters were evident in the long-term character development through out the series, and were not just a lesson learned for the duration of the program.
It may be hard to believe but the Degrassi phenomenon dates back some 25 years, spans two generations, and has fostered countless academic investigations. TV critic Geoff Pevere calls Degrassi “the program that once began as a low-budget, no frills, socially conscious Canadian public broadcasting project about urban teen life (and) has become one of the most passionately watched and discussed artifacts of teenage culture.”
One of the academic studies about Degrassi that will prove useful to teachers and aficionados of television’s best side is Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures, a series of 16 essays written by academics from across Canada and the U.S. The editor of the book, Michele Byers, is a professor at St. Mary’s University in Halifax. She has written extensively on television, and her doctoral dissertation at University of Toronto was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In one of her own essays in the book, Byers writes, “ What really distinguishes Degrassi from most other teen series – both its contemporaries and those which came after DC – is that these things happened to core characters, characters the shows viewers were deeply connected to and this, undoubtedly, made the narratives more meaningful than they would have been had they been created for special guest stars….And this is equally true of the abortion episodes mentioned (earlier); their power is not only in presenting an issue which has and is still largely taboo on television, but also in the way the viewer is allowed to live through the before, during and after experiences with the character they already know and will continue to know through the story arcs beyond this one issue.”
The essays in Growing Up Degrassi are broken into three sections: “Degrassi and Youth Culture,” “Building Identity on Degrassi” and “Websites, Fan Clubs and Reminiscences” and each contains essays that are enlightening and passionate.
Clearly, a simple little program has become an example of television at its best. And, yes, I would have answered the first question on the quiz with ease, but would have had difficulty on the second. Few among us would have considered Degrassi to be such adult fare.
Mike Gange teaches media studies in Fredericton.