Neihart, Ben, “Degrassi: The Next Generation… OMG! < > I love Ellie and Ashley.< … Craig Is Totally Hotttt. < > DGrassi Is tha Best Teen TV N da Wrld! <. A 25-year-old Canadian TV show set in a high school called Degrassi grows up to be an American cult hit.” The New York Times Magazine, 20 March 2005, pp. 41-45.
(Download this review as a PDF)

 

 

OVERVIEW

 

It started out with local kids in theater workshops and evolved into “Kids of Degrassi Street”  in 1980. It was something of a “quasi-documentary.” After a five-year run it became a “more tightly scripted ‘Degrassi Junior High.’” After that came two years of “Degrassi High.” (“The story was finally completed in a TV movie of the week called ‘School’s Out’ broadcast in 1991.”)

 

Now in “its current renaissance,” as this writer puts it (appearing on Viacom’s digital cable channel in October, 2004), it’s proving to be a popular cult hit. There’re several things that make it so. The actors in this series have always been at or very close to the age of the characters they play. For most of them it is their first time acting, and there is a freshness and genuineness in the action. Because it’s Canadian, there’s more freedom in what can be depicted. It has been cut from some channels and refused in some countries.

 

The ensemble—Ashley and a dozen or so students in overlapping social circles—have lived through date rape, pedophile cyberstalking, the agony and ecstasy of coming out, drug abuse, discrimination against a plus-size model, abusive boyfriends, gay boyfriends who are too out, a school shooting, abortion, ADD, Ritalin abuse, dyscalculia, paraplegia, genetically modified food in the cafeteria, boyfriend poaching, a gonorrhea outbreak, cclassism, male bulimia and … you get the idea.

 

Though the explosive-issue-per-capita ratio is seriously out of whack (and you’d probably not want your kid to attend Degrassi for that reason), the teen-diary attention to B-plot microissues (zits, periods, parents’ night) gives the episodes a peculiar authenticity no matter how outrageous their story lines. Without much help from parents and teachers, kids characters try to figure out their lives, and kid viewers around the world second-guess them.

 

An interesting fact in the making of “DeGrassi” is the differences between 57-year-old and former junior high school teacher, Linda Schuyler and its current head writer, Aaron Martin. Schuyler likes to blend entertainment and education; Martin is bent on entertainment and objects to the educational messages Schuyler likes to interject. She explains:

 

Aaron doesn’t have the educational background. I maintain that one of the things that makes “DeGrassi” work is that we do quite gracefully blend education and entertainment, but I am completely aware that you have to entertain first. It’s not that I want to do a string of P.S.A. (public service announcements), but Aaron’s background is completely entertainment—that we pull against each other from time to time because he feels that I’m being too intense and messagey, and I feel that he’s losing the intent of the show.

 

Writer Neihart concludes: “Schuyler’s insistence on the blend of extreme youthful dysfunction and “messaging” (getting some lessons across) is why ‘DeGrassi”—or rather the ‘DeGrassi’ franchise—is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year.” Aaron Martin’s said he’ll be leaving the show at year’s end because of fatigue.

 

The writer of this article also summarizes the shows success.

 

From its heyday in the late 1980s until its current renaissance, the “DeGrassi” series thrived as a cultish, almost accidental, phenomenon. In the United States, the shows ran on public-TV stations; abroad, they survived an international time and cultural difference, selling, sometimes years after they were first broadcast, in 150 foreign markets, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, all of Europe, China, Equatorial Guinea, South and North Korea, Israel, Kuwait, Macao, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran and Rwanda. They also ran in Cuba, where a graduate student in cultural anthropology doing field research discovered that “DeGrassi” shows were lauded for being educational and endorsing values like “family and generosity.”

 

And so it would have continued… But when the first episode of Season 4 of “DeGrassi: The Next Generation” had its premier on the N, Viacom’s 3-year-old digital cable channel, it came in as the highest-rated program of the night among teenagers in all of broadcast and cable television, beating out even supermainstream youth shows like “Joan of Arcadia” and “8 Simple Rules.” The n claims that the network attracts a higher concentration of 12- to 17-year-old girls than competitors like MTV and ABC Family and of teenagers as a whole than YM and Teen People. This is remarkable because the N is available in only 44 million U.S. homes.  The cast, which attracts a reserved following in Canada, has excited a much more passionate response among a segment of their core demographic in the U.S.

 

The opportunity for creative freedom to spin their own stories, the joys and woes of particular characters, the love triangle of Craig-Ashley-Manny, these are part of the appeal of this popular show.

 

Neihart summarizes what makes it work:

 

From the start, “DeGrassi” hewed to a singular formula: telling kids stories from a  kid’s point of view. But that didn’t stop the writers from projecting their messages onto teen-vetted behavior.

 

During story meetings at the start of production each spring, the writers appraise the returning actors, looking for changes in demeanor and appearance, keys to new story lines. They’ll consult the big board on which timely issues, written on note cards, shape the season, and right away they’ll start the matching process, assigning “issues”—like date rape, abortion and bullying—to the right kid.

 

“DeGrassi” helped make N, and N is just right for the show. The channel doesn’t worry about 25-year-olds and up. It knows its demographic. According to the general manager of N, Tom Ascheim (42-years-old with a 12-year-old son):

 

“DeGrassi” feels realer than most reality shows. It feels minute-to-minute real…. Still, kids are a tough audience to capture. You have a window. You might lose some kids as 14, 15, and others at 17. You make a place for them, and for all the marketing genius you throw at the demographic, you realize you’re lucky if the kids stay.

 

 

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

 

1.   How familiar are you with this show? What do you think of this article? If disappointing for you, what would you like to see said about this show?

2.   If you know and like “Degrassi,” who is your favorite character and what about the show do you like most?

3.   Would you agree there are some high schools that don’t look at all like this one; others that have some of the same problems, and a few that have them all and maybe more?

4.   Do you think it’s true that parents and teachers don’t have much of a clue and that kids are pretty much left on their own to solve their most difficult problems? Or, is this just a standard theme of “teen shows?”

5.   How could parents, teachers and youth leaders be more helpful in the stresses and crises of students?

6.   This article has to do with marketing, entertaining and educating teenagers. How do you see these three goals intertwined and functioning?

 

 

 

IMPLICATIONS

 

1.   If we are to know young people, we must come to understand something about what they like most—and why they do.

2.   “DeGrassi: The Next Generation” is about marketing to young teens, entertaining them, and doing some educating. It’s an example of “Media’s” attempt at entertaining, educating and increasing consumption. We need to discuss the interaction of Family, Schools, Media, and youth groups in their systemic response to teenage needs to have fun, grow up and learn to make choices.

3.   Family, schools, and youth groups can learn from media without forsaking their differences and integrity.