Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Every few months Netflix releases a new season of Degrassi: Next Class, and every few months, I try to avoid it. I always fail. I know the series is absolutely not meant for me, an adult woman who is no longer in high school. I know I will never fully understand its particular form of Generation Z drama. I don’t care. Degrassi: Next Class will always remain my ever-inclusive, guilty pleasure.
Degrassi: Next Class is very much like watching a series of after school specials on speed. Each episode is packed with anywhere from three to five important life lessons with little room for jokes, soapy cheating, or an education between dramatic reveals. The teen dramas of my youth were filled with lessons about why you shouldn’t lie to your parents or why you should really think about sex before you give away your virginity. The current students of Degrassi High School look at those mundane woes and laugh. Next Class is all about considering how you can be both a feminist and feminine without bowing to the patriarchy, whether social media acts as a reliable indicator of mental health, whether or not programs that focus on diversity should be embraced or rejected, and the daily horrors of racism. This is all happening alongside a bus crash that traumatized the school, one student whose struggle with depression led to a widely known suicide attempt, and how the attacks on Brussels affect Muslim students. Degrassi: Next Class is a very busy place full of self-examination, and you need to either keep up or get out.
But despite the rapid-fire pace of the show’s many moral questions, there’s something deeply endearing about Next Class. For the most part, all of these teens — who are refreshingly played by actual teenagers — really want to be good people. This nebulous quest for morality and social inclusivity is as important to them as any homecoming dance or crush of the week. There’s a humorous and sweet amount of honestly to this approach, one that the series shares with one of the biggest blockbuster hits of this summer, Spider-Man: Homecoming. The series is packed with instances of teenagers examining their own privilege and consciously making choices to be better people, but those morally heavy moments are handled with the same amount of care that’s given to an unsolicited dick pic. That’s what being a teenager is like, especially now. In the era of Tumblr, the common dramas that come with high school are just as important as staying politically conscious and being inclusive.
I do realize that there is a bit of a disconnect in calling Degrassi: Next Class the wokest show on television. After all, the popularity of “woke” is primarily tied to the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement about American race relations that the Canadian teen soap will never completely understand. However, there’s not a term that better explains Next Class’ constant examination of privilege. There aren’t villains on Next Class. There are only complicated and diverse teenagers with individual struggles who are trying to do their best. Sometimes what they think is their best leads to characters making racist, sexist, or homophobic choices. Sometimes it just leads to them being obnoxious. But either way you can take comfort in the fact that almost every character will eventually apologize and reset to be the good person they truly want to be. It’s very kumbaya, but in a world currently dominated by hateful insanity, there’s something comforting to this wholesome approach.
I love this deeply sincere show. I love that an easily accessible Netflix show contains a multi-episode arc about finding the right bra that neither sexualizes its central character nor trivializes her genuine worry. I love that these students make up songs about being inclusive in-epsiode. I love that a show not only features a bi character but includes said bi character openly discussing his confusion and worry about his place in society and pop culture. I love that when a female student presents a topless painting of herself during a high school art class, she argues it’s sexist her male classmate was allowed to be painted shirtless. I love that she wins that argument and their only punishment is detention. More than probably anything else on the show, I love Soma Bhatia’s portrayal of the quietly fierce Goldi.
Next Class has never been a subtle show. It’s loud and confrontational in its declarations about the importance of accepting everyone. With the conclusion of Season 4, all of my favorite hyper socially-conscious students have finally graduated. They’ll likely go one to save their fictional world from inequality and spend every waking moment fighting the good fight instead of ever pausing to breathe or binge The Office like normal people. The students of Degrassi always were and always will be better than I am, and I’m simultaneously happy and fascinated they’re here to challenge us all.
