A Very Degrassi Childhood: How Television Shapes Our Sense of Self

It’s hard to admit, because I’m from an awkward inter-Degrassi generation. I was only four when Degrassi Junior High premiered, which seems a little young for storylines about teen pregnancy, rape, acid and AIDS.  And I was already in university when Degrassi: The Next Generation launched, making me slightly too old for stories of pre-teen angst, first dates, cliquing and Goths. But I feel like I have a good excuse: having been blessed with a cable-free childhood, I didn’t have much in my after-school television repertoire. I watched whatever the CBC told me was cool, and the CBC was pretty convinced that decade-old episodes of Degrassi were cool. I completely agreed.

Pretty soon, the fact that I watched Degrassi was part of my schoolyard identity.  I was a little retro, a little off-beat. I became entranced by the characters and their experiences, because those experiences were my own. The power of seeing Canadians represented on television in an era when CBC was predominantly about Family Matters episodes was a wonderful thing. I tried to work Degrassi into classroom discussions. I made my friends watch until they stopped coming over for fear of seeing the episode where Claude shoots himself for the 75th time (seriously, did the CBC show that one extra, or is it just me?).

And now I’m twenty-four years old and I’m writing a very serious (!) article about Degrassi for a deeply serious (!) publication.  And I still watch every day, even if the Next Generation kids are a little more polished and a little less genuine than the characters I grew up with. But what draws me in, and continues to draw me in, is the fact that the characters and their problems are entirely relatable.

What intrigues me most about my on-going passion for Degrassi is the ways in which the television we watch as children shapes our identity as adults. I look at teenagers today, whom I have fondly dubbed the Pokemon Generation, and I wonder how that has shaped them. A friend of mine swears it has made them dumber, but I’m not writing this to play the old-lady-who-hates-young’ns game. I know that Degrassi taught me a lot about being yourself and trusting your own beliefs. Most importantly, it taught me that Canadian stories are worth telling and worth watching, and set me up for a life-long passion for the stories of this country.

Do kids today get that from an internationalized Degrassi? I hope so. I hope that when the Next Generation cast pay for things in Canadian dollars and talk about Toronto neighbourhoods, kids see the importance of having our own stories on television. Mostly, though, I hope enough kids are still watching Canadian TV.  Those of us reared on Degrassi know the power of seeing our own experiences on an American-dominated screen. With any luck, no young person will have to grow up without that magic.

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