FFrom the late Eighties to the early Nineties, a era of impressionable younger individuals watched a gaggle of youngsters at a fictional faculty in Toronto. They bought into fights, bought bullied, attached, broke up, bought pregnant, had miscarriages, overdosed, broke down, and died by suicide. They endured the unimaginable and the breathtakingly attainable. They have been the primary teenagers who noticed many people who lived the best way we lived, and put up with what we endured. And so they by no means spoke to us.
However you in all probability took too lengthy explaining Degrassi to your dad and mom.
Stacie Mistysyn, who performs Caitlin Ryan on the present, is a sucker for Degrassi. “It paved the best way for all the opposite exhibits that adopted—like Euphoria—as a result of I actually suppose we have been the primary present to go there,” she says. “We did not remedy all the things, or wrap all the things up on the finish of each episode. It was steady, as a result of these aren’t points that go away. And it was advised largely by way of the eyes of the scholars, which I believe actually set it aside.”
Every lumpy, complicated, imperfect iteration of the teenager rears its head at Degrassi, beginning at Junior Excessive. There was Joey and Caitlin, the category clown and instructor pet, who saved falling into one another’s orbit. Or Joey’s finest buddies, Snake and Wheels, with whom he fashioned an objectively horrible band, The Zit Treatment. There was Spike, the teenager who bought pregnant and needed to convey her child to high school. Lucy, the rebellious wealthy child. Pharrell twins. Geeks Yik Yu and Arthur.
However after three seasons of Degrassi Junior Excessive, the present did one thing daring: It was renamed Degrassi Excessive and the present moved on. The entire characters we cherished got here again, however they have been a lot older, and all of the sudden just a little fish in a really massive pond.
Once I was 11, my dad and mom all of the sudden despatched me to a brand new faculty, an expertise I discovered very traumatic. However these characters who went to high school subsequent to me on TV have been experiencing the identical seismic shift. Degrassi’s evolution from Junior Excessive to Excessive was an extremely correct depiction of what occurs when it’s important to switch faculty; Every thing you labored so exhausting to construct is gone. When the Degrassi youngsters struggled, it was becoming for teenagers like me to confess that they struggled, too.
Years after Degrassi Excessive ended, the present was revived as Degrassi: The Subsequent Era. Most of the authentic characters returned, now as dad and mom or lecturers; Younger Drake (sure, that is Drake) performed a promising basketball scholar. However the frequent thread between the 2 exhibits? Educating teenagers by speaking to them at their degree. Degrassi was by no means a moralist. Someway, it conveyed a wealth of important details about life with out feeling too preachy.
“It is attainable that if The Subsequent Era hadn’t occurred, our model of the present may need simply disappeared,” says Pat Mastroianni, who performed clown Joey Jeremiah within the authentic Degrassi film. However the youngsters who grew up on our model of the present say to their youngsters, ‘Oh, we’ve got our personal model of Degrassi too! I like the truth that it’s been related for thus many a long time. It’s simply nice storytelling on the a part of the writers—they by no means speak to youngsters!”
I requested Mastroianni if he and Joey shared any DNA, and he laughed. “Look, it relies on which model of Joey we’re speaking about,” he says. “For those who thought he was the assured, cool, standard character, then no, I wasn’t like Joey — I used to be the shy, closed off child who simply wished everybody to love him. So I performed him as somebody who wished to be good — and the viewers noticed simply that, noticed a shy child that wanted to be Lovable. So hey, perhaps the viewers noticed just a little little bit of Pat in Joey!”
Mysticine has related emotions for Caitlin. “There’s loads of me on the market, however there are issues I’ve achieved and by no means will. Her coronary heart was at all times in the fitting place, however she at all times jumped in with out all of the info—I do generally, however I am not as daring as Caitlin. She at all times went together with her coronary heart—I am a lot extra exhausted!”
Joey and Caitlin’s will-won’t-they romance was the guts of the unique Degrassi, however their love is brutally screwed up in Faculty’s Out! , the 1992 Degrassi function movie that noticed Joey cheat on Caitlin (with Tessa Campanelli, an act I am going to By no means Forgive). Degrassi: The Subsequent Era introduced again each Joey and Caitlin, however then Kevin Smith confirmed up, taking part in himself, and snatched Caitlin away from Joey repeatedly.
Mastroianni was so dissatisfied with the present’s therapy of its older characters that he left The Subsequent Era after just a few seasons. I ask him and Mistysyn in the event that they’re pondering off display, someplace exterior the confines of the present, Joey and Caitlin find yourself collectively. Mastroianni places his head in his palms and laughs.
“I’ll say this quite a bit: I do not suppose Caitlyn ended up with Kevin Smith!” says Mistysen.
One other season of Degrassi was launched this 12 months, however HBO Max dropped plans for a reboot; It stays to be seen if it was made elsewhere. However don’t fret, as a result of it is a good time to immerse your self in previous seasons of Degrassi, whether or not you need to get drunk on nostalgia, otherwise you’re simply curious what all of the fuss is about. Mastroianni and Mistysyn nonetheless tour recurrently. There is a new line of formally licensed Degrassi gear. The whole sequence is obtainable to stream at no cost on YouTube. Everybody needs one thing – and that factor is Degrassi.
