Like many young Americans, most of what I learned about Canadian pop culture came from an extraordinarily uneven combination of Anne of Green Gables books and watching Degrassi: The Next Generation.
I watched D:TNG on The N for most of middle and high school, and came away with the belief that most people in Canada were extremely slutty aspiring pop musicians who got “social diseases” and eventually moved away to star in shows on The CW (or show their boobs in terrible Lifetime Network movies. NSFW.)
The last episode of D:TNG I really watched was the Degrassi Goes Hollywood special that finally phased out (however inelegantly) most of the characters I ever cared about (or cared to hate.)
Degrassi Goes Hollywood is amazing for so many reasons. It features comical portrayals of Los Angeles geography (how DOES Ellie make it to the beach with that bottle of vodka?) and the entertainment industry (in the Canadian world of Degrassi, Kevin Smith has an incredible amount of entertainment clout). It led to me spending at least twenty minutes searching up whether or not there was an actual Canadian store in Los Angeles. (I couldn’t find one, but there is a store that sells Irish products.)
Manny’s overall Degrassi character arc took some really unfortunate turns (especially stylewise, if you factor in the terrible bangs she had.) She was the other woman with Craig, was impregnated and had an abortion in an episode that was controversial enough to not be shown in America until over a year after it aired in Canada, had nude video spread around the school… In short, Manny was kind of the show’s token “slut” during her run.
In this special, they give her a verbally abusive professor-boyfriend that she has to break free of in order to achieve her dream of becoming an actress (in film written and directed by Jay from Jay and Silent Bob fame. No, really.) Spoiler: she overcomes and gets to star in a movie that looks like its destined for direct to video posterity.
Emma was the main character Degrassi: The Next Generation was based around, as the bridge from the original shows. (She was Spike’s daughter.) In this particular special, she’s less than useless. She mostly exists to make out with the boyfriend I forgot she had and prompt Manny to take the school bus from “Canada” to Los Angeles.
I’ve always kind of hated Ellie and this special really solidifies why. Even when her drama is “goes there,” I find myself incapable of caring about anything she does. In this episode, she pines after Craig, who has ALWAYS been my least favorite character in Degrassi and possibly all of television, but who accurately depicts a certain kind of terrible ex-boyfriend. She also has some trauma related to avoiding her dad. I would care more, but it’s Ellie, and the most noteworthy thing she does is somehow manage to travel from a party in presumably the Hollywood Hills to the beach, with a bottle of vodka, and attempt to walk into the ocean like she’s in The Awakening or something.
Paige’s story ends so abruptly, it actually really made me angry. She basically shits all over her friends because she wants to be famous and makes an overture to apologize at the end of the episode but they never show whether or not it was accepted.
If Degrassi were an actual good show, this could be considered something that could be debated. Should Paige’s betrayals and lies be forgiven? Did she deserve forgiveness? But because this show is kind of terrible, you can only assume it’s lazy writing or someone just plain forgot to ever resolve this.
He is apparently touring with Fall Out Boy, introduced them to ketchup chips at the mythical Canadian store, and is dating a hot model, while also leading on Ellie Nash with a terrible song. I guess he overcame his cocaine addiction.
Marco’s character in this special exists solely to urge Ellie to stop being so overly dramatic and annoying, and to fight with Paige for being a fame-whore. We never find out if he and Paige reconcile.
There are a number of celebrity guest stars and weird references in Degrassi. The entire movie Jason Mewes is directing is some kind of terrible parody of High School Musical. It is called Mewe-sical High. Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are the most prominent guest stars, but there’s also a brief cameo by Fall Out Boy eating ketchup chips and also, the terrible Perez Hilton.
Paige lunches at The Holly during her paparazzi tour. She works for an appalling reality TV star named Hailey who is presumably meant to evoke Heidi Montag (or someone like her.)
There’s even an awkward meta dig at one of the actresses who fled Degrassi to find refuge on The CW when Haily the terrible reality TV star recounts dissing Shenae Grimes of 90210.
And yet, as terrible as this special was, it did inspire my favorite song to sing in the shower during Summer-Fall 2009.
I always preferred Degrassi: The Next Generation in the earlier seasons, when it was more of a show about tweens and teens doing actual tween, teenage things, instead of a weird Canadian fame-factory slash prison. It’s one of the things that really distinguished American television from Canadian television to my eyes. Gossip Girl, for instance, in order to get rid of a character’s unnecessary baby had to manufacture a miscarriage instead of an abortion. The cast of Degrassi: TNG was diverse and awkward, like actual teenagers in an actual high school, instead of an all-white cast of fashion models. Characters like Liberty Van Zandt, Toby Isaacs and JT Yorke would never be found on shows for American teens like 90210 or The OC as actual protagonists.
As Degrassi: TNG progressed, however, all of the kids on the show became way too attractive to be actual people, all decided they had to become famous and start a band or become models, got an American football team and the show gradually lost its unique appeal to me, so I stopped watching. But I’ll always appreciate the little things I learned about Canada from Degrassi, like the inexplicable four years of “Media Immersion” you are apparently required to take in your fictional high schools and the fact that you say “social disease” instead of STD.
