Have “woke” TV series led to a new wave in mainstream Young Adult media?
By: Marha Fathma
Generation Z has counteracted the political apathy of their predecessors and have decided that it is no longer cool to have an ignorant attitude about the world around them. Political awareness and social responsibility are topics young adults actively engage in discussion about. Mayhaps, the success of politicians such as Trump and Modhi and their injustices and problematic reforms has made teens feel like they have a duty to make their voices heard. Reforms regarding young adults made them feel like they had to start a counter culture. In the era of rampant technological development, they naturally turned to media. Hence, we’ve seen a new wave in pop culture with the prevalence of politics as a subject of music, movies and tv shows. A very popular form of media consumption for teens has always been YA episodic television shows. Shows such as 90210 and Degrassi merely served as a form of entertainment banking on the relatability of experiences of love, high school, sex and puberty.
However, the tide has shifted as teen dramas have now begun to address wider political issues. This is what we now call the emergence of “woke” as a genre. The term “woke” has quite a negative connation attached to it. Often, it is parodically used to criticize the culture of political correctness and ‘whiny overprivileged teens. Nonetheless, when we talk about being “woke,” we talk about actual awareness and analysis of the social, racial, and gender issues that are important to the lives of the marginalized; be it a religious or ethnic minority of the LGBTQ+ community.
The first example here is the Netflix original Dear White People which is self-consciously rhetorical and intellectual. The show deals with the experiences of a small percentage of black students in an Ivy League -unsurprisingly with a white majority- university. The show went hand in hand with the Black Lives Matter movement as one of the main character’s story arc revolved around police brutality. Not only this but the show in its explicitly sarcastic tone shines light on experiences of more ‘subtle’ forms of racism on campus. It relies on references, debate, and hot button topics to present a conscious meditation on African-American history. The show was very well responded to by the young audience, demonstrated by the fact that it has a third season coming out this august.
Another teen drama, Good Trouble, revolves around the lives of two sisters who are fresh college graduates and starting out their careers in LA. The show has a strong feminist theme as it addresses issues such as the gender pay gap. The intersectionality of it is further established as a result of the character arcs of Mariana and Callie’s cohabitants. With women from a wide range of ethnicities and sexualities, the show explores the experience of being a young working woman in a metropolitan city and all the hurdles that follow. Callie, a law student, takes on a clerkship with a Conservative judge to have a Liberal influence and to show him a different perspective on cases. This doesn’t work out too well for her due to a number of conflict of interests. Mariana, being the only Latina in a male tech team has to learn how to thrive in a toxic masculine work environment. Alice, a middle-aged Chinese woman has only now started to come to terms with her sexuality. Through Gael the show explores polygamous relationships. The show covers a lot of ground while keeping it fun and hip.
Grown-ish is a spin off of the hit comedy show Black-ish, which follows the experience of a young black woman, Zoey Johnson, as she explores her identity in college. Similar to Good Trouble with the spectrum of character arcs it portrays, this show stands out with an overtly comedic tone. With stories told through a gen Z lens, the show explores a wide berth of social, political and relationship issues facing students in the world of higher education while maintaining the comedic charm of Black-ish. The show is self-aware in a sense that Zoey continuously talks about “woke” culture and how Gen Z has embraced it. However, it also brushes upon the pitfalls of it when it comes to creating a harsh line between the left and the right. It shows characters from marginalized groups such as a Hispanic woman, Ana being a conservative and pro-lifer. In this way, it addresses the nuances of political association.
Mainstream media jumping on the “wokeness” bandwagon sounds great in first glance as it pushes progressive narratives and starts conversations. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that big media corporations have only now embraced them because it is profitable to do so. Cashing in on social movements has been a recent marketing strategy taken up by large multinationals such as Nike and Google. Feminism and BLM have been made capitalism’s handmaidens. Movements that started out as a critique of capitalist exploitation ended up advancing it in its latest neoliberal phase. This practice has become trendy and it is important to evaluate whether these large media organizations are serving the interests of and benefiting the communities they aim to represent. Which is why diverse representation on television is crucial to discuss. Though, the aforementioned television shows tick the diversity box, it is till up to the marginalized groups themselves to decide how helpful their portrayals are to the actual causes.
