These days, there are gay characters all over the TV schedule, but the most well-adjusted and popular are students at Degrassi Community School and King High, the settings for Degrassi: The Next Generation and South of Nowhere, respectively. It's no coincidence that both shows appear on The N—the nighttime tween incarnation of Nickelodeon's Noggin. The N is a channel with a mission: realness. According to its Web site: "
he shows on the N are about your real life and the things you're dealing with every day." Ah, issues! Once the stuff of earnest and dull (but bizarrely beloved) after-school specials, didactic television is now earnest and hot, full of cuties baring yards of flesh (even in chilly Toronto, Degrassi's setting) and telegenic problems like promiscuity, teacher-dating, and whether one's bikini is sufficiently filled out.
At TV high school, gayness is just another issue. Clicking on the Degrassi character bios is like flipping through DSM IV: Craig is bipolar and was abused by his violent father. Ellie's mom's a drunk, and she used to cut herself to numb the pain. Jimmy once took his friend's Ritalin to get up for a basketball game, now he's in a wheelchair after a school shooting, and so on. It's the student-body president, Marco, who is gay. But, with everyone else so screwed up—and yet so lovable—it's not surprising that Marco's gayness isn't particularly problematic. Marco found a sweet age-appropriate lover soon after he came out, but the relationship—with Dylan, an out-and-proud hockey-playing jock—foundered because Marco was uptight about his family finding out they were a couple (well, that and the fact that he walked in on Dylan making out with another guy).
While Degrassi has been around (in various forms) for 25 years, South of Nowhere just started its first season. It's a new twist on the classic "Midwestern family loads up the truck and moves to L.A." story line that worked so well for Beverly Hills 90210, but this time around, it's all about questioning. One of the show's trailers spells it out: Basketball-obsessed Glen is "trying to figure out 'the jock thing' "; adopted, African-American Clay is "trying to figure out 'the black thing' "; and cheerleader Spencer is "trying to figure out 'the sex thing.' " Spencer's "sex thing" is that age-old question: boys or girls? Or both?
Judging from The N's hyperactive discussion boards and the plot points emphasized in the show's promotional spots, Spencer's attraction to wild-child Ashley is South of Nowhere's biggest draw. Trailer after trailer shows Ashley, who's "not into labels" but not into guys, either, exchanging lingering looks and sensual touches with Spencer. Who knows if they'll get together—Spencer is also hot for Aiden, Ashley's ex and Glen's arch-rival on the basketball court—but the depiction of the agony and the awkwardness of a confusing attraction is utterly convincing, not to mention sexy. (The first two episodes of SoN were directed by Donna Deitch, whose 1985 movie Desert Hearts explored similar themes of conflicted attraction between women.)
http://www.slate.com/id/2131950/
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