Kevin Smith – Obsession Confession
 I used to work at this convenience store, and on Sunday mornings the only thing that kept me from gutting the customers in a sleepy rage was Degrassi Junior High See, I had to put the papers together, and I did it while watching double episodes of Degrassi on PBS – which might explain to the gentry of Leonardo, New Jersey, why they so often had to return to the store for missing sections of the paper.  The far superiorprecursor to the Stateside Beverly Hills 90210 (sorry Shannen) revolved around a high school in Toronto, where a mixed bag of ethnicities dealt with teen sex, child molestation, wet dreams, abortion, animal testing, divorce, braces, and bras – always intelligently, and never in a condescending fashion. I’ve often triedto figure out why I liked it so much. I thought it might have been due to all the teenage girls with pert breasts and cute accents (“what are you talking aboot?” was a fave-rave thing for some time), but in the end, I think it had something to do with high school in general, a time that – until Clerks took off – I assumed were the the best years of my life. The show calls to mind an era when one’s largest crises were wondering when you were finally going to get to third with a girl, or the possibility of a shitty grade in gym. And any program that helps you forget you’re jockeying a register – even for an hour – has to be brilliant TV. |
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Degrassi Online 