I was excited to see the premiere of ABC's grown-ish.
Before I can begin to explain what it is that I hoped for and what exactly I found in the premiere of grown-ish, I have to tell you what it is that I so love about its parent show Black-ish.
Black-ish has provided viewers with a much-needed representation of a black family in today's America. One of the things that is so refreshing about Black-ish is its general wholesomeness and the fact that it features a successful black family who defies many stereotypes without being stripped of its black culture. The characters are woke without being loud or pretentious. The show addresses issues of race without letting that be its sole focus. We got the spirit of The Cosby Show in a story of its own with enough modernity to be considered relevant and relatable. In many ways, the show has been unlike any other primetime show on television, so I had high hopes that when its spinoff was born, it would carry those favorable traits.
Now let’s talk grown-ish. The good news is that the show does, in fact, carry some of the traits I loved from Black-ish. Most notably, the producers have once again brought forth a missing demographic from primetime television. Black-ish is one of very few shows in our time to address the college experience of people of color. Representation matters - children of color need to know that “the quintessential college experience” is not reserved for the monochromatic demographic that we see in the majority of popular films and tv shows. Black characters in college are more than whitewashed or uncharacteristically obnoxious best friends for white kids. Also, there are parts of the college experience that can be very different for people of color. The show has yet to really address those issues, but we are only two episodes in and the potential is certainly there.
I do not have a lot to say about the show just yet, but I did have some strong feelings about my first impression.
In a matter of two episodes, we are introduced to the starter pack for every set of adolescent characters on TV. We have our closeted gay character with a religious background, our drug addicted cool kid, our drug dealer brainiac, our socially ignorant Christian girl, and our overly committed socially-conscious character. Then, of course, we have Zoe, who reminds us that of all of Dre Johnson’s children, she has had the least depth or character development. She is Dre’s favorite, generally self-centered, popular, and sometimes shows herself to be a caring older sister and daughter. On grown-ish, it looks Zoe will be figuring out who she is right along with us, which is fitting since a huge part of the college experience is learning who you are or who you want to be. Aside from Zoe, a lot of the characters from our starter pack already seem a bit cliched, but I am sure we will find their stories to be deeper than what they appear to be at this point. I can live with that.
The thing that I do not particularly care for is where and with what level of immediacy the show goes in its first couple of episodes. Within their first few weeks, Zoe and other characters are confronted or involved with drugs and alcohol, partying, cheating (academic), and sex.
Between this and the cliches represented in the starter pack character set, I feel like the show is folding into a neat little box of norms where it should be stretching beyond the typical portrayal of the college experience. Sure, all of those things are available in an average college experience, but they are not what make a college experience. Those can be present without being the focus of the characters’ experience.
If you’re reading this and you think that I am crazy or ridiculous, chances are that these things were a part of your experience. The things is, these were not a part of my experience, and while I hardly believe that mine was the typical college experience, I would dare say that there a lot of people like me who went through college without that part of the experience. Regardless of what anyone’s experience with those parts of college may have been, the most important parts of a college experience were not those things.
The most impactful parts of a college experience are the friends you make, the first times that you develop opinions that vary from the ones you were raised with, the first ethical, moral, and monetary decisions that you make on your own, your first consequential failures and independent successes. So far, the show has done a good job of showing us the beginning of such friendships.
Along the way, the distractions or challenges you face are more likely to come from things that you can’t control like health, family, and circumstance, than drugs, alcohol, or sex. These are the things that I hope grown-ish will show us more so than what it has so far. If that doesn’t happen soon, I think my high hopes for grown-ish may quickly fade, and the show will have lost out on an opportunity to tell a very different and interesting story befitting of such a different and interesting representation of characters.
Bonus: I love the opening credits for the show. The imagery is hazy and ambiguous - near to nostalgic without giving anything away, and the theme song has the same feeling. The song, Grown, is sung by the cast's own very talented Chloe x Halle. I have been listening to it all day long.