tbh Iâm excited for the feminists going after the gamer club, but I have really mixed feelings about Degrassi actually doing this storyline.Â
Like videos surface of one of their cast members saying misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and ableist things while playing video games and he doesnât face any consequences. And their response is to do a storyline about misogyny in the gaming community?
idk i actually feel like this is one of the best ways they possibly could have handled the situation???
like by tackling the issue on the show theyâre explicitly saying upfront that what he did was Not Okay. straight up firing andre wouldâve been a much easier way for degrassi to handle the situation. they could have just immediately wiped their hands clean of everything without ever acknowledging what happened/why it was fucked up. instead, by doing this theyâre literally confronting what andre did head on and making it into a learning lesson for both him and degrassi viewers.Â
(iâm obviously saying all of this 1) assuming that he was reprimanded behind the scenes for what he said and 2) assuming the show will do a good job telling this story.)
idk for me personally this feels like one of the most productive end results a shitty situation like this could have???
anyway kary from degrassi blog actually penned a really interesting write-up all about degrassiâs âandre situationâ that i think makes a lot of really good points
I think I wouldnât have as much of a problem with it if Andre had actually gotten in trouble. They could have fired him AND done the storyline especially since gamer culture really is so awful a lot of the time.
But by keeping him on the show, heâs still getting paid. Heâs still on set. He still has racist, sexist, and homophobic beliefs and the rest of the cast still has to work with him.Â
Degrassi is simaltansously calling out sexist gaming culture while also keeping a sexist (and homophobic and racist and ableist) gamer on the set. It feels hypocritical.
honestly, it does. iâm not arguing with that at all. i just, at the same time, can kind of understand why they chose to act this way?
first and foremost though: i donât want this to seem like iâm defending andre/anything he said or did at all, though. because iâm honestly not and if he had been fired i wouldâve been 810% down with itâŚ
but given degrassiâs swift reaction to what was said, iâd honestly be shocked if he wasnât reprimanded behind the scenes??? likely, with a pay decrease or a fine and having his character slowly reduced in importance to the point heâs currently at. right now his only connection is exclusively to miles. and, even then, only barely at this point. winston could easily be written off in the future if andre fucks up again. (writing him off when everything happened would have been a lot harder to do cleanly at the time, given how connected he had been to some major plots/characters last season. it wouldâve been the type of quick, messy write-off that we saw with adam that fucked up season 13 kind of majorly. it wouldâve sucked for the rest of the cast/crew to have to deal with that again.)
i honestly recommend reading the post i linked earlier bc kary discusses everything much more in-depth and way more articulately than i can. regardless, iâm going to just tack on an excerpt from it in case you donât want to read the whole thing:
Karyâs blog was how I first heard about the incident! And I agree with that he said.
And donât worry, I didnt think you were defending him. I wasnât shocked when he wasnât fired, but I really really wish he had been. I hope he did get some sort of punishment for what he did.
I just wanted to point out that not only are they dealing with Andreâs specific situation, but based on the promo and how Hunter will respond Degrassiâs also addressing the massive GamerGate controversy. That adds an even deeper layer to the storyline given the disgusting way GamerGate came about and how extremists on each side have treated each other ever since.
Iâm not sure how many Degrassi fans know about GamerGate, and it can be hard to follow because of the passionate viewpoints of people on both sides, but for anyone unfamiliar with it here, here and here are the simplest explanations of whatâs happened.
