Something really important about JatP that I don’t think we talk about enough is how Julie’s grief and recovery is actually realistic. Usually in TV or books or any media really, the protagonist has this thing they can’t do, but then they do it once and suddenly by some miracle it’s like they never even found it difficult in the first place. They can do it every single time without fail like their issues were never there at all and their grief (or whatever caused their inability to do the thing) was so trivial that it could be forgotten about just like that.
Julie and the Phantoms doesn’t do that because that just isn’t how grief and recovery works. It’s far more complex, and some days are worse than others. Some days it’s impossible to do the thing, or to do anything at all, and some days it’s much easier. Julie’s grief is so beautifully portrayed because when she plays Wake Up, she isn’t “cured”. We see her struggle to go through with Bright, and after the boys ditch her at the dance she’s pretty much ready to give up once more because music has hurt her again. We see these ups and downs she goes through because her grief and recovery isn’t a constant victory, it’s a fight she has to win and there are times she feels like she’s losing. Even by Stand Tall, she hasn’t gone through this major unrealistic change where she can play music without any struggle - she very nearly gives up altogether. But she doesn’t, she keeps fighting, she pushes herself to move past what’s stopping her.
Because that’s how it works. I’m sick of media telling us that recovery is easy. It’s so refreshing for a show to tell its audience that recovering from something isn’t a straightforward thing to do and that sometimes you have to push yourself to move past it. Julie’s grief and how she deals with it is such a natural thing and it’s such an underrated part of this entire show.
Yes this is why im so attached to the show bc o clearly relate to julie's experience and even if i have overcome my struggle, there are still days when it is so hard for me to do it. Jatp showed that
