In the movie-length finale of Degrassi High, “School’s Out,” Joey Jerremiah cheats on his girlfriend Caitlin with Tessa Campanelli. The bullet points of this love triangle are as follows:
- Caitlin wants to wait until the right moment to have sex, while Joey is an impatient and oblivious teen boy.
- Tessa is attracted to Joey and flirts with him, gets him out on a date, and eventually they begin having sex regularly.
- Caitlin agrees to have sex with Joey on his birthday, thinking it is special that they are both losing their virginity together.
- Tessa finds out she is pregnant.
- Joey decides he wants to marry Caitlin and blows Tessa off.
- Caitlin finds out Joey was fucking Tessa Campanelli (her words) and they break up.
- Tessa has an abortion and Joey never knows.
This is one of three pregnancies that occur on Degrassi High, and it typifies, in its own way, how the series (and the teen drama genre in general throughout the 1990s) depicted teen pregnancy: as a girl’s problem. In every instance, the father of the potential baby is completely uninvolved in the pregnancy narrative, leaving it up to the pregnant girl to deal with the consequences of (their) her actions.
When the franchise was revived in Degrassi: The Next Generation many story lines revisited old themes. There are, after all, a somewhat limited number of dramatic teen milestones. In TNG the first instance of teen pregnancy occurs when Craig cheats on his girlfriend Ashley with Manny.
The circumstances are remarkably similar to the Joey-Caitlin-Tessa scenario, but with one crucial difference: Manny tells Craig about her pregnancy, and he becomes the focus of a teen pregnancy narrative as a potential teen dad. He reacts, he has an opinion, he is affected by the possibility of bringing new life into the world.
This striking difference between the world of Degrassi Classic and the world of The Next Generation demonstrates what seems to me to be a hugely important step in the right direction. Teen pregnancy is not “a girl’s problem.” It is something that all teens, regardless of gender, may face as a consequence of (unsafe) sex.
While Manny was ultimately granted the power to decide what to do with her body – and chooses to have an abortion – it is significant that Craig had a voice to say he wanted her to have their baby.
While he had no right to make the decision on her behalf, and his manic desire to have a child ultimately revealed his bi-polar disorder, his voice and his opinion reminded us that teen dads are responsible for any child that they might father. Babies are no longer a burden that young girls alone must bear as punishment for their reckless, sexual behaviour.
Although it really wasn’t depicted as such until the 21st century’s Next Generation, when teen dads began to actually be factored into the narrative on teen shows, teen pregnancy, while heavily weighted to affect a girl’s life, is still a teen issue.
