Season 3, Episode 18 - Rock and Roll High School

Original Airdate - March 8th, 2004

Sometimes, this show can get pretty sexist. I think it holds its female characters to a much higher standard than its male characters. It makes them do more for forgiveness and contrition while the men are often let off the hook. Often stories of a male character doing something bad to a female character are about the man while stories of a female character doing something bad to a male character are still about the man. It’s a struggle. This episode was a struggle.

Craig is really excited to discover there’s going to be a band competition hosted by a radio station at Degrassi. The winning band is going to get studio time. This could be exactly what Downtown Sasquatch needs to push forward. But Ashley isn’t going to let him waltz into victory. She’s reassembled her own band and basically admits to doing it out of spite.

But Ashley isn’t Craig’s real problem. The real problem is that he can’t seem to write lyrics for their song, and the band still struggles to play cohesively. This is framed as Ashley getting in his head, but it’s not really her fault or her problem.

In English class, Ashley stands up to read her poem, lyrics for their competition song, and it’s a lot. Very grim, very goth, very hard to understand. Craig mocks her. Paige, Ellie, and Hazel more kindly urge her to channel her own emotions, and she starts cooking up a great breakup song. Also we learn that Terri is on the mend.

Ashley and Craig run into each other at the mall’s music store. Craig tells Ashley he wants to make peace, and Ashley decides to hear him out. Craig apologizes for mocking her lyrics. Ashley laughs him off. He really doesn’t get it. And he doesn’t! I’m not really sure he does at the end either! Sorry!!

An unspecified amount of time later, it’s time for sound check. Downtown Sasquatch is sounding better, but they still have no lyrics. Ashley and the girls, now called Hell Hath No Fury, crush. Their song takes no prisoners, especially not Craig. He feels the hit. He yells at Ashley for writing such a mean song about him and says she’s a prude and that’s why he cheated. This basically validates everything she’s said about him.

Craig heads to band practice and tells the other guys he’s pulling out of the competition. He simply doesn’t have the lyrics in his mind. Jimmy and Spinner offer a rap which is an anti-Ashley diss track and literally says women belong in the kitchen. Lol boys! Marco pulls Craig outside to talk about Ashley and try to unblock him. He screams and tells Craig to do the same to loosen the creative gears. Craig screams, but it doesn’t help.

It’s competition time. The girls walk in with T-shirts of Craig’s face on fire. Good for them. Craig is psyched out, and asks Ashley why she’s always trying to make him so miserable. Ashley tells him he doesn’t understand how much he hurt her. He apologizes, but it’s empty. Ashley tells him as much.

The girls are great. I love their song. It really highlights that Craig is small and annoying. It’s time for the boys and Craig is nowhere to be found. They go on without him, and are about to start singing Spinner’s terrible lyrics, when Craig appears. He finally wrote a song! A rock ballad about his feelings of regret. We’re meant to think this song is very good.

The interesting thing about this song is how much it centers Craig’s feelings and experience. It talks about what he knows, all he knows. He acknowledges he hurt Ashley but doesn’t express any understanding of how she felt. It’s very “I’m such a piece of shit for doing that.” Me, me, me.

But Ashley tells him good job. The boys win because in the world of the show, emotional catharsis always trumps preparation and skill. Ashley clearly accepts Craig’s bad apology song, and he seems happy for once.

Our B story takes us out of Degrassi entirely. Joey and Angie are carrying groceries inside, when Caitlyn pulls up. Angie is so distracted by Caitlyn, her favorite person, that she drops the eggs that Joey just told her to be careful with. He scolds his daughter, and she gets sad. Caitlyn does a cartwheel to cheer her up, which works.

Angie says that Caitlyn is fun, unlike her boring dad. Joey does a handstand to prove he’s fun, and falls over. He’s hurt himself. Caitlyn plays with Angie while Joey rests, but it becomes clear that Joey needs more time. He’s getting ready to send Angie to his mom’s when Caitlyn intervenes. She can take care of Angie. Joey isn’t sure, but Caitlyn insists.

Caitlyn does a good job of getting breakfast ready, but Angie feels she has the upper hand, so demands pancakes instead of oatmeal. Caitlyn acquiesces and, when she goes to call her boss to say she will be late, she drops her cell phone in the oatmeal.

Angie keeps pushing it, ignoring Caitlyn when she tells her she can’t go out to play because it’s dinner time. Caitlyn snaps and puts on her parent voice. Angie tells Caitlyn she hates her, but listens.

Caitlyn feels bad, but Joey tells her she’s doing a good job. This is parenting, Caitlyn has the skills, and the emotional hit will get easier. As long as she sticks around for Angie, Angie will never really hate her.

In recent years, I have fallen deeply in love with K-Pop. It started with dance. As a former performer, I’ve always loved and appreciated good choreography, something that Western music lacks. But it quickly grew. K-Pop, especially modern K-Pop, lives and dies on parasocialism, and I bought all the way in.

Obviously, parasocial relationships can get really dark, but, when done with understanding, I think they’re so fun. I enjoy feeling like podcast hosts, brilliant YouTube video essayists, and extremely beautiful Korean performers are my friends. I also know that I don’t know them at all! They’re creating a fantasy that I can play in while supporting their work, and we can all have a good time with that.

I don’t usually form parasocial relationships with men. There are exceptions, sure, but the problem is pretty basic. I don’t like many men. Male public figures tend to subscribe to a particular posturing masculinity. Sometimes this is physical, but often it’s intellectual. It’s a firm, "I’m smarter than everyone else,” vibe that often barely hides “and I don’t let emotions into my brain like a woman.”

I don’t usually listen to a lot of music by men. Not to be mean, but I don’t particularly care about the emotional interiority of straight men. They either lack a real sense of human nature or, like Craig, only know how to access the emotional by deeply centering themselves. They also rarely dance or wear good outfits. Pass!

So as I started getting into K-Pop, it was all about the ladies. Twice, Red Velvet, even a little Blackpink. I was a girls’ gay through and through. But then something terrible happened. I discovered Seventeen.

The thing about K-Pop boys is they live under a different masculine paradigm than American boys. They are supposed to be sexually pure, so lack the posturing, catcall energy of a lot of the English-speaking male musicians. They’re allowed to be much softer in their friendships, so the dynamics between members are filled with hugs and smiles and laughs. Not “yeah, buddy” fist bumping bullshit.

This unlocked something in me. A level of fandom I hadn’t felt in a long time. Parasocialism for people I was physically attracted to. A disaster, really.

So yes, I do listen to music by men now. In limited settings. But even then, I can’t say it’s really about the music. It’s about how I think they’re little cuties and I like how synchronized they dance. I like watching friendships that look more like my friendships with my gay friends.

This comes with a certain amount of embarrassment. It’s a feeling I’ve struggled to quite explain. I have a lot of feelings about K-Pop as an industry and the way many people engage with it, but that doesn’t leave me feeling embarrassment for engaging myself at all. I think more people should be into these groups. And I don’t feel this for my K-Pop girl groups.

It’s something more pure, more primal than that. It’s the underlying tension of this whole essay and this whole episode. Much like Ashley, I am doing it out of spite. The world has given men, as a gender, too many flowers already. I don’t want to contribute to that!

For me to surrender to the power of Park Jihyo is a deeply feminist act. In a world that asks her to be a mother and wife, I watch her stand in her power. I watch her present herself as beautiful in an untouchable way. I watch her show off her talent with no shame. I bask in the great power of the feminine. This IS for all the ladies who don’t get hyped enough. All ladies don’t get hyped enough, and it is my necessary reparations to hype them more.

But when I cheer for Kim Mingyu, what am I doing for the culture? Kim Mingyu is an objectively beautiful man with lots of money. He’s worked hard to get to where he is, I would never take that from him, but isn’t that kind of his role? Aren’t men supposed to work? I set my own mission of liberation from the patriarchy back every time I give him my money. There’s simply no way around it.

So when I attend a Seventeen concert I cheer, sure. I scream. I yell at them that they look hot. I don’t want to be rude. But I do so with a sense of shame. I hesitate. I cannot fully invest myself in the experience.

When I attend a Twice concert I lose my goddamn mind. My identity is fully subsumed. I am no longer John. I am only Once. If Nayeon tells me to kill someone, I will. The experience of live music is why people believe in God, and I believe in God. God is nine women singing about the T_T emoticon.

So yeah, I listen to music by men now. I have found lots of things to enjoy. But there is simply no competition. Pop stardom is for the girls. On some level we all know this, and it’s time we stop pretending.