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Background Audio:      - Degrassi The Next Generation: Season 3-5 Theme Song Lyrics: Whatever It Takes (ahhhhh ah ah) I Know I Can Make It Through (oh oh oh oh oh) If I Hold Out (oh oh) I Know I Can Make It Through (whoooooooo-ah) Be The Best (Be The Best I Can, And I Say To You) Whatever It Takes (I Know I Can Make It Through) I Know I Can Make It, I Know I Can Make It Through.

This webpage is a project for Religious Studies 2812. The course is called "Religion And Popular Culture", it is offered at Memorial University and conducted by Dr. Porter. The main focus of this webpage is Religion and how it is portrayed or alluded to in Popular Culture. Selecting what we wanted to do our webpage on, however, was quite simple. Dr. Porter let us chose whatever topic we wanted as long as not everyone in the class was doing the same topic. I decided to choose something on Television, because I spend too much of my time watching TV. I chose Degrassi: The Next Generation as my topic because I am a really big fan of the show.

Degrassi: The Next Generation (TNG) is a Canadian teen drama. The tag line on The-N (the channel that airs Degrassi: TNG in the United States) promos say "Degrassi, it goes there". Right away we get a sense that Degrassi is going to cover some pretty controversial issues if it goes "there". The lyrics to the theme song also gives us that sense of controversy. "Whatever it takes" can be taking as someone striving for exellence or someone who is willing to do anything to get what they want.

Religion and ethical behaviour have been covered throughout the Degrasi series, even back to Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High (the two series that lead up to the development of TNG). Season one of TNG started with the kids being in grade seven and eight. At these ages the things that people worried about was whether or not they would get a date to the teeny bopper dance, and not issues that would be relevant to this site. Not much of what is going to be talked about on this site comes from season one. Season two, on the other hand, was a turning point. Because of the time it aired it had somethings going on that it could play off. One example is found in the episode "Don't Believe The Hype" (season 2, episode 11) which will be discussed further on the Islam page. Also in season two we have the introduction of two new students, Marco and Ellie. Marco has a problem which he can't seem to get past in the episode "Careless Whisper" (season 2, episode 14) which will be touched on on the Homosexuality page. Ellie, on the other hand, is a goth. Her main story is comes from "Whisper To A Scream" (season 3, episode 8) and is found on the Other Issues Page. Family Values, Premarital Sex,  Abortion, Lies and Judgement, Sacrifice, Fame and Rape are all covered on the Other Issues page as well. The final topic is Christianity. Degrassi takes an outsiders look on Christianity in the episode "I Against I" (season 5, episode 14). This topic will be covered on the Christianity page.

One of the things that should be taken into consideration is just how people who practice religion are portrayed on Primetime Television today. Because of the world we live in today, Religion don't sell and can be considered controversial at times, "...As a consequence, such religious themes as do surface in contemporary programs are usually muted, and on the rare occasion that a religious person is depicted (positively), they are less clergymen or women than they are social workers in clerical collars." (Suman, 134). Although Degrassi: TNG can be seen as a Teen Soap, it is aired during Primetime and can have the same criticisms made towards it. The above statement reflects Degrassi: TNG somewhat. It does show the religious people on there as doing more of social/charity work than anything really religious. The show never even takes you inside of a church. Degrassi: TNG on the other hand seems to be a teaching show rather than a disapproving show. They don't really set out to mute religion or religious people, they just look at the things that are corrupting these religions and try to show it in a more extreme way.

Website by Jody Rideout