Grand Army review: let’s talk about racism, homophobia and women’s rights.
Attention: it contains minor spoilers
Netflix’s new teen drama Grand Army premiered on October 16th and it reminds us of a cocktail of Euphoria and 13 Reasons Why. Let’s dive together into all the topics it talks about:
1 – Fighting against racism (kinda?)
The story takes place in the Grand Army public school in Brooklyn, with teenagers from every layer of society. Here we meet Sid (Amir Bageria), a student with Indian heritage haunted by everyone’s prejudices about him. We also meet Dominique (Odley Jean), a very dedicated student with Haitian heritage, who will fight hard for her future. We will also get to know Jayson (Maliq Johnson) and John (Alphonso Romero Jones II) who will be unfairly suspended from school. Let’s not forget about Leila (Amelia Yoo), a freshman student with Chinese origins adopted by a Jewish family. She will try everything to get accepted by the society and the audience had a lot to talk about it.
2 – Sexual assault, rape and revenge porn
This is the topic that the show explores deeply and that will be present in the whole show. It mostly focuses on the main character Joey (Odessa A’zion), who’s one of the most popular girl in Grand Army and an active feminist, always ready to fight for what she believes in. Everything changes when a game started with some of her closest friends changes into rape. She quit school and falls into depression, while trying to fight to get justice. What’s impressive is how she tries to recover from it, rediscovering her passions. 
3 – Sexuality
We meet again with Sid, who other than being haunted by other people’s prejudices, also struggles with his sexuality. He talks about his sexuality in his university essay, but somehow someone steals it and posts about it on Instagram. His coming out definitely wasn’t planned, he wasn’t ready to be open to the world, but especially to his family. Luckily friends exist, isn’t it true?
Final review
We only have some known faces in this show (Sydney Meyer from Shadowhunters and V-Wars and Amir Bageria from Degrassi: Next Class) and most of the actors are young. That doesn’t mean we can’t give it a chance – in fact, they’ve all done an amazing job in portraying their characters. Odessa A’zion and Odley Jean performances are outstanding. The show is about very important topics surrounding teenagers and everyday life and they’re managing to represent them as they truly are. Even though before airing, the show was already in the middle of a scandal. In fact, some POC writers quit the show due to racism expolitation and abuse. Do you think they reedemed themselves or not?
