Why Judy Blume's banned book Forever makes for great teen TV

Forever is a teen drama about two high schoolers who fall for each other, while also dealing with overbearing pressure from their ambitious parents.

Based on Judy Blume's book of the same name, Netflix has reenvisioned the classic coming-of-age novel as a modernized story about young Black love.

Today on Commotion, David Dennis Jr. and Kathleen Newman-Bremang join guest host Rad Simonpillai to discuss how Forever managed to write teenagers that actually sound like teenagers, and why Black kids need the space to be mediocre as well as extraordinary.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

David: I think one of the things that is so beautiful about this show is that everybody communicates so well with each other. I have a teenager… and what I'm learning is that this generation of kids communicates so much better than we did. And this kind of leans into it. There is this playfulness, this casualness — actually not even that casual….

This understanding of what sex can mean, and losing your virginity can mean, and the really beautiful way they've put this in— it's something they could have left out of the main plot of the story. But they put it in, because it's just such a refreshing look at how people talk about sex. And it's real. And I love that they did that.

Rad: Kathleen, I'm just going to let you tap in there. Are you feeling similar ways about this?

Kathleen: Yeah, I feel very similar to David…. I think safety and trust is big. It's something, again, that we don't see often depicted when it comes to teen boys on TV. And especially not Black ones. And so the fact that Justin just understands consent, he's respectful, he's kind — that's a good enough prerequisite for him being someone's first. You know, the bar is on the floor for teen boys.

But what Shannon, his family friend, says is that she's just desperate for a good, safe space to lose her virginity. And since she knows that doesn't always happen, she asks a friend who she's not romantically involved with. And I think it was just refreshing to see a Black girl own that she just wanted to have sex. That she was horny — she says that, period — and it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

Rad: Yeah… they're so good at communicating, you're right — except when they hit "block." That was the most frustrating recurring element of the show: they kept blocking each other.

And look, there's a lot of themes in the show…. David, is there something that resonated the most with you, out of all the themes that the show's handling?

David: To me, it was the intentionality of making them look and act like teenagers. When I watch something like Euphoria, or even some of the CW shows like All American, it feels like adults cosplaying as kids and trying to write like how they think kids are. This, I felt like they were children when I was watching this. And it's hard to do. And Black kids, they don't get to be kids in real life.… The way that they allowed Justin to be awkward and weird, they would stumble over each other's words. They allowed lame jokes to float in the air, and the way that they were just sometimes irrational and infuriating — it's what teenagers are….

It was so revolutionary to really go against what we see in so many of these teen dramas that are just like, "Here's a 13-year-old written by a 45-year-old, and they're going to know about the GDP of the country and all these things that teenagers don't actually care about." And they're just like, "No, we're going to have teenagers have a five-minute conversation about Naruto, or whatever teenagers talk about. Because we deserve to have that space, and for them to have that space." The intentionality of allowing Black kids to be kids is just something that I cannot get over about this show.

Kathleen: One of the things, I think, that adds to what David is saying is that I loved how it explored Black excellence.... The expectations of Black excellence that came from their parents — which we understand — they still allowed Keisha and Justin to just be kids, and fail, and be mediocre at times. And I thought that they explored that dichotomy so well in this show.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.