*Disclaimer: While I really enjoy Noah Centineo on this show and prefer him as Jesus to Jake T. Austin’s 1.0 version, I acknowledge that it’s not a character he should’ve played. He’s one of a long line of white actors in Hollywood who’ve been cast as Latinx characters, something I didn't realize when I was first watching the series. The show also features a late-series ongoing plot in which an able-bodied actor plays a character with a disability (for the sake of spoilers, I won’t mention who.) How many more times do we need to see this happen?*
This
ABC Family show has been on my radar since it premiered, but I’ve never taken
the time to seek it out until now. Very
glad I did. It reminds me a lot of Huge or Skins in that, even though the teen drama can sometimes be overwhelming
in its sheer, ridiculous insanity, it’s also capable of really great things,
with some truly excellent storytelling and wonderfully engaging
characters. (I don’t think I like it as
well as Huge or Skins, but I do enjoy it a lot.)
Equal
parts teen drama and family drama, The
Fosters follows the household of Stef Foster and Lena Adams, two women who’ve
been raising a family together for over ten years. At the start of the series, their own brood –
Brandon (Stef’s biological son from a previous marriage) and adopted twins
Jesus and Mariana – sees the addition of foster kids Callie and Jude
Jacob. Callie is a girl with a big heart
but a long history of hurt and abandonment.
She comes to Stef and Lena’s fresh out of juvie, on her guard and out of
her element. She has no trust for the Fosters
until they take in her little brother Jude as well, seeing how unfit his own
foster situation is, but it’s still a struggle for her. In time, though, as everyone adjusts to the
new dynamic, Callie sees that they have the potential to become what she’s
always longed for: a forever family.
Make no
mistake – this show can be, at times, a mess. A lot of the romance plots are contrived
adolescent nonsense, and the series sometimes feels addicted to melodramatic
twists. Storylines can race along at
breakneck speed, piling on drama so fast and so far beyond the point of
believability that you can’t help but roll your eyes at the craziness of it
all. That said, when it reins itself in
and focuses on characters instead of plot-plot-plot, it’s pretty amazing. There’s a beautiful narrative to be told here
about the different ways to make a family, and the show’s best moments are
undeniably the ones that are rooted in its rich potpourri of familial
relationships.
I kind
of love with all the intersectional dynamics at play here. For relationships, we have same- and
opposite-sex couples, biological and adopted siblings, biological and adopted
parents, interracial couples, blended families (Brandon’s dad is still involved
in his life and connected with the whole family,) foster relationships, and
friendships. For identity, race
(including mixed race,) orientation, family history, gender (included gender
norms and gender identity,) societal expectations, and economic background are
all factors. It’s so interesting see Latina
Mariana (who was, of course, raised by white Stef and black Lena) navigating
the quinceañera her moms throw for
her, or to feel the history and kinship that comes through when lesbian Lena has
a gentle conversation with questioning Jude about safety, homophobia, and
internalized shame. I also like getting a
dramatized crash-course in the foster system – the ways it succeeds, the ways
it can fail, and the myriad ways it can affect a child and their
upbringing. Luckily, it opens up to a
fairly wide field of supporting characters, so Callie and Jude don’t have to be
the sole representatives of an entire system, and other kids’ stories have a
chance to be told as well.
Plus,
this show has a teenage girl who does both dance and STEM. Just saying.
Warnings
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