Thursday, July 30, 2015

The Fosters (2013-Present)

*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

Language, sexual content (including references to abuse,) drinking and drug use, occasional violence, and thematic elements.

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