Awesome Sauce

As someone who is a huge fan of Zendaya, (that being the main reason why I decided to watch this show) I was thoroughly disgusted and overwhelmed by the depiction of high school life and its tribulations. While Zendaya’s acting as Rue Bennett is commendable, the show is altogether too graphic and violent and in my opinion as a Gen Z kid, unrealistic. The cinematography in this show is definitely beautiful and worth all the praise, frankly the only thing that holds any water in this show. While it does talk about issues like sexuality, body issues, substance abuse, anger management issues, I was not very impressed with the way these topics were dealt with. The actions of the characters often seemed just incredulous and completely unjustified. I actually wanted to site Kat Hernandez as an example for this, a teen suffering from body issues. To cope with the bullying she undergoes due to her weight, she decides to become a sex worker (cam girl) as a high schooler. While this helped her become more confident and bold as an individual, one still has to keep this in mind that she is a supposed high school student doing this, an act that is very much considered unlawful. There are more rational and approachable ways to deal with such a problem rather than turning to pornography as a minor. The above stated example also proves how this show promotes child pornography, statutory rape and honestly a lot more. While that may never have been the intention, it certainly comes off that way, due to the poor handling of such heavy topics by the writers. I get that this show is supposed to be a gritty, unfiltered look at the lives of teenagers but it left me disturbed, with a genuine feeling of concern and inexplicable sense of dread. I obviously understand that this show isn’t supposed to be rosey or happy in any way, I am completely aware. I’m sure this show might resonate with a few teens out there but to me it seems like a relatively small fraction. If you’ve read it this far, my sincere thanks to you. I just felt very strongly about some of the content on this show, hence the need to write such a long review. Once again, thank you so much for reading it, means a lot. Regards, Awesome sauce.