Lola Pacini: Why She’s The Best Female Character In The Entire Degrassi Franchise – And Why Every Woman Should Strive To Be Like Her

I grew up watching ‘Degrassi The Next Generation’ particularly the first seven seasons when Emma Nelson was the main protagonist of the show. With the help of YouTube and streaming, however, I got to watch the franchise to its entirety. And boy, I’m so glad I did. ‘Degrassi: Next Class’ might’ve been my favourite show of the entire franchise, and I personally think we’ve all been robbed of more stories that could’ve been told. I don’t blame the show-runners of the show, but rather Netflix with their golden 4 seasons and 10 episodes each rule for their original shows. It’s stupidly dumb. I know, I know…these last two wordings didn’t even make sense. But it IS stupidly dumb. It JUST is, and I know so many of you will agree with that. Netflix recently broke that rule with recent shows like ‘Cobra Kai’ and ‘Emily In Paris’, but that wasn’t the case in 2017.

We were all hoping for a season 5 and 6, and even more. We were waiting patiently for Netflix to announce the renewal of ‘Degrassi: Next Class.’ But to no avail. The show was officially cancelled. There was another Degrassi reboot in development at some point, but it was axed for unknown reasons. I didn’t want another reboot, though. I didn’t want to see more new characters that I couldn’t relate to anymore. I wanted to see the characters we already had. I wanted to see THEIR stories continued to be told. Though Maya, who was the subject matter in my previous post, was the main protagonist of the ‘Next Class’ series, she wasn’t my favourite character. Instead, it was Lola.

Lola was first introduced in season 14 of ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’. She was best friends with Frankie, Miles’ little sister, and Shay. She was also part of the cheerleading squad at the school. Frankie and Shay were also there with her. Lola isn’t the smartest one of the bunch. In fact, she’s portrayed as the ‘dumb one’ of the group. But to be honest, if she was really as dumb as she was made out to be, I’d question why anyone was friends with her in the first place. Lola IS, in fact, smart. She has they in her. She’s both streets smart and book smart. She showcases the smart side of her from time to time. But she’s ditzy. Kind of like Paris Hilton; or the character that she’d been portraying for so long.

Smarter than meets the eye…

Though she’d portrayed Lola since ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’, Amanda Arcuri’s first-ever storyline came on ‘Degrassi: Next Class’. Her first major storyline was when she unknowingly had used her vibrator as a key chain. She was curious to use it on herself, so she did. But she didn’t feel anything. She thought there was something seriously wrong with her, so she went to the hospital. She asked the nurse if there was anything wrong with her, if she was asexual for asexual. She was so embarrassed that she could barely look at the buds in the eye. But the nurse assured Lola there was absolutely nothing wrong with her; that all different people respond to sexual activities differently.

It was a silly little thing that Lola went through. But it was also so her, and we, I at least, loved her for it. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions. She wasn’t afraid to make herself look stupid. She might’ve been embarrassed, but not scared. The reunion episode where many of the former Degrassi students like Holly J, Emma, Spinner, Paige, Liberty, and more reunited for the school’s big alumni event, which was a totally random unnecessary storyline, was a big one for Lola. She’d witnessed a racist situation that her boyfriend at the time, Tiny, was faced with at the school, and it had to do with Mr. Simpson. Tiny was suspended from school by Mr. Simpson for a fight he didn’t even start. What actually happened was that Tiny was defending his girlfriends against someone who was potentially trying to sexually harass her. Lola got everyone together, current AND former students at the school, unite and protest Tony’s suspension. I guess that was the importance of the alumni students to have been there – to show unity.

The Lola storyline that I can’t help but keep coming back to is where she had an abortion season 3. It happened after numerous of her friends and classmates were involved in that fateful bus crash. It was heavily mentioned in my previous post about Maya and Campbell’s relationship. Tristian, Maya’s best friend who happens to be gay, was left in a coma for months following the accident. His on-and-off boyfriend, Miles (Yes, the same Miles who also dated Maya), was left devastated. He tried hard to move forward with his life despite his situation. To cope, he wrote a school play. Lola had a part in it. With that said, Miles and Lola had gotten closer, and one day, after a day of spending time with their friends, who were all couples, they spent the night together.

The night they spent together wasn’t meant to be anything serious. Miles was still dedicated to Tristian, and Lola respected that. After realizing she’d been taking her birth control pills the wrong way, she has a pregnancy scare. She does end up getting pregnant, but she knows that she doesn’t want to keep the baby. She doesn’t tell anyone, not even her best friends Frankie and Shay. Mostly, it’s because she felt judged for her choices – both for deed of having sex and for her choice to abort the baby. She tries to tell Miles, but he’s being very dismissive towards her. He’d been dismissive since that night they had sex. In the heat of the moment, she tells Yael, her classmate that she’s working on a presentation with, that she’s can’t work on their presentation during lunch because she’s going Downtown to get an abortion.

Much to Lola’s surprise, Yael shows empathy towards Lola’s decision to abort the pregnancy. Yael even orders her an Uber ride and goes with her to her appointment at the clinic. That small act of kindness and moral support was all Lola needed, and it was something that her two best friends, Frankie and Shay lacked to show during her time of need. She just needed emotional support. She needed to know that someone could be there for her without voicing the judgement of her choices. Yael was that for her. She didn’t just not voice her judgement. She didn’t judge her at all. I also want to add that Yael never asked Lola who the father was. She didn’t care about any of those things. Instead, she cared about being there for Lola and being her emotional support when she didn’t have any.

After a technical difficulty during her and Yael’s presentation, her entire class finds out that Lola had an abortion when they see an article she had on her phone that was about abortion through screen share. Lola, embarrassed, storms off in panic. Frankie and Lola follow her to the girls’ bathroom. They try to comfort her in the best way they know how without knowing all the facts. Lola, in turn, doesn’t tell them that they she did, in fact, have an abortion after they call the deed a murder. She storms off, and Frankie and Shay are left with confusion.

Later, Lola and Yael are in school preparing to film a video for Lola’s vlog. She has the intention of creating content relating to beauty and make up. The girl talk about the abortion. Lola tells Yael that she doesn’t regret her decision to abort her pregnancy, but she feels, nor does she feel shame in her decision, but rather that she feels shame and embarrassment in the reactions of others. Yael then reminded Lola that Nicki Minaj had an abortion and felt no shame; that so many women still feel shame for THEIR choice because it’s still such a taboo topic.

This motivated Lola to make a video dedicated to her abortion story. The video starts with, ‘My name is Lola Panini. Yesterday I was pregnant, and now I’m not. And I’d like to talk about it.’ The next shot is of her walking towards Shay and Frankie while they’re sitting on the bench listening to her uploaded video, which says, ‘it might not have been the right choice, but it was the right choice for me.’ Frankie and Shay were surprised Lola didn’t tell them firsthand that she had an abortion; astounded, to say the least. But they were also very supportive and called her courageous.

The friend we all need…

Miles then sees the three girls and makes a joke, without realizing what they were actually talking about. When Frankie says to him what Lola’s vlog was about Lola’s bravery, he makes a mockery of it. But when Frankie tells him thereafter that it was about Lola’s abortion story, he realizes that that was what Lola came to him about and that he neglected her in her time of need. He should’ve been there, but he wasn’t. They didn’t even have to say anything to each other anymore. Lola never revealed to anyone that Miles was the father, and said to Frankie she’d take that information to her grave. She stuck by her statement and never told a single soul. Tristian, though figures out that Miles slept with Lola after seeing them perform their school play. Nevertheless, Tristian forgives him after he heartbreakingly asks Miles if he’s in love with her and he says that he’s not.

Lola’s friends might not have always been there for her, but she’s always there for them – but she’s also never one to play favouritism. Following her pregnancy termination, Lola becomes more distant from Frankie and Shay. Not because they’re not good friends, but because Lola’s life somewhat changed following her life-changing event. The three of them were still friends, but not as close as they used to. With that said, Lola’s friendship with Yael blossomed. Yael was going through gender dysmorphia. Lola was the most supportive towards Yael’s new identity and even gave Yael a makeover that matched her new persona. Lola was the only one who had no hesitation to embrace Yael’s new identity as non-binary. In fact, she encouraged it.

It was the same with newcomer, Saad. He’s a new student at Degrassi who came from Syria. No one seems to like him at the school. Most see him as a terrorist because of where he’s from. But not Lola. She saw him for WHO and the person that he was rather than where he came from. That was just who Lola was as a person. She got to know the people she surrounded herself with rather than judge them based on assumption. The one time we see her break that part of her character was when Shay money from her family restaurant’s tip jar because she was low on cash for a school activity and Shay makes her believe that Saad did it. And the fact that she develops romantic feelings for him throughout their time together doesn’t change anything. She would’ve treated him the same way even if she saw him as just her friend.

Lola is someone who’s not afraid of anything. She’s not afraid to do what’s right; or do what’s right for her, even if others disagree with her, are hurt by it, or judge her. She’s unapologetically herself. And we can’t just go by the examples I mentioned above. Let’s not forget that she didn’t hire Shay to be a busgirl at her family restaurant just because she’s her friend. She had her be interviewed for the job to see if she was the right fit. She wasn’t, and wasn’t hired for the job. Saad was hired instead, but again, not because of favouritism, but because he was the right person for the job. When Shay stole the tip money from the restaurant, she put the blame on Saad because of where he came from. For a minute, Lola believed her, and when she found out that it was, in fact, Shay who stole the money, she immediately apologized to Saad and begged him to take the job she offered him.

Let’s also not forget that back to her beginnings at Degrassi, Frankie’s boyfriend at the time, Winston kissed Lola on a whim, Winston begged Lola not to tell Frankie. She initially doesn’t because she doesn’t want to hurt her friend, but after Frankie tells their teacher that she was the one who cheated on a test by copying Lola’s answers, and she tells her teacher because, in her words, she wanted to do the right thing, Lola can’t take the guilt anymore and tells Frankie the truth. Frankie breaks up with Winston immediately, and shows her appreciation for Lola for telling her even though Winston told her not to, and even though it hurt.

Unapologetically…

I realize that the word I keep using when writing this particular blog post is ‘unapologetically’, so I wanted to elaborate on that a little bit as to why I find it so important to emphasize that part of Lola’s charm is that she’s unapologetically herself throughout her time at Degrassi, which we actually didn’t get to witness to the end because ‘Degrassi: Next Class’ ended when she was finishing grade 11. I was so sad to find out that the show wasn’t going to be renewed, particularly because I wanted to see Lola’s story to develop even further. But at least it ended on a positive and hopeful note. She finally kissed Saad, and he didn’t oblige. A new romance was in the air.

With that being said, Lola is the type of woman that I strive to be, and others should strive to be like her as well. So many women out there are blamed for things they shouldn’t be blamed for, and so many women are made to feel like they should be apologizing for things they shouldn’t. As I wrote this, I was immediately reminded of Anne Hathaway and she was recently apologized for something she didn’t even have to. As you recall, Kjersti Flaa, a journalist who’s built a career interviewing Hollywood celebrities, which includes that cringe 2016 interview with Blake Lively that she did to promote ‘Cafe Society’ where Lively was a complete a**hole and unprofessional, interviewed Hathaway in 2012 for her role Oscar-winning role for ‘Les Miserables’.

Flaa received a lot of love and support after she posted the interview she had to sit through uncomfortably with Blake Lively, which she said almost had her quit her career as a journalist. That interview was completely unprofessional, and Lively’s mockery was out of touch. I’m guessing that since she received that much love and support for interview with Lively, she thought it’d be a good idea to continue the trend in order to get more recognition. And that she did. Her TikTok video of her interviewing Hathaway has more than 10 million views.

And apparently so, Anne Hathaway was 1 of those 10 million who watched the video. Flaa recently posted an entire YouTube video saying that Hathaway apologized to her personally for her behaviour. She said, ‘She sent me a long email explaining to me what she was going through right then and she apologized for giving me an awful interview. It was so touching to me, just talking about it makes me almost teary-eyed. I was just so grateful that she did that. It was a very personal note’

I was a bit confused as to why Hathaway apologized, as well as what she apologized for. I also was 1 of those 10 million that watched the clip Faa posted. In the original video, Flaa began to sing her questions to Hathaway, and hoped that the actress would sing back the answers to her. Hathaway, in turn, declined to do so. Despite her recognizing that doing stunts like this can backfire and create awkwardness, Flaa called the exchange as ‘topnoche cringe’. All I could ask myself was…’Why?’ Why was it topnoche cringe? Why did Anne Hathaway apologize when she did absolutely nothing wrong to begin with?

According to Flaa, Hathaway said she was going through something personal that had happened to her at the time. The details weren’t shared as they agreed to keep that information private. But even if she didn’t go through personal matters at the time of the interview, her ‘cringe’ behaviour was absolutely valid. There’s a saying that goes, ‘’No’ is a full sentence’. So why is a woman still made out to feel like she has to apologize for saying ‘No’? And not only that, but by another woman as well? Women are supposed to support one another; encourage one another; defend one another. We’re not supposed to tear each other down and make it out like we’re supposed to apologize. Maybe Flaa is the actual problem. Maybe she should work on her interviewing skills. Journalism isn’t for the weak. It’s a tough job, and you have to have a thick skin. It takes creativity and a strong levelled mindset. Maybe Flaa just doesn’t have what it takes. Hathaway did say that she’d like to be interviewed by Flaa when she promotes her next project, so I’d love to see whether she’d improved her interviewing skills since 2012. Her interview with Blake Lively seemed to be an improvement, though, especially with how she handled the actress’s ignorance from beginning to end.

And in recent days, former One Direction member, Liam Payne died at age 31 after he fell (or jumped, depending on where you read about it) off of a third story balcony. Media coverage has been absolutely insane in the days that followed. TMZ even crossed a line by posting (and then deleting) a photo of his dead body on their website. I’ll write more about him in a future post, but for now, I’d like to discuss the women in his life that he’d been linked to. His most notable relationship was with Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud. They initially met when he first auditioned for The X Factor when he was 14 and she was 24. They then reconnected years later and began dating in 2016. In 2017, they had a son, Bear, but broke off their relationship the following year. Despite this, they remained on good terms and continued to co-parent their son. Payne had nothing but praise for the mother of his child. He even called her the most important person in his life.

Following his breakup with Cole, Payne dated, and was even engaged to, Maya Henry between 2019 and 2022. At the time of his death, he was in a long-term relationship with influencer, Kate Cassidy. Maya Henry released a fictional book back in May k this year that’s based on her relationship with Payne. The book chronicles a young woman who’s in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, and one of the numerous things that happen to her is that she aborts her pregnancy as her boyfriend forces her to. That’s exactly what happened to Henry, and she said that if it was completely up to her, she would’ve kept the baby. In a twisted fate, the fictional pop star in Henry’s book was a pop star who threatens to jump off a balcony during a drug-fueled rage.

In one passage, Henry writes, ‘He stands outside, in the dark London night, sobbing and unsteady, the handrail only a few feet away. And below that is the cold hard pavement. I watch in horror as he sways a bit, unsteady on his feet, inching ever closer to the railing. He has to stop, I think. I have to stop him.’ In another scene in the book, Henry writes, ‘They have done extensive work to control his destructive impulses, I learn, but he continues to grapple with demons relating to deep-seated trauma. The pressure of fame and an unrelenting schedule only exacerbates these trauma-related demons and leads to episodes of impulsive destructivity.’ In the end, Mallory, the character based on Henry, leaves Oliver, the character based on Payne following the Covid-19 pandemic after living together and having a security guard live with them as well. Mallory leaving was the only way the cycle of abuse ended.

In real-life, though, the abusive behaviour Henry experienced at the hands of Payne didn’t end with the breakup. It only escalated. In an October 6th TikTok video, Henry said, ‘Ever since we broke up he messages me, will blow up my phone, not only from his phone, it’s always from different phone numbers too, so I never know where it’s gonna come from. He’ll create new iCloud accounts to message me – it’s always a new damn iCloud account. Every time I see one pop up on my phone I’m like, ‘here we f–kng go again’. Also, he will email me… not only me, but he’ll blow up my mom’s phone. Is this normal behavior to you? He would always message me ever since we broke up saying, ‘Oh, I’m not well. There was one time I tried to get him help and then he was not taking it. He would text my mom, ‘I’m not doing well, have Maya contact me,’ because I wouldn’t respond. It’s just always the same cycle. I don’t play with death. If you say this, I’m going to try and help you no matter what you’ve done. I think he took advantage of my family’s kindness. He would always just say, ‘I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done. I can’t live with myself,’ but then is continuing to try and traumatize me. know the lifestyle he lives, and there is a day when something bad is going to happen, so I would always be like, ‘OK, he’s saying these things, I have to help him because if I don’t I won’t be able to live with myself if something does happen to him.’’

That’s the thing with domestic violence and abuse. Just days before Payne’s death, Henry filed a cease-and decease against him for still continuing to harass her and her family. According to reports following his death, the legal drama took a toll on the singer’s death. Henry also opened up in a recent interview that Payne’s friend at one point begged her not to release her book, and said that if anything were to happen to him, she’d be the one who’d be blamed. Now that he is, in fact, dead, many of his fans are actually supportive of her, and have nothing but praise for her. But I’m only basing this on the comments I’ve been seeing. What I CAN say for sure is that what his friend said to her was just as bad as what Payne himself had done to her.

Payne’s girlfriend at the time of his death? She was with him in Argentina, but left to go home 4 days before his death. When telling her followers why she left, she just said she wanted to go home because it was time. What was supposed to be just a 5 day trip turned into two weeks. Just before he died, Payne scheduled Snapchat stories to be posted of his time in Argentina. His girlfriend was in those snaps. People were quick to comment questioning her actions as to why she left him alone in Argentina. Some people even blamed her for his death.

But why????

Why is society so quick to judge, question and blame women for others’ decisions and actions? Why are women made out to be the villains in someone’s story? Why are women meant to feel like they need to apologize when they have nothing to apologize for in the first place? These are just a few of the many, many questions that need to be answered by society of their treatment of women. It’s just so disappointing and saddening to me to know that we’re still living in such a world in 2024, where women are held responsible for what others, particularly men, do or don’t do. Is it really morally right to blame a woman for a man’s downfall? Is it right for a woman to be held responsible for a man’s failure? Is it morally right to blame a woman for being abused by a man? And is it morally right to make a woman feel like she needs to apologize when she doesn’t?

These are the questions that keep running through my head. These are the questions that I want answers to. These are the questions that we analyze in this blog post alone, which is why it’s so freaking long. This blog post was supposed to be about Lola’s character in ‘Degrassi: Next Class, but it became so much more. It became about women to its entirety, and we only used Lola, Anne Hathaway, and Liam Payne’s exes as examples. But there are so many other women to consider too, such as Ellen DeGeneres and Allison Holker. But more about them at a later time, I promise.

Let’s end this discussion on a more positive note, because this blog is meant to be just that – positive. We already discuss such heavy subjects. It would be a real shame to end a blog post with anger or sadness. With that said, I want to go back to the very beginning. I want to talk about Lola, and tell you why she’s actually the best character in the entire Degrassi franchise. Lola from ‘Degrassi: Next Class’ is meant to be a high school student. She’s meant to be a teenage girl. But she’s so much wiser; she’s wiser beyond her years. She wants to have love in her life, but she doesn’t want it just from anyone. She wants it from people she feels are deserving of her time. She doesn’t let anyone to mess with her. She knows exactly what she wants, and she knows exactly what she needs to do to get it. And she doesn’t let anyone get in her way, no matter who she offends in the process. So many women, women much older than what Lola is supposed to be, have trouble with that. Many women don’t know who they really are or who they’re meant to be. But Lola does. That’s what makes her so unique. And that’s why all women around the world should strive to be like her.