Netflix excels at pumping out original series for all age groups and its newest addition to the teen genre is On My Block. Unlike Everything Sucks!, another coming-of-age series set in the '90s in the town of Boring, On My Block takes place in current times in an inner-city neighborhood of Los Angeles. Because of its realistic setting, On My Block could be a true story. But the show is fictional and from the minds of Lauren Iungerich (Awkward), Eddie Gonzalez, and Jeremy Haft (both writers for the Tupac Shakur movie All Eyez On Me). Yet, that doesn't change how accurate On My Block is at portraying life for teens in an inner-city neighborhood as the main cast members discussed in an interview with Bustle during a Netflix press junket.
On My Block, which premiered on March 16, follows a group of four friends — Cesar, Ruby, Monse, and Jamal — as they enter high school. While they have to deal with the trials and tribulations that are often portrayed in coming-of-age stories on TV and in movies, they also must face violence that's occurring in their neighborhood. And although that dynamic is normal for kids who grow up in community like the one in On My Block, it's not commonly shown on TV.
Yet, the cast members said how the blend of humor and violence that their characters experience is very much based in reality. "It's a real story," Cesar actor Diego Tinoco says. "It feels normal to me," Ruby actor Jason Genao adds. "I love that it's getting told. Because when it does get told, it's just the entire violent part. It's all the bad. But this is showing you that it happens in these areas because that's the way it is, but you don't drown in it."
Jamal actor Brett Gray adds, "If you've grown up in an inner city or underprivileged neighborhood, you know the blocks you don't walk down, you know the neighborhoods you don't go to without friends, you know the bus routes that you're not supposed to be on," he says. "So I feel like it's so normal for me to be on a show like this where it's comedy intermittent with violence and drama and gangs and stuff like that because that's life. I feel like it might not be as revolutionary as people think, it's just not being told as much."
Even if the violence that Cesar, Ruby, Monse, and Jamal face in On My Block in their community and school isn't relatable to some viewers, the cast thinks the series can start a dialogue. "Hopefully it opens the conversation of more people who are not from an inner city [neighborhood] to talk to people who are," Gray says. "And also for people who are going through the same things as our characters ... to say, 'This is valid and this wasn't uniquely my own experience. There are other people out there who are like me and this is how we can hopefully triumph in situations like this.'"
But the cast also notes that what their characters go through isn't exclusive to the community that's represented in On My Block. "A lot of times you don't have to be on a block for this to happen, you don't have to be in an inner city [neighborhood] to experience the things we experience. That's a stereotype, unfortunately," Monse actor Sierra Capri says.
"It's closer than people think it is," Genao says. "The show is just telling the story of us. It's part of our everyday life. For other cities that are close to these types of scenarios that have no idea that they are, I hope that they look at the characters and fall in love with the characters and realize that there's people like that that are living there not by choice. So there's no judgment."
"It's literally just the story of these characters that live in this place and go through these things," Gray says.
"Hopefully it gives the other end of the world a way in to see that this is what's happening in the youth. So imagine the people that are younger than the people in On My Block, and imagine the people that have been through worse than the people on On My Block. It's almost like a mirror but not at themselves, it's into something else."
So while Cesar, Jamal, Monse, and Ruby aren't real people, On My Block is most certainly telling a truthful experience of four kids, who just happen to grow up in a dangerous Los Angeles neighborhood. And whether you can relate to their experiences directly or not, you'll still be moved by their story.
Additional reporting by Dana Getz.
