- [Producer] You're all sitting together
at a lunch table now.
Do you think you would've been friends in high school?
- I think so. - Yeah.
- We've talked about this.
- I think so, too. - Heck yeah.
- I definitely think so.
- A hundred percent.
- I mean, we're basically back in high school now,
and we're just besties. - Yeah, pretty much we're
in the same hallways every week.
- Me and Gijs would have been the bestest of friends.
- I would be like, "Uh can I trade my carrots
for your Fruit Roll-Ups, please?"
- And I'd be like, "No."
- We would have connected some way.
- We would have. - Yeah.
- We would have crossed paths for sure.
- For sure.
- We definitely would have been buds.
- For sure.
- Because I was full-blown theater nerd and so were you.
- Oh yeah.
- I absolutely think so.
- Well I was just friends
with everyone. - I don't know.
- I don't know.
- Me? You don't know?
- Like, just seeing you from a distance
you're probably like oh,
but then, like, meeting you,
you're like, the sweetest person.
(laughing)
- [Chase] Some of the topics that our show explores
I think is
one, male to female respect.
I don't think you see that a lot in TV,
and there is some stuff in our show that really gives you
an honest experience of what it's like to be
in a circumstance where a guy and a girl are young
and are not sure what the next step is.
But the respect that you give to a female as a male
that you don't really see portrayed
in today's day and age, - [Madison] Yeah.
- [Chase] or in a lot of circumstances.
So I think it's really cool to be a show that comes out
that has a message like that,
especially for a young guy
to be like, "Oh, that's how you should treat a girl
in that circumstance,"
because I don't think we give enough of that.
- Well, it's cool to be feminist now.
- Yeah.
- [Jaz] And it was not cool to be feminist
like, a few years ago.
- Like, all of our female characters are really strong,
and they're not dependent on anyone.
- Yeah.
- And I think having more dynamic female characters
reminds women that your purpose is not just
to love and support a man,
that it is to be an awesome, badass person on your own.
- I think what's good about it is that
the story isn't actually about that.
It's just a fact.
Like it is in the real world. - Yeah, Exactly.
- Because women are strong.
- [Jaz] Magic is such a cool platform to speak on like,
femininity in general.
- [Lachlan] It's super cool.
It's also, yeah, a world where you can kind of be
whatever you want to be,
and in this sort of like, magical in between.
And I think Theo very much is happy there too,
where it's this like, middle ground
that I think magic provides
where it does give you that freedom to be like, "Yeah."
- Or like, you can be angry, - Yeah.
- and here's a way to express that.
- [Lachlan] Or you can be anything you want to be.
You can be a spider. - Or you can be bad.
- If you want to be.
- And be a woman,
and that's cool, you know. - Yeah.
- It's freedom. - Yeah.
- Yeah, for sure. - There's a lot of freedom
in the feminist motives.
- As far as friendships between women of color,
you don't see a lot of that.
Like, we saw it growing up, but it wasn't like it is now
where the possibilities are endless.
So the fact that characters like Monse and Jasmin
get to have moments in growing up where
they bond, and they have a lot more in common
than they probably think they do.
I think that it's really important to show
it doesn't matter,
I don't think, what your background is.
- And I think the show shows a lot of comaraderie
that you don't really get
from like, other shows. - [Madelyn] Yeah.
- And these kids like, they have nothing like,
there's no phones, they don't have generators,
they're living with no power,
and they still find a way to kind of come together,
- Yeah.
- and go get what they want.
They work well off each other,
and I think they bring out the best
in each other when they're together.
- This group of kids, they love each other
for what they have internally,
and it has nothing to do with the exterior.
I mean, he wears like, a tank top
and boots half the show.
- He has shorts on, too.
(laughs)
- And cargo shorts.
- But the thing is is like, it's his heart
It's the way that he treats people,
it's, you know, his intellect,
it's her heart,
it's the way that she treats people,
it's like, everybody has their specific thing
on top of this like, beautiful friendship
that makes it very authentic.
And there's no want for this materialistic world
that I think that society portrays us
to want to have.
We look at everything that the media portrays to us,
and it's like, why is it that
versus like, looking for somebody's heart
and touching to them for that reason.
- The mainstream sort of portrays like, the stereotypes
of like if you're like, - The darkness, a lot.
- you know, if you look like me or Jess
then it's probably gonna be somewhat like an immigrant story
or something like that,
and then this is just like, a very simple,
'On My Block' tells very simple everyday stories.
- But from a very different point of view.
- And I think that's really realistic of high school
because not everybody's going through the same thing,
everybody has a different home life,
everybody has a different background,
and different struggles.
- [Thaddea] I think our show is heavily about,
kind of young people
trying to navigate a broken adult world.
- Yeah, adults often underestimate young adults
and teenagers and children,
and I think they shouldn't
because they are smarter than they think they are.
- As you can see now, especially in 2020,
you see Greta Thunberg and stuff.
She's a young teen that's stepping forward to do something
about like, the things that are going wrong.
- It's about doing what is actually right,
- Right.
- instead of doing what people say is right.
- [Thaddea] Yeah.
- Our show does a good job of that.
- I think it does.
- Because y'all get stuff done.
- Yeah, just embracing female power in general
just feels really good, because I believe that for sure.