Black Boy Flying: A TSFGMag Review of Netflix’s “Raising Dion”
Raising Dion is a new Netflix original show that premiered on October 4, 2019 and is based on the comic book by Dennis Liu, who is also the director of the short film with the same name. The project initially premiered as a web TV show in 2015, was picked up by Netflix in 2017, and finally premiered. Raising Dion is about a young black boy named Dion (Ja’Siah Young). While growing up in modern Atlanta, he discovers he has superpowers right before his eighth birthday. The powers are soon revealed to his mother Nicole (Alisha Wainwright) who “is a former professional dancer who gave it up to raise her son Dion when her husband Mark (Michael B. Jordan) dies. Nicole is left alone to raise Dion while trying to figure out where the powers have come from and how to control them.
Overall, I enjoyed watching Raising Dion. They did an excellent job with inclusivity among the cast by discussing social issues that exist within our current political and social climate. Instantly, you fall in love with some of the youngest characters: Dion and Esperanza. According to the actress herself, Sammi Haney:
“Esperanza is a bright classmate of Dion who has brittle bone disease like me. A brilliant artist who is wise beyond her years, she looks out for Dion in an endearing manner, and though it takes a while, Dion grows to realize she is his best friend.”
The casting crew and the writers did a great job with their young actors and were able to represent issues affecting them, such as adverse childhood experiences like losing a parent, racist profiling in education, ableism, respecting boundaries, and toxic masculinity.
That being said, comparing Raising Dion to their other youthful supernatural counterparts (Netflix’s Stranger Things & The Umbrella Academy) the character development was weak at times, exemplified by the relationship between Nicole and her sister Kat (Jazmyn Simon). I honestly didn’t realize that they were siblings until Kat mentions it a third of the way through the season. We meet Kat in episode one, after Nicole has discovered Dion’s powers. and I initially thought she was just another one of Nicole’s friends, and one who was extremely judgmental. But knowing that they were sisters, didn’t make it less confusing on why she was so harsh to her. Even if she was her older sister, it didn’t explain her harshness towards her younger, grieving, sister. Later in the season when she has to pick between her career and saving Nicole and Dion, I’m not fully convinced by her ultimate choice to save Nicole and Dion because her love for them never felt like family. Perhaps, season 2 would soften her character. Dion’s aunt also provides sapphic representation and not through a special pride-packed episode, just an standard introduction of her partner, which was nice to see it treated casually like any other relationship.
The plot sometimes felt scattered, like the writers were constantly always trying to build suspense for the final conflict, but skipped over several scenes along the way, so that while Dion is about to be attacked by the antagonist, Nicole (a grieving single woman struggling with single motherhood and working class reality, which seems far more relevant and interesting)…is busy falling in love. I understand the writers were trying to take mundane experiences and intertwine them with supernatural experiences, but the struggle between the two just left both of them seeming underdeveloped.
Although the show started off slow and despite the character inconsistencies, by the end, I was in tears. I was left wanting more. Science fiction fans will enjoy. So, Netflix, here’s to more episodes. Hopefully, next season the writers are going to have to do a better job at developing whole, complete and fully meaningful characters and interpersonal relationships like the ones seen in the original comic.
