Not Your Mom’s Forever: Netflix Turns a Banned Book Into ADHD Gold

Not Your Mom’s Forever: Netflix Turns a Banned Book Into ADHD Gold

BY JASON SELIGSON

Forever, Netflix’s breakout young adult series, reimagines a classic – and frequently banned – Judy Blume novel, with some tweaks: an all-black cast and a neurodivergent protagonist. In a crowded television landscape, Forever stands out as more than just a fizzy romance; it takes its characters seriously and spotlights a nuanced, complex neurodivergent character who bucks stereotypes and discovers that his ADHD is a superpower.

Helmed by Mara Brock Akil, the adaptation updates the 1975 story for a modern era and focuses on two Black teenagers, Justin (Michael J. Cooper) and Keisha (Lovie Simone). The pair originally met in preschool, and after reconnecting years later at a party, fall for each other fast.

Justin, a high school junior, is preparing to apply for colleges and trying to score more playtime on the basketball team, all while managing his ADHD. As a neurodivergent Black kid in a predominately white school, he frequently masks and feels pressure to succeed. He struggles in academic settings and has an executive function tutor. An early scene in the classroom depicts masking when he gets distracted by thoughts of Keisha until the bell rings and snaps him back to reality. As Justin watches his peers leave, his teacher encourages him to take the extra time he’s been allotted for the exam. Justin looks around the room, visibly uncomfortable, and says, “With all due respect…can we just not?” Then he bolts to go find Keisha. 

Justin is also laser-focused on pleasing his parents, who expect him to get into a top university despite his lackluster GPA. Another weight on his shoulders: potentially being the first man in his family to go to college. His parents have a fixed vision of what his future should look like. They push him to excel in sports because of his academic challenges – “These are the cards we’ve been dealt,” his mother says. 

But no matter how much they try to push it, his parents’ dream isn’t his. When he’s alone in his room, we see Justin’s true passion: music. Any time he’s making beats, he lights up, becoming so absorbed that he’s able to hyperfocus. Music is literally his love language, as swapping songs becomes an important way Justin and Keisha initially bond.

Amid all the obstacles keeping them apart and the tension of young love, Justin and Keisha’s chemistry is genuine throughout because of how much they truly see each other. In a memorable exchange in the second episode, Justin asks Keisha if she thinks he’s weird, and she responds, “I want my own word for you… what about ‘otherworldly’?” It’s a wonderfully subversive bit of dialogue where the show refuses to mock Justin or paint him as deficient. In contrast to his parents, Keisha sees his ADHD as an asset, an intrinsic part of who he is – not an obstacle to overcome. 

In Forever, neurodivergence is treated as a strength, and a central part of Justin’s arc is learning to embrace the hidden parts of himself.

Keisha helps Justin realize that he should pave his own path, unlocking the creativity that he’s always had. “My ADHD is my superpower,” he finally writes in his long-gestating college essay. “Where the rest of the world looks at a situation and sees one or two paths, I see many.” 

In the season finale, Justin tells his parents who he really is, not who they want him to be. The scenes where he finally takes charge are some of the most satisfying in the whole show because he’s learned that his ADHD is not an inadequacy. He’s no longer masking: he tells them how hard it was to go through his elite prep schools and confesses that he’s happiest when making music. In the end, he opts to defer his Northwestern admission and take a gap year to work on his music portfolio, a choice that feels earned for the character and the audience.

Throughout the show, it’s evident that Brock Akil has carefully considered the ways race and neurodivergence intersect. “Justin’s honesty and maturity actually is linked to ADHD,” the showrunner told Rolling Stone. “A lot of our children are misdiagnosed in the system. Not detecting the way [Black] children learn sends them in the wrong direction, and for Black boys that is a direct correlation to prison.”

By depicting a neurodivergent black character who learns to embrace his strengths and differences, Brock Akil subverts stereotypes that contribute to misdiagnosis and expands the breadth of ADHD representation in film and television. 

Netflix swiftly ordered a second season, and it’s exciting to think about what’s in store next for Justin and Keisha. Will they get back together? What does Justin’s gap year look like? Watching a neurodivergent character grow and change, unmask and become their authentic self across multiple seasons is a rare gift that we so rarely get to see on our screens. 

Here’s to more Forever. 

BIO: Jason Seligson is a culture writer based in New York City. He has written for NBCUniversal and New York Magazine.