Portrayed by: Belmont Cameli
Show: Off Campus
When I think about the first male romantic lead whose journey has stayed the longest with me, I always think about Nathan Scott. Twelve-year-old me had no business watching this little show called One Tree Hill, but she did it anyway, stopping at every magazine stand to see if there was an issue with a new poster for her gallery wall. To top this off, Nathan and Haley’s romance was integral in shaping the kind of fictional romance fan I’d become, serving as the blueprint in many ways for young and new adult dramas.
And I think that if you’re a Nathan Scott girl, it’s almost impossible not to fall in love with Garrett Graham. (Though I think a lot of this could also apply to John Logan as a character, too.) It’s impossible not to see the parallels in the same way that there are similarities between Hannah Wells and Haley James Scott. And it’s a really lovely experience when fiction can intertwine, even when they have nothing to do with each other, because it’s part of what makes watching movies and TV shows such a rewarding journey. The tethers that connect our thirties and early teen years remind us that some things never change. A gentle-natured athlete whose steadfast loyalty is a huge part of his heart will always be something that’s welcomed. If nowhere else, at least with me.
Garrett Graham and The Fight to Be Better
If there are young girls falling in love with Off Campus today, I hope their significant others are watching, too. Because ultimately, what makes the show so exceptional is that it’s part of a lineup of series consciously playing a role in dismantling toxic masculinity. As women, we’re comfortable with our emotions. It isn’t surprising or frowned upon if we cry, and instead, it’s almost always expected of us when we feel something deeply. The same can’t be said about men, but thankfully, shows like Ted Lasso, Shrinking, and countless others in the last decade have made it a point to fire back at toxic masculinity by reminding people that boys can crumble, too. It’s healthier to feel their emotions than to hold everything in because true strength lies in shedding armor as opposed to doubling up on it.
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Because of this, Garrett’s journey is incredibly rewarding, giving us the portrait of a man who goes from carrying the weight of his last name on his shoulders to a person who remembers that being a leader is sharing the space with the guy on his right. He goes from a guy who doesn’t do girlfriends to one who falls so hard and so fast that he becomes the safest space for the girl whose agency and autonomy were taken from her.
All of this is a result of the choices he consistently makes to better himself, not only to ensure that he doesn’t become like his father, but perhaps even, instinctually, to make his mom proud. Because that’s a part of grief that sticks with you—the drive to do right by the person you lost. The need to ensure that they’re proud of all that you’ve accomplished. To Garrett, his mother is synonymous with strength and joy. Stability. Love. His mother, Elizabeth Graham (according to IMDb), shaped so much of who he is and who he wants to be.
Phil Graham, however, is a literal panopticon for Garrett. Cracks knuckles—sorry, the English Lit major in me literally has to do some theory studies here. It seems only fitting for the history major. Foucault’s panopticon theory is one of my favorites to utilize with complex characters, especially when they’re the ones like Garrett Graham. A character who’s tirelessly under the all-mighty watchful eye. Phil Graham isn’t always around physically, but his impact is a goliath to Garrett. The ultimate shadow he’s tirelessly fighting against, even when his father isn’t in the room. It’s a riveting and heartbreaking piece of his story that comes to life especially well through Belmont Calemi’s performance.
Blink, and you’ll miss the moments where the darkness from his past rises to the surface, and damn-near suffocates him. We first see in the way he flinches when Hannah asks him if he “gets off on beating people up [in hockey],” and it’s later an ever-present shadow that we catch through hard swallows, jaw clenches, or the tension that stiffens his shoulders at the mere mention of his father. As Coach Jensen says to Hannah, “Garrett’s last name carries weight.” And the layers that Cameli conveys that weight through is no small feat. It’s part of what makes the character so complex and fascinating to watch.
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There’s a lot I’ve broken down about the specific moment in the car, but there’s also the palpable rage that comes through the surface when Garrett reunites with his dad at the stairwell in “The Faceoff.” The brilliance of that scene taking place in such a secluded place is where, once again, the directing in Off Campus shines because it adds depth to the darkness by pointing out all the heaviness. They’re physically surrounded by walls of concrete, showcasing Phil’s stifling effect on Garrett through a shattering analogy. The fact that Garrett then shuts Phil out completely amid these walls is such a fascinating way to remind us that he’s continued to rise through all the pain and suffering caused by him. He’s surrounded by bleak, grey walls every time the camera pans to him, yet that’s not where Garrett Graham chooses to stay, and there’s so much depth to these details.
The aches that Cameli brings to the surface in those moments, as we watch him visibly fight against the rage inside of him, never to become like his father, is the very thing that exemplifies the panopticon looming over his head and tormenting him internally. It’s why the decisions he makes with Hannah afterward make complete sense with the break-up, and the absence of the “campus-wide hands-off law.” More importantly, it’s what puts his heart visibly at the center of the narrative when he finally comes to a place where he recognizes that his faults lie in the act of bottling things up.
But that’s the thing about men. They aren’t always given the safe space to understand that they can crumble and still be worthy of the love that’s around them. Hockey is such a traditionally masculine sport—as most sports are in a lot of different ways—and that masculinity often manifests through rage and armor, both physical and metaphorical. Their gear guards them, but they all have walls around their hearts, too. That’s what’s expected. Demanded, almost. They’re conditioned to withhold everything that they’re feeling and channel it through the madness that comes to the surface on the rink. Yet, with Garrett, we get the beauty of what happens when everything unravels and forces people to feel.
The Gentle Giant
And then there’s the reality of who Garrett Graham is. The man we see in the moments where he starts to crack his heart wide open just for Hannah, doing things like helping her set up at the restaurant in “The Practice” and neatly folding her clothes beside her windowsill after a night when she’s been drinking. We get the man who fully and without a shadow of a doubt understands the importance of agency, recognizing that in the same way that control matters to him, it matters even more to Hannah.
It’s why their relationship unfolds so beautifully because they give each other the safe space to land. With Hannah, the demons in Garrett’s head grow a little quieter. The world stills, and he can just be a boy who really loves music and laughs with his whole chest when he watches her light come to the surface. He can be the friend who opens up and pulls someone away from a fight as opposed to charging right into one.
The concept of “watching people” is very much a theme that’s present throughout Off Campus, and we first get it in the opening shot where Hannah walks in on a naked Garrett, showering in the locker room. Then, we see it as he looks over her shoulder and notices her grade in the classroom, but even more gorgeously comes the scene where he watches her dance her heart out to Elton John’s “The B!tch Is Back.” Afterward, we see it through some light social media stalking, followed by the confession that he saw her in the greenroom and she centered him. Subsequently, there’s the way he guards her drinks as he watches her call him out while singing karaoke, and the way they both watch each other during their first time. Where there’s very little respect or consent outside of their relationship, with Hannah and Garrett, it’s the glue that ensures the trust between them continues to expand.
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The way that Off Campus showcases how the characters get out of their own heads and learn to give parts of themselves willingly, even when there’s too much taken from them, is where their journeys shine best. This is how we learn that Garrett really is a gentle giant, and his tenderness is what makes him more of a man than anything else. The sole fact that he doesn’t react to her lack of communication in “The Faceoff” with anger but with concern for Hannah says everything. It reminds us of his constant and acute awareness of her well-being, comfort, and safety, which shows us just how much of a caretaker he really is.
It’s the way that he learns to open up and how he takes care of people around him that speaks to the person his mother raised and the little boy who was forced to grow up too soon. It’s this inherent kindness that shows us he’s more than capable of being a good man because he listens and pays attention. (We also get a solid, small moment of substantial character growth when he apologizes to Kendall and tells her that he would’ve done things differently if he understood how bad unrequited love hurt.)
Characters like Garrett Graham often represent people in the real world, too. Men who’ve grown up with awful fathers and exist in a constant state of terror that it’s somehow a genetic predisposition where they’ll someday turn into a monster, too. But that couldn’t be further from the truth because it’s all a matter of the choices people make, and Garrett Graham is a man who’s ceaselessly fighting to make the choices that ensure everyone around him is happy—taken care of. By the end of Season 1, it’s clear that no matter how much darkness still exists around him, he’s choosing to let his walls down.
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And anger itself isn’t a wrong emotion. It’s natural. It’s human. But it’s what we do in our rage that matters, and Garrett comes to a place where he finally opens up to his best friend. He centers himself. He understands and recognizes where he went wrong, and he chooses to continue cheering for the team who’ve stood by him with unwavering support. Not to be saccharine, but he chooses to lead with his heart. His more gentle nature is now on full display, all while he falls back in love with the sport that was once tethered to a lot more pain than joy.
He’s the guy who really loves music and sees the value of Dirty Dancing. He’s the man who understands agency and autonomy. And by the end, he’s someone who chooses to love, even while he’s hurting, which makes his journey a tremendous achievement from start to finish. And I, for one, can’t wait to see where he goes from here. Because in Season 1 alone, Cameli gives us so much with every expression, every small shift in his body language, that there’s not a single scene you can’t pinpoint something profound to analyze. The intimate understanding of Garrett as a character from the books ensures that he comes to life so brilliantly on screen that even without exposition and internal thoughts, we see it all through the performance.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Liane Hentscher/Prime
This deep dive will be updated after Off Campus Season 2.