Sumith Prasad
Hulu’s teen show ‘Love, Victor’ centers around Victor Salazar, a sophomore student who joins Creekwood High School, located in the town of Shady Creek, Georgia, after moving to the town from Texas. Victor’s time at Creekwood High influences him severely to come out as gay. He also falls in love with Benji Campbell, who attends Creekwood High like Victor. Since Victor meets Benji and his close friends, including Mia, Rahim, etc., after moving to Shady Creek and starting to attend Creekwood High, the locality and school play pivotal roles in his life. Naturally, one must be eager to know whether they are based on a real region and school. Let’s find out!
Is Creekwood High a Real School?
‘Love, Victor’ is inspired by Becky Albertalli’s YA novel ‘Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda’ and its film adaptation titled ‘Love, Simon,’ written by the creators of the show Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger. Creekwood High is a school that originally appears in Albertalli’s novel. Albertalli reportedly based Creekwood High on her alma mater Riverwood International Charter School. Riverwood is located in the city of Sandy Springs, Georgia. The educational institution is one of the four magnet schools located in Fulton County.
While writing the original novel, Albertalli’s life as a teen, while studying at Riverwood, influenced her to conceive the life of Simon Spier, the protagonist. Even though Creekwood High and Riverwood are schools situated in Georgia, the façade of Hamilton High School, located in Los Angeles, California, appears in the show to establish Creekwood High. The interior scenes set in the school were apparently filmed in soundstages in production studios. The third season of the show was chiefly filmed in Fox Studio Lot, a production facility situated in Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Even though Albertalli was reportedly inspired by Riverwood to create the world of Creekwood High, the characters in her novel and the show are fictional.
Is Shady Creek a Real Town?
Shady Creek is a fictionalized version of Sandy Springs, an inner-ring suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Becky Albertalli grew up in Sandy Springs and considers Shady Creek as “a very thinly veiled version” of the real suburb. In an interview given in April 2015, Albertalli expressed how difficult it is to come out in Sandy Springs. The challenges Victor or Simon face to come out and exist as a gay boy in Shady Creek might not be drastically different from the experiences of a queer individual growing up in Sandy Springs.
Even the religious tensions, concerning the queer community, present in a locality like Sandy Springs are also a part of the social life of Shady Creek in Albertalli’s novel and ‘Love, Victor.’ Like Sandy Springs, Shady Creek is also a locality with a pleasing appeal. However, the show didn’t film in the Atlanta suburb. As per sources, ‘Love, Victor’ was filmed in Los Angeles and locations in the City of Angels were used to place the narrative in Shady Creek.
Read More: Are Lake and Lucy Gay or Bisexual in Love, Victor?
