Abhiroop Das
Created by Quinn Shephard, Netflix’s ‘The Body’ dials back to the 2000s, exploring a curious event that unfolds in and around St. Mark’s Catholic School. The Lions, the school’s much-prided dance team, have a secret initiation ritual that they perform every time a new teammate is added. The entrant this time is Grace Franklin, who hardly has a second to breathe before she is pulled into a world of parties, drugs, and alcohol. However, when the ritual goes sideways and Grace has to pay the price, the entire group finds itself trapped in a vicious cycle. Much of the drama in this coming-of-age psychological horror series takes place in St. Mark’s, where the question of one’s faith intertwines with other questions, creating a rich tapestry of the human experience.
St. Mark’s Catholic School is a Fictional Setting That Serves as the Core of the Show
St. Mark’s Catholic School is a fictional school created by Quinn Shephard and her writing team as the main setting of ‘The Body.’ Given that the entire story is centered around the character’s faith and builds on how they engage with it, it makes sense for the writers to conceptualize a story-specific religious institution. The name here is a reference to Saint Mark, also known as Mark the Evangelist, who is traditionally symbolized by a winged lion. This connects to the fact that the school’s famous dance team is named the Lions, bringing the whole narrative mesh together. Moreover, co-showrunner Gina Gammell’s own experiences as a non-Christian in an all-girls Christian high school inform the way the students engage with the atmosphere of the school.
The school’s fictional nature also plays a very important role in the broader thematic messaging of the show. Talking to What’s on Netflix, Shephard explained that this story is as interested in the “beautiful aspects of faith” as it is in the “systems that exploit or manipulate the human desire for faith.” For a nuanced portrayal as this, it makes sense for the writers to avoid unnecessary parallels with real life. Shephard herself attended public school but revealed during an interview with Marie Claire that, as a teenager, she was so committed to the aesthetic that she would write rosaries and thrift school uniforms despite not attending a religious school. In a way, that same sense of charm and style is captured in the show’s depiction of St. Mark’s, balancing this perspective with a more realistic social commentary.
While St. Mark’s Catholic School may be an invented institution, the production actually utilized real buildings to create the illusion of a catholic school. Reportedly, the Northcliffe campus of Columbia International College, located at 574 Northcliffe Avenue in Dundas, Ontario, serves as the primary stand-in for the school on-screen. The crew also took over Wycliffe College, situated at 5 Hoskin Avenue, and it’s a seamless blend of such real-life locations that ultimately brings the show to life. While filming may have mostly taken place at colleges, both the interiors and exteriors also fit perfectly into the show’s design for St. Mark’s. Ultimately, however, it’s the narrative itself that lets the school shine as a springboard for its themes, messages, and keen exploration of teen, especially queer teen, experiences.
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