Quick Thoughts On #507 (Spoilers)

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     I've been preparing a list called "The Ten Worst Episodes Of Daria" and,
after viewing "Art Burn", I believe I have a new candidate to join the bunch.
Exceptionally flat, humorless episode.  Hard to believe Dan Vebber wrote it,
particularly considering he penned the hilarious "Jake of Hearts".  Halfway
through, I was hoping the Fashion Club / Caricature subplot would deliver a few
laughs, but even that came up short.  Trent added zilch - in truth, it seemed
like he was on Thorazine for most of the episode. (I mean more so than usual)
This one gets no higher than a C-, and even that may be overly generous.
     But, since this was only the second dud of Season 5, ("Fizz Ed" being the
other) I am fairly optimistic that Eichler & Co. will provide fans of this
outstanding show a rousing finish during the last six weeks plus the movie.

Not to mention the now-historic- I Loathe a Parade.

Halfway

Agreed. Although the final scene with Stacy was sweet IMHO.

Trent added zilch - in truth, it seemed

I actually thought it was funny his situation with the contractors. But as someone else posted here, they could have had Daria doing that (and given her something to do)

Well, the second half of the season is usually when we get all the important character developing episodes. And since this is the last season.....expect magic.

Jeff M.

JMorris said:

Either Daria or Jane would have whipped the contractors into shape in one minute. Neither of them would have been swayed by their excuses.

A voice crying in the wilderness ([email] (JMorris830)) was heard to say in :

W h o a . . . t h a t _ w a s _ j u s t _ c r u e l .

The bad reaction to this episode reminds me quite a bit of the bad reaction to last season's mid-season closer - people were expecting great things after ILaP, and "Of Human Bonding" wasn't it. Seems to me that "Lucky Strike" set up similar expectations - not to say that "Art Burn" was an especially good episode. Of course, the _only_ episode of Daria that I've actually disliked was "The New Kid," and I wasn't too crazy about "The Old and the Beautiful," but other than that I say bring 'em on.

I still contend that the Tiffany/Helen scene was a classic.

Daria _did_ have something to do; Jane couldn't have been that honest about her humiliation with anyone but Daria. Trent falling in with the contractors was fairly amusing - I liked the bit where he goes out to talk to them and the foreman calls him "T."

There are a hell of a lot of things they may resolve (to some extent), and I have a feeling the suspense over whether Quinn would acknowledge that Daria was her sister was only the beginning. I'm just praying that no one gets pregnant. (Well, except maybe Kevin.)

-Mark Steese

Al said:

I think that the _point_ of this episode was to show the progress in Jane and Trent's characters and careers.

Jane's gotten good enough that she can make serious money (did you notice the size of the commissions she was getting?) from her art. In case everyone didn't get this, this is NOT an "average" level of artistic skill even for an artist, especially not an 18-year-old one.

Yes, she did reproductions, and she burned herself out doing it. But this whole ep took place over a week or so, and in the course of that time she must have made almost $1000.

(and, unless she bothers to report the income, _tax-free_).

Considering that Jane's skills are still developing, this implies that she could have a very successful art career. (Not just financially, the point is that her work's good enough that people _want it_).

We also got to see how much she _cares_ about art. She was almost crying when Steve Taylor told her her work was sloppy.

As for Trent, we see that he's actually gotten ambitious enough to try to make a video, and he _did_ make a serious effort to get the contractors to fix the gazebo. He couldn't quite follow either intention through, but he's getting there.

This is important for at least two long-term story arcs.

'almost $1000'?

We know of two commissions, one for $200 and one for $350 (both at the 40% rate, so the paintings sold for $500 and $875). From the comments, she had several more (they couldn't keep them in stock).

The construction work, materials, and such for the gazebo would run anywhere from $800 to $2000. She had that more than covered the first time she tried to quit. She apparently had additonal pieces sold at the 60% commission after that.

Jane was seriously underpricing her work at the art fair, something she will hopefully remember.

Of course, on the subject of the Lanes and finances, everyone does realize, don't they, that the Lanes are likely closer to Tom's family than Daria's in financial standing (Not that Helen and Jake are on the dole).

Now that I think of it, the LHS students' families as a whole are upscale pretty much across the board. Have we seen any of the students' families that weren't at least upper middle class? Maybe Andrea, but then her job could be just one of those 'life lesson' things parents do.

In article , William George Ferguson wrote:

Not underpricing your work is a double edged sword. I have an artist friend (last seen doing pre-produciton work on a proposed German SF movie) who was displaying her art at the annual WorldCon SF conventions. The artroom staffs kept insisting she increase the prices on her work (as she's damn good), but doing so resulted in few of her originals being sold. Selling 5 works at under $100 each is better then selling none at $500+, especialy when you're a starving Slovakian artist :/

I've wondered about the Lanes myself. Vince and Amanda don't ever seem to have jobs, they just travel about. They must have an inheritance or something. A big one.

I don't think the Sloanes give Tom much spending money, either. We've never seen him as a big spender, not on himself or Jane or Daria. And why has he had two such cheapo cars? I think he likes "creative" dates because he really can't afford the Chez Pierre kind.

M Man

Maybe ... or maybe living on five dollars a day is Tom's very deliberate reaction to his family's wealth. Remember his sister's comment about his "quasi-rebelliousness" (possibly misremembering the line)? It could be that his parents *would* give him a real allowance, but then he'd be endorsing of upper class materialism or something.

SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . . SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . . SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . . SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . . SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . . SPOILERS FOR IIFY AND SEASON 5 . . . . . .

Possible, but we've really seen no sign of "rebelliousness" other than that he prefers the company of Daria and Jane to his parents' social world. He didn't rebel against working at his father's business over the summer; he even invited Daria to join him. He COULD have gotten a summer job like Mack's if he wanted to be "rebellious" against his father's wealth.

We've seen no positive evidence that Tom has anything against money. He just doesn't appear to have much of his own to spend.

M Man

MMan said:

invited

And really, why _should_ Tom have anything against money? Tom's a very self-aware sort of guy, and pretending to have something against money is basically posing.

Note: Jane didn't stop doing the reproductions because she despised making money.

She stopped doing it because it was burning out her talent.

SPOILER SPACE

It doesn't have to be open rebellion, like living in a tent in the back. But, like Daria's rejection of Max Factor and Calvin Klein, Tom's junker car and lack of money might be a sort of passive resistance against what Jane referred to as his family's "upper crustiness".

Either interpretation -- lifestyle statement or parental stinginess -- works. Maybe the Final Six will answer this question one way or another.

In message , MMan37x writes

Both Vince and Amanda have jobs, Vince is a photographer, in Lane Miserables he had just come back from photographing Celtic carvings in Connemara (an area of Ireland in the western end of County Galway), Amanda makes pottery. Arts can pay well, if you are good enough, so it is possible that they actually have a pretty high income from their work, allowing them to finance their rather Bohemian lifestyle.

The only one of their children who isn't self-financing is Jane, and she is likely to have a substantial income once she starts painting full-time, if her current prices are anything to go by.

William George Ferguson said:

Well -- the original estimate was $500, but who knows how far it got upped? But you're right, I'm probably underestimating the amount of money that Jane was pulling in.

Yep.

A lot of people think that the Lanes are poor.

I agree with you that the Lanes are, more likely, rich.

The combination of the Lanes' impracticality and fecklessness with their big house and ability to spend as much time as they like wandering aimlessly around the world on bizarre quests strongly implies that they are eccentric wealthy folk. Most people who were poor or even normal middle class could not afford the Lanes' lifestyle.

Also note that they've had five children, and still have the big house and obviously plenty of spare cash.

Most likely. Remember, just because Andrea's family might have money does not necessarily mean that _Andrea_ has money.

Jordan S. Bassior wrote:

Perhaps she was simply unaware of how much her work might actually be worth, since she's probably more interested in "art for art's sake". Or maybe she was simply starting conservative.

I didn't really realize that Jane's family would probably be wealthy until a fellow Daria fan mentioned it. Now that I think of it, it does make sense.

What about Kevin? I don't know if Kevin's family upper middle-class or lower.

Belle Book

I would think that Jane would have gone to enough art shows to have an idea how to price her art.

But she'd never done reproductions before, apparently. Or tried to sell them.

Have you ever read Paul Fussell's book "Class"? The Lanes may be some of the wealthier members of the "X-class" Fussell describes near the end of the book.

Doug Thompson is a building contractor. I know some building contractors who do as well as doctors and lawyers.

In "Mart of Darkness", he definitely had a better-than-decent middle-class home.

And remember that Kevin is the product of a teenage pregnancy, which means that the Thompsons are only in their mid-30s, younger than most of the parents of Daria's classmates (Brittany's step-mom excepted!) and probably not college-educated. Doug's income probably hasn't peaked yet. His business may be relatively new. So I think he's doing OK.

M Man

That's true. Good point.

No, I haven't read the book. What is the "X-class"?

Maybe I should also ask about Mack's family, or Stacy's, as I've never seen their parents. However, I should consider that just because Mack had to drive that ice-cream truck, that doesn't mean his family's poor. After all, Mack was paying off a VERY old debt. Oh, and there's always the Three J's, but they rarely are mentioned in connection to anyone other than Quinn, and they're more similar to each other than the members of the Fashion Club are.

Belle Book

Hmmm. A bit too much to explain at length here. Basically a class of individualists outside the usual low-middle-upper class scale.

Fussell's book "Class" should be in most decent-sized libraries. The chapter about the X-class is near the end of the book and is called "The X Way Out". It can be read by itself without reading the whole book. Interesting reading!

I don't think any of their families have even been seen on the show. As far as I can remember, Mack's father has been mentioned twice and Stacy's mother once - just mentioned, never seen. No mention of any of the Js' parents at all, I think.

However, in Stacy's case, she seems to have enough money to spend at Cashman's like the rest of the FC. And a rather large and well-decorated bedroom seen on "Art Burn". So we can safely assume the Rowes are very solidly middle-class or better.

M Man

M Man wrote:

Well, I work at a community college library, but it's just the western branch of this particular community college where I work, and we don't have a big collection where I work. However, I could check the online catalog at my workplace and see if the community college has it.

I'd say so. Too bad I know next to nothing on Mack's family's financial situation.

Belle Book

"Belle Book" wrote in message news:[email]...

How very Oscar Wilde of her....

a

sense.

I get the impression of a crumbling fortune. Like they've basically been living off the remnants of old money, but it's probably not going to last much longer. Very _A Rebours_ of them, really.

Now that i think about it, the Lanes are sort of a fin de siecle archetype, really....very decadent...Trent as the frail, pale, deteriorating decadent anti-hero...how very Dorian Gray of him....