Think 'Daria' is a courageous slice of Real Life? Think again. Here's some stuff Daria won't deal with ....
Sex. They kid around, but no kids on Daria ever have to deal with any problem because they had sex. I think this high school has the highest rate of Virginity in the State. Where are the boy-crazy/girl-crazy kids? Why aren't the kids worried about what their friends are doing? Why aren't parents worried about what their kids are doing? Where are the Sex Ed classes? I guess cartoon girls can't get pregnant.
Gay life. ... while we're on sexuality; where are the 'Gay' kids? Is Lawndale High completely heterosexual?
Handicapped kids. ... nobody in a wheelchair at Lawndale High? There were at MY high school.
Violence. Notice how really peaceful Lawndale High is? No bullies; no gangs; no weapons; nobody ever is arrested. It's like 'Saved by the Bell,' where Zack Morris has been transmogrified into Upchuck.
Working class kids. Are all the parents on 'Daria' rich professionals? Where is the kid who's dad works in an Aircraft factory or drives a truck or builds houses? .... you know; the mom and dad who work hard every day but still have some money problems? Is there absolutely *no* kid at Lawndale High who is poor?
Individual talent? Jane is an artist.... but what about the others? Are all the athletes just stupid jocks? Where are the kids who are interested in computers? Aren't there any boys interested in cars at this school? Aren't there any kids interested in biology, or aspiring to become doctors or architects or inventors or lion tamers?
Minorities. Why isn't there a minority kid with real minority problems and real minority parents, instead of those Bill Cosby clones? Based on the very unrealistic portrayal of blacks on Daria, I'll bet Daria's audience is about 1 % black. If that much.
Drugs. Where is the local pusher? Where are the cops? Where are the High School drug lectures? When Daria goes to a party; where is the alchohol? Where is the alchoholic parent in the show? Where are the stoners? Why aren't the parents worried about drugs (except for the one time Jake provided some stupid comic relief)?
New kids. ... is Daria the LAST person to have moved to Lawndale? ... It's been two years: Where are the new kids in that High School?
... yes, yes, yes. I know Daria is only a cartoon comedy, but comedy does treat these topics on other shows... and cartoons like the Simpsons also treat these issues.
Finally; we are all fans of a show that uses the cynicism of its main character to imply that it takes a 'realistic' look at life, and finds comedy there. Frankly, Daria isn't very far removed from 'Leave it to Beaver' in the realism department. It would be nice to see the Daria folks find comedy in some more realistic situations.
Someone look up "fiction" for this boy, will you? Thanks.
I'd say some are and some aren't. They're not going to show it, obviously.
Talking mostly about Chez Pierre. Why does boy-crazy = slut?
Not an important part of any script. It's not like "Oh, let's show them in a sex ed class now so people will think we're an enlightened community".
First of all, at high school age they're likely to be "unsure" and deny it if they are. Second of all, even if they do realize it, they're gonna do there best to hide it. Anyone different is tormented at high school; if you rub people's morality or anything wrong, you're in MAJOR trouble. Teenage hell.
You know, you're beginning to sound extremely like a PC activist. There are no handicapped kids because there's no dramatic reason for it. There aren't any in "Hamlet" either. Does that make it bad?
It's a rich suburb. What do you expect?
We don't know them too well.
Upchuck.
Who says it's unrealistic? I'd call that racist, saying blacks can't be like Jodie and Mack, like they have to be poor, unsuccessful, etc.
Doesn't have much relevance to the main character.
Ditto.
Daria's only gone to one party in the series.
Who says every show needs an alcoholic parent?
That one "Uh... we're talking about us!" guy from "Esteemsters" seemed pretty stoned out
Dagny misery chick, cynic
http://members.aol.com/Eccles9697
"Did you ever get the feeling That the truth is less revealing Then a downright lie? And did you think your head is hip To certain things it's not equipped to qualify?" Neil Innes
Dagny, taking some time off from coordinating transcontinental shipping movements, said:
Very good point! "Daria" IS fiction and does not have to be any more "realistic" than the writers want it to be. Besides, even to the extent to which it IS "realistic", the specific realities it has to deal with are partially determined by the nature of the main character.
Daria is an intelligent, perceptive, shy virgin, with only one close friend. Daria doesn't smoke, use drugs or (apparently) even drink alcohol. Her friend Jane is both less shy and more willing to experiment than her, but (during the year and a half we have seen her) hasn't shown herself to be all that wild either (especially around Daria). There is no particular reason, therefore, for Daria to be concerned with alcoholism, drugs, or pregnancy, save from a theoretical perspective.
Daria also hasn't expressed an opinion about the Hubble telescope, the situation in Iraq, or the meaning of Greek poetry either. All these are aspects of "reality", but not particularly relevant to Daria.
Well, we know that Kevin and Brittany are sexually active. We know that Daria isn't, and that Mack and Jodie probably aren't. We're not sure about Jane. And Quinn's a major tease who probably doesn't go very far with anyone.
Sounds like a mixed bag of morals to me ...
Another good point. Actually, someone who is fickle, unless he or she is completely promiscious, is probably less likely to be sexually active than someone who is serious about one particular member of the opposite sex. (Which is why I'm pretty sure Quinn isn't sexually active).
Yes, this seems to be what the previous poster seems to have been advocating. As for "being worried about what their friends are doing", what's Daria supposed to do? Sit there wondering "Is Jane OK" every three minutes? That would be kind of ... um ... creepy!
Yes. They might not even be active homosexuals.
Absolutely.
any
The PC's the thing, in which we shall catch the king ... :)
Somebody explain 'literary criticism' to this child, will you? Thanks.
[ snip ]
What's wrong with PC? ... been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh, I suspect. What you should probably do instead, is to read 'Brave New World' and 'Animal Farm' and re-watch a little 'Max Headroom.' Compare this stuff with what MTV is doing.
Consider how much funnier Daria would be, if it were a bit more realistic. Daria deserves better. You deserve better, too.
To label a position "politically correct" is to claim, by mere assertion, that this position is right and good because you've said it's "correct", and that any other position, being "incorrect", is therefore wrong and bad. Claims by mere assertion are of course a logical fallacy, and therefore an attack on a position for being "politically incorrect" should be dealt with as no more meaningful or relevant than the sighing of the wind in the trees or the sound of raindrops ... i.e. it should be ignored.
Unfortunately, certain people in positions of power, especially on campuses and in the government bureaucracy, are willing to behave unethically in order to enforce conformity of thought and action with "politically correct" norms. This has extended so far, on some campuses, as to classify reasoned opposition to (say) affirmative action as "racist" or "hate speech", effectively killing debate on this and other issues.
This is bad, because freedom of speech is important to the health of an open society. Exposing ideas to free debate improves the quality of those ideas which survive the process. One of the reasons why modern left-liberalism is so intellectually stagnant is that, around 25 years ago, it embraced the concept of "political correctness", and afterwards ceased to ventilate its own ideological house.
(There are, of course, equivalent potential tendencies on the right. There, the equivalent of "political correctness" is "family values". However, the right is currently less influential on campuses and in the bureaucracy).
Ad homineum. And worse, you're just *assuming* that everyone in your audience will despise or at least disagree with Rush.
I've read them.
Seen it, long ago. Fun cyberpunk and social satire.
Different genres entirely. BNW and AF are (respectively) dystopian science fiction and allegory. MH is cyberpunk science fiction.
All three were very selective in terms of what they chose to show, btw, as much so as *Daria*. None were "realistic", incidentally; all three dealt with fictional societies, with major logical flaws which required hefty suspension of disbelief (though all three were good).
It would either be forced to conform to PC or be taken off the air. Either way, the audience would lose.
Last time I checked literary criticism didn't involve complaining that a piece of fiction isn't real. Of course it's not, and of course it's not encyclopedic. So it includes what's relevant and discards all else. That's how it differs from life.
If you think putting in any of your "hot topics" would make it realistic, think again. Think, the show is "Daria" not "An American High School" and therefore centers around problems that would face a teen like Daria, not to be a synopsis of all the problems facing modern high schools- where to start? The things mentioned don't even scratch the surface. You can't talk about everything, so the focus on an intelligent, somewhat outcast, cynical teenage girl and a few of the events impacting her life. That's the show. If you don't like that, watch something else. That's what cable companies have millions of channels for.
Dagny misery chick, cynic
http://members.aol.com/Eccles9697
"Did you ever get the feeling That the truth is less revealing Then a downright lie? And did you think your head is hip To certain things it's not equipped to qualify?" Neil Innes
OK, I'm late to this party and nobody cares anymore. I can live with that.
Milton, you're asking Daria to be something it was never intended to be, and I don't see how what you're asking for would make a better show.
Remember that Daria is a spinoff, and an answer to, Beavis and Butthead, a show that took life at its most squalid and stupid and laughed at it unmercifully. Daria's response is to take life at it's prettiest and most polite and laugh at it ... with just a bit more compassion.
The creators don't "censor" Lawndale, they've created Lawndale as a place where people censor themselves. It's a hermetically sealed universe, like the town/set in the Truman Show, where nothing bad is allowed to exist (or if it does, it's kept out of sight). This is a show about the absurdity of repression and illusion. The conceit of the Daria character herself is that while she's one of the most repressed people on the show (she's afraid of relationships, she's afraid of sex, she's afraid of success), she can't buy into the illusions (which doesn't mean she can't ignore things she doesn't want to deal with). Lawndale is a place where the closest thing to tragedy is the death of Tommy Sherman, and the closest thing to squalor is "Sick Sad World." And yeah, you're right, it is post-modern as hell.
You're saying that the show should take that illusion and rip at it savagely. You want Candide. Fine, but what the writers are giving us is finely-tuned farce ... Moliere. The props of respectability are never quite ripped away, but they're allowed to tremble and bend in amusing (to us, the audience) fashions. Horrible reality never comes charging down main street, but it's sometimes allowed to peer ominously out from under a stair for an instant.
Daria is a show of remarkable honesty, but you have to remember that the topic it's being honest about is mundanity. You may want the show to go further, but I think you're wrong. The show goes where it needs to to be funny. Sometimes the secret of comeday is knowing where to quit.
And, of course, unlike the Truman Show's town, there are plenty of real-life Lawndales. Especially in the ritzier suburbs.
Yup.
Daria's repressions are a reaction to other people's repressions. She's afraid of relationships with the superficial, sex without meaning, and success in the shallow terms her peers seem to crave. In a fundamental sense, she's the freest person in Lawndale.
And in reality, "horrible reality" rarely does come "charging down Main Street" in a place like Lawndale.
Very well put. You articulated things I've been thinking but couldn't find the words for.
Chris--- this is a great statement of this point of view. In fact, you've pretty much summed up why I like 'Daria.'
I *never* pushed for 'after-school special' scripted pc-driven Daria. That was entirely the defensive invention of several posters to this thread.
I don't think 'Daria' should change in any substantial way-- just that it should pick some new situations and add a new recurring character or two.
I also think that the fans posting here should not settle for the cheap-shot situations MTV has presented to us in season three. While 'Daria!' and 'Depth takes a Holiday' were decently written, they were horrible script choices for a show that is supposed to find comedy buried in social hypocracy.
'Daria' should be a little more aggressive and a little more controversial, and leave the cheap shot themes to 'Sabrina the Teen Age Witch.'
If "Daria" starts covering in-depth all of these "edgy" issues, then it becomes just another After-School Special, or Much Worse-- a documentary. (And probably a parody of itself in its attempts to cover every single issue you catalog.)
Look, it's bad enough to have to hear all of this depressing shit in those dreadful so-called "news magazine" programs which have spawned all over the airwaves like blowflies in a fresh roadkill. But to see it infect my favorite cartoon? Nope, I won't stand for that.
If you want to see all of the sex, violence, drugs, poverty and other forms of human debasement you could possible stand, watch Dateline, 20/20, 60 Minutes, or Whatever, or, better yet, your local news.
The same argument can be made about *any* show on TV, BTW. What makes TV shows (or any other form of fictionalized entertainment) compelling is that they are realistic, but not *completely* realistic. Complete realism is boring and uncompelling, and makes poor fodder for animation, let alone TV. (I won't go into details here, just suffice it to say that nothing, save news/documentary programming attempts to be entirely realistic. It's impossible, anyway-- Lawndale can serve only as Lawndale-- if every sort of outrageousness that happens to a teenager in the US happened to someone at LHS, then it would become unrealistic as well-- a parody of its attempt at reality. And that goes for any attempt to focus every issue in one place.)
keepin' it real, rich.
Jane: You know, I don't know why people say we have a bad attitude.
Strawman fallacy-- you purposely exaggerated my position, and then attacked your own misunderstanding of what I said.
'Daria' is a situation comedy that bases its humor on the hypocracy of social situations that Daria finds herself dealing with. The 'edge' for the show comes from our recognition, that the situations are credible. ... well folks; The biggest irony/hypocracy in 'Daria' is that MTV is heavily censoring the world that Daria gets to cope with. You deserve better.
Other comedies present better situations and manage to not be mistaken for "After School Specials," why not Daria?
By the way; does everyone here remember when MTV was attacked for never, never ever showing a black music video? ... I'll bet none of you do. I'll bet some of you don't even care. Pity.
I remember it. It was inaccurate. I clearly remember seeing videos for Prince and Joan Armatrading prior to that. I'm convinced that the censure was started as false accusations by CBS Records because MTV wouldn't play Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean".
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
make GEORYN disappear to reply
"The only completely consistent people are dead" --Aldous Huxley
N.P.:"Introduction"- I s l a n d / P i c t u r e s
What's considered a "black music video," anyway? Do you mean Rap, R&B, Reggae, the Blues, or do you mean that soulless junk by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie? I ask because I remember MTV playing those two to *death* in the 80s. Of course, I also remember Herbie Hancock, who helped to break some new ground. As for Rap, they were slow to catch on, but once it caught on nationally, they were on board, and have been on board ever since. Same for some of the more popular R&B acts. But I don't think they've ever had a big Reggae or Blues rotation, mostly because I don't think 16-year-olds are ever going to get into that kind of music in large numbers. MTV is just like any top 40 radio station-- if it's popular and they can play it, they will. Now-unpopular hair bands need not apply. (And, of course, those evil boy bands will soon be out back with the hair band guys.) <g>
It's all about money, 'mon...
rich.
"Unethical is only two letters away from ethical..." -- Paul Michael Mercurio
Actually, Daria herself does a lot of the "censoring", by choosing which parts of the world she interacts with. My assumption has always been that SHE sees a lot of the darker stuff going on around her, that her awareness of this is a major factor contributing to her cynicism, and that she deliberately AVOIDS getting involved in it for the very good reason that she does not want to end up a drunken, drug-addled, diseased teen mother. Remember, Daria has a lot of common sense.
I agree that it might give the shoe more poignancy if we get to see some of the nastier stuff Daria's seeing, but I accept the limitation as artistic editing (just like the unusual degree to which the Lawndalers avoid cursing).
Furthermore, many things you listed (poverty, gang violence, etc.) would NOT exist at a school like Lawndale High. Some others (drugs, promiscuity) simply don't have a direct effect on Daria; their main contribution to her life is to add to her cynicism. Still others (homosexuality, handicapped folk) would exist but not be all that noticable. (How many openly gay people do you see in most suburban schools? If you look at a random crowd, what's the chance you'll see someone who's crippled?)
Your complaint, in fact, seems to be that Lawndale isn't WORSE than it logically should be.
Daria presents great situations. About Daria. Not about some hypothetical other person who would be more likely to encounter the elements you have named.
Furthermore, has it ever occurred to you that if the show DID try to deal with the situations you have named, directly, from its decidedly non-PC perspective, that there's a good chance that the real-life Ms. Li's of the world would try ... and succeed ... in taking the show off the air?
As it is, there are probably people at MTV who don't like it very much ... why else do you think it keeps getting bumped from one bad timeslot to another? If they had an excuse like "the show's insensitive to gays" or something like that, they'd axe it in an instant.
If I was really into MTV's music videos, or liked motown, soul, or rap, I suppose I'd care. Since I'm not and I don't, I really don't.
On Mon, 3 May 1999 01:47:08 -0700, some letters randomly coalesced from individual pixels, claiming to be from [email] (milton brewster), and it said:
But perhaps that was just what it was; a misunderstanding. Straw man generally occurs in public debate when one cantidate or public speaker attempts to demonize his opponent, rather than actually responding with a logical argument. I don't think that's the case, here, though.
The question remains: what would you do differently? Be specific.
Of COURSE it isn't real life. Why do I need to watch TV to see real life when I get all I can handle every day? It's a distillation of real life. Just bits and pieces, carefully selected to facilitate illustrating the point. That's what makes it art. Artists ALWAYS exclude elements that don't contribute materially to what they're trying to say.
Why can't Mack and Jodie be considered REAL blacks? Because they're prosperous? Is that what being black has come mean? Why can't there be prosperous blacks? We know there are some, and not just Bill Cosby, but doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and businessmen. Real people, with real jobs, the only difference is that they're molded out of a different color plastic.
In case you haven't noticed, Lawndale is an unusually upscale community. Everyone there is either rich or upper-middle class. The least prosperous people I see, based on visual details, are the Lanes and even Trent has money to waste on a duck phone. Lawndale isn't representative, it isn't a cross- section, it's an artists rendering, one person's impression (or a group of people, actually). If you happen to hold a different view then why not start your own TV show? Let us know when it's on and we'll give it a look and let you know what we think.
Sure, other shows cover these issues. But nobody does it better! <G>
That's precisely why I found the "real black" comment so funny. The implication is that you aren't "really" black unless you're poor, illiterate, and preferably drug-sodden and violent to boot. The logical extension of this (which Maya Angelou has already made re: Bill Clinton) is to declare non-blacks to be "black" if they are sufficiently disreputable.
Of course, this robs "black" of any racial meaning, and turns it into a synonym for "sleazy".
Exactly. We saw one homeless person. Once. For a sight gag.
I actually think the Lanes are very rich but also very eccentric. And Trent and Jane, of course, don't have access to the family fortune for their own purchases, among other reasons because their parents ignore them.
Nope. It's an animated sitcom. Or a cartoon. Whatever.
Did it. Same answer.
True enough. I'm not going there.
Possibly, but probably not. But that's an issue that's still not a very open topic for most teens, either.
Or even ones with transient disabling injuries. I can write this one off to the added expense of the animation involved.
With Ms. Li as principal, I'd suspect it'd be tough for gangs to gain much of a stronghold. I'd imagine there are scanners at the entrances. And Lawndale's kind of like one of the communities I work in: very upper middle class/nouveau riche. Not many gangs there, and bullying is more of the fashon club kind.
Probably. The aforementioned local school district is like that. Virtually no family in that township makes less than $65K/yr. Housing prices start at about $150K, ranging up to about $6.5M. The poor are distinctly unwelcome in this town, except as "the help." They can't live there.
We can safely assume that some of the unnamed figures which populate the classroom scenes have some of these attributes. They're just not addressed. What's more unusual is that they're never asked questions in class. Again, this is for economic reasons. No voice actor required.
Here, with the minority students in the twice-mentioned local school district, while the parents are certainly "real minorities" the problems they face are those of the economic strata they're a part of, not those of the economic strata that any others of that ethnic or racial minority belong to. This is what Jodie's mom meant when she said "How is Jodie's upbringing any different from Daria's?" And it's true.
I can't speak to the demographic of Daria's audience. But "unrealistic portrayal of blacks"?? What on earth are you talking about? The fact is that many (proportionately, not remotely enough) blacks *are* successful suburbanites. I don't find their portrayal in Daria at all inaccurate.
Out behind the parking lot. So says Jane. (The Misery Chick).
Ted entered the school later, though apparently, he was being home schooled prior to that, whether in Lawndale or elsewhere is not directly addressed.
<snip some more>
Quite true. And that's not all bad.
Oooohhh! Edgy! But I'm jiggy with it if the writers are...
Edgy s to imply "on the edge " in the context of cutting edge or the latest/greatest. Personally it sounds kinda stupud to me, but what the hell, I never use it.
We don't know that. The only character whom we know for sure isn't having sex is Daria herself. I would believe (based on character consistency) that Quinn isn't sexually active (remember, she's a "tease"), and (based on the books) that Jodie and Marck aren't. That's just four people, two of which have their sexual activity linked by a common upbringing and the other two of whom are in a romantic relationship.
As for the other characters ...
Jane's willing to fool around with a guy she just met in "Invitation". Whether this means that she's sexually active, or that she's taking advantage of the first invitation to a party she's probably had in a long time, is up to the viewers to decide. She also seems to have something going with Jesse in "Road Worriers" and the flea market episode.
We KNOW that Kevin and Brittany are sexually active.
Upchuck may or may not be a virgin; many people on this board have pointed out that his approach probably works SOMETIMES.
We have no idea about the Fashion Club, however ...
Sandi seems to have no morals whatsoever, we don't know if this extends to sex.
Tiffany's an imbecile, and one would think that someone would have talked her into sex at some point.
Stacy's extrememly insecure, girls like her often have sex just to prove that they can.
We know very little about Andrea except that she seems to be a closet romantic with a secret crush on Mack. This says absolutely nothing about her prior sexual experience, or lack of same.
Now we're talking, remember, not about a city high school, but rather one in a very upscale neighborhood. Also keep in mind that roughly half of kids age 16 *are* virgins (and this statistic includes the slums where sexual activity from early teens on is common). So it doesn't seem that improbable that four characters, one of whom is a shy, rather prudish intellectual, another her sister, and the other two a couple she knows, would be virgins. And if Jane is a virgin, her best friend.
Quinn, for one. Upchuck, for another. Which brings up another point: being "boy-crazy" or "girl-crazy" doens't equate to actually having sex. In fact, sexual activity is more likely within the context of a serious relationship (i.e., Kevin and Brittany , though we get the impression that both of them also cheat on the other).
Daria definitely worries about Jane ...
Let's see ...
The Morgendorffers are. Jake is paranoid that Daria will become a promiscious druggie; lacking a clue he fails to realize that Quinn's the real risk here. Helen definitely worries about Quinn, have you ever watched her expression when Quinn makes her latest lame excuse?
The Lanes are too wrapped up in their various voyages of self-discovery to remember that they *have* a teenage daughter. Effectively, Jane's "parent" *is* Trent, and he *does* worry, and he'd worry a lot more if Jane's best friend weren't Daria, whom he trusts.
TheTaylors: Steve doesn't give a damn about anyone but Steve, and Ashley-Amber isn't all that much older than Brittany. And indeed, Brittany shows many signs of being neglected as a person; and she IS sexually active.
The Landons: They obsess about Jodie being "perfect" ... their level of attention to her is several orders of magnitude beyond mere "worry". Jodie being a conformist, she will probably either have sex with: 1) Mack, after their senior prom, or 2) Some guy at college, because "nobody's" a virgin at college.
There was a joke about sex ed in one ep. What more do you want?
Cartoon virgins can't, any more than the live-action kind. And the cartoon possibly-sexually-active-but-not-very-often are unlikely to. And the cartoon very-sexually-active-but-use-contraceptives probably won't. And if they do they'll probably have cartoon abortions: this is especially likely in the case of the Fashion Club. (Brittany I think would keep her child).
Well, given that we only know about the sexual orientation of Daria, Jane, Mack, Jodie, Kevin, Brittany, Quinn, Upchuck, and the three J's, given that homosexuals are from 1 to 10 percent of the population (variance depending upon one's definition of "homosexual"), and (most importantly) given that TEEN homosexuals usually do not openly display their orientation ... they're probably in the closet, or somewhere in the background.
I mean, for all we know, Stacy and Tiffany could be Sandi's lovers. The three J's could be gay, and obsessing on Quinn precisely because she's untouchable. Andrea could be a lesbian. Who knows?
What percentage of the school population, though? Remember, Daria's not the world's most sociable person.
How violent would you like Lawndale to be. Remember that Daria is female, and intellectual. Being female means that she avoids a lot of the testosterone-induced male violence, being an intellectual means that she doesn't hang out with the girls who ARE violent (presumably there are some). She's also a rather scary chick, who's best friend is another rather scary chick (you may not realize why because we see their private conversations, but if I were a female bully I wouldn't pick on either of them).
They're also juniors and seniors. Most of the bullying outside of slums is of the younger kids. The reason why should be obvious; the younger kids are easier targets.
Kevin may be a bully, but of a rather genial and unmalicious variety. Nobody seems to resent him. He *did* get bullied when he visited college, if you remember.
As for "gangs" ... please. In Ms. Li's school?
Yes, mostly. It is an upscale community.
First of all, the specific trades you mention aren't "poor", merely "blue collar". Secondly, the show focuses on Daria in high school, not on the financial troubles of her friends' families. We have very little idea whether or not the Landons (for example) are having mortgage problems, or whether Jake and Helen HAVE to work so hard in order to accumulate the money to send Daria to college.
Maybe one or two.
Daria's a writer; Jodie's multi-talented. Quinn and the FC deliberately *avoid* learning about anything other than clothes and how to flirt.
Mack isn't. But the show doesn't focus on him.
Upchuck is. But, because of his personality, Daria doesn't know him well enough to hang out with his friends. Incidentally, Daria's into computers too.
Sure, presumably.
What's a "real minority problem"?
What are "real minority parents"?
Because illiterate, paranoid criminals (which is what I assume you mean by "real minority" types, which is in itself a horribly racist assumption) don't move into upscale neighborhoods, or send their kids to places like Lawndale High School.
Um, he's probably a kid at the high school. Now, why would Daria want to go see him? She doesn't do drugs.
At the police station. Patrolling the community. Where do you expect them to be, wandering aimlessly through the corridors of the high school?
Presumably there are some. If for no other reason than Ms. Li's raving paranoia.
Incidentally, if you remember, *Jake* gives Daria drug lectures, hee-hee.
Disappearing down the throats of the party-goers, probably. I didn't really look carefully to see if people were drinking booze, soda, or water ... I don't watch the show for a Guide to Party Drinks.
Why must there be an "alcoholic parent", or at least one with a drinking problem so obvious that Daria is repeatedly confronted by it?
*shrug* Getting stoned somwhere? Again, why is Daria confronted with this? She's not a stoner herself.
Waitaminnit. Look at the show's title. Now can you guess who the main character is?
It's quite likely that many of the parents are worried about drugs. But the only ones we know about are those of Daria, and her close friends. Now ...
The Morgendorffers ARE worried about drugs.
The Lanes are probably too busy DOING drugs to waste time WORRYING about them.
The Landons know that Jodie wouldn't do drugs.
We know very little about anyone else's parents.
Ted was a "new kid". (The episode he was in was in fact called "The New Kid").
There are presumably new kids entering all the time. And I'm sure that on an Alternate Time Line's cartoon show, "Jodie", we get to see the extroverted main character welcome each and every one of them to Lawndale. Meanwhile, in Our Time Line, where we watch "Daria", the main character is an introvert with very little in the way of "school spirit", so why should she bother?
Sort of.
Daria deals squarely with the root cause of many evils, and many you haven't mentioned: namely, mindless conformity.
Oh ... one final note. Whenever I hear that Daria is an unrealistic show because the title character, and her friends, aren't stupid, sleazy, drug-addled, and violent, it really annoys me. Don't you think that human beings are capable of being good people?
Well there obviously *is* sex, and it's been hinted at, although it's not been the focus of any episodes so far.
On an almost completely unrelated note, everyone at school thinks I'm sleeping with one of my (male) friends. Hah, I wish.
Well, there's no "out" gay people at my school.
There aren't any at my school, some schools can't take disabled students, my school can't because there's stairs and stuff, I had a friend who was disabled in primary school, and she had to go to a school about 20 miles away or something, because none of the local schools could take her.
What about the guy in 'The New Kid'? He was a new kid.
In article <NOPEmhassSEVENOHTHREE-3004990924270001@05- 022.015.popsite.net>, [email] says...
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Thanks, Michelle. I like your web site.
I appreciate your comments-- I think you got my point, whether you agreed with it or not.
'Daria' pretends to comment on the ironies teenagers face when they try to live in the a real world. The biggest irony, is that 'Daria' producers are overlooking so many 'real-life' situations that should be used to illustrate her motivations. Instead, the producers choose to produce fantasmagorical krap, like the holiday and musical episodes. We get pretend irony instead of real irony.
The biggest irony for me, are some of the responses in this thread:
*) Daria is a character with an exquisitely sensitive bullshit detector. Reality is so tacky she could just scream.
*) The producers have put Daria into a show with no working class people, no poor people, no gays, handicapped, no gangs, no drugs, no sex, no problem parents, and no alchohol. Daria doesn't notice. Daria's fans don't notice that Daria doesn't notice.
Does it really pretend that, though? Or do pretentious fans like to pretend that it comments on those things? I vote for the second one.
It's a high class city, so there goes working class and poor. Gays? Don't know any in my school. I know a few adults, but none at HS. Handicapped? That one I'll give you. We have no gangs at our school, but I'll give you drugs and problem parents. Alchohol and sex are alluded to or mentioned, but they are not central to Daria, and thus not central to the show.
But I do get your point, and agree up to a certain extent.
The show's not about the entire world, and not even the people at Lawndale HS. It's about the people Daria chooses to know.
I don't know why this is so hard for everyone to understand. It's not a random slice of life, it's an intentionally selective one.
Of course there are no poor or working class people. It's a ritzy neighborhood. The gays are in the closet, as they usually are in high school.
There aren't that many handicapped; in a community like that their parents could afford to send them to special schools where they could receive personal attention, rather than subject them to the hazards of Special Ed. (If you love your child, never, never, NEVER send him or her to Special Ed!!!)
Gangs, nope, because any kids who tried to start any would get transferred out of the district. Some people are drinking and having sex, but Daria isn't, and her friends don't do this around her.
Why must Daria be representative of some hypothetical "average" teen? Fercrissakes, she's NOT "average", that's the whole point of the show! She's exceptionally intelligent, perceptive, and strong-willed. That what makes her who she is.
To turn the show into some sort of After-School Special with the Socially Relevant Problem of the Week on display would be to totally pervert its concept.
On 3 May 1999 02:10:07 GMT, [email] (JBassior) wrote:
Actually, I think *most* of the fans understand this quite well, as well as the concept that "Daria" is supposed to be a *satire* about high school life, not (as you so eloquently put it) an After-School Special with the Socially Relevant Problem Of The Week. If people want that, they can go watch "My So-Called Life" and leave us alone with our "unrealistic" show. :-)
There *is*, of course, one area where Daria can explore these heavy issues, and that's in fan fiction. Fanfic has covered many topics, from treatment of the handicapped ("Triumph of the Retart") to homosexuality ("The Rival") to date rape ("Sins of the Past"), that the show itself could never explore without straying from its original concept. Granted, not all of it is well written -- a universal problem with fanfic, though the hearts of the authors are certainly in the right place -- but it *is* out there to be explored.
Martin (to send E-mail, remove the "nospam" from my E-mail address) ---- Quinn: "When they got nervous, they'd drink cocoa." Helen: "Now, sweetie, there's nothing to worry about." (door slams) "Looters!" ---- Outpost Daria: Your Online Database for All Things Daria! http://systech.simplenet.com/daria/
One socially relevant theme they *could* do that would be in keeping with the tone of the show:
The Lawndale High administration worries because of the recent high school shooting. They look around for students who appear to be "troubled." Naturally, they lock onto Daria, and possibly Jane. Somehow, everyone becomes aware that the admin. suspects the two of being budding psycho-killers. I am picturing:
--a scene where Kevin and Brittany think that Daria and Jane are about to kill them.
--Mr. what's-his-name the sensitive English teacher trying to get them to discuss their violent fantasies.
--Jake secretly searching Daria's room for guns and bombs
And.. well, you get the idea. Maybe some of the fanfic writers could flesh it out a bit.
On Mon, 03 May 1999 18:36:43 GMT, some letters randomly coalesced from individual pixels, claiming to be from [email], and it said:
Yeah, this idea would probably work. It would probably be absolutely hilarious (but would work better during s1 than s3 or s4; I doubt Brittany would think Daria would kill anyone, though I wouldn't put that (or any other brilliant leaps of logic) past Kevin.
The only problem is that when our _entire_ culture focuses on the latest "issue," it gets old fast, IMO. And while everybody focuses on that one issue, other, equally relevant issues, get passed over. This is why I listen to NPR (National Public Radio). We get all this info about the invasion of Kuwait, the things going on in the former Yugoslavia, but did anybody notice that there was a major, successful rebellion in the largest country in Africa last year? If you weren't listening to NPR, or keeping track of other non-hype based news sources, then probably not.
On Tue, 04 May 1999 01:01:47 GMT, [email] (Tarvok) wrote:
And let's not forget the lead time between seasons. Right now, as we speak, the episodes for season 4 are in production, the scripts for which were probably written *last year*. This means a script based on this premise would appear no earlier than the fifth season, or 2001. I would hope that we've all moved on to a different Topic Of The Week by then. :-)
Martin ["[email]"] ---- Quinn: "When they got nervous, they'd drink cocoa." Helen: "Now, sweetie, there's nothing to worry about." (door slams) "Looters!" ---- Outpost Daria: Your Online Database for All Things Daria! http://www.lawndale.net/ -OR- http://systech.simplenet.com/daria/
No. It's about the world daria finds herself coping with. The humor of the show is heavily based on social hypocracy. Daria copes with social hypocracy by noting it and reacting to the irony she finds.
The most hypocritical element of the show, is that the producers present a carefully censored and fanciful view of our world as a realistic one.
... and yes, boys and girls; I know what fiction is. I wonder if some of you do.
This is not a good reason to exclude portrayals of characters like this. In fact; I'd call it a rationalization.
I don't like the choices that producers of "Daria" have made. I get to say that I don't. It's called "criticism," folks; and it's a righteous thing to do. It doesn't mean that I'm not a fan of the show.
[ snip]
I never made the claim, that Daria is 'average.' This is called a 'strawman' fallacy, when you exaggerate the claim of an opponent, and then attack your own erronious exaggeration. I'll bet your parents do this to you all the time. ... Do you like it? ... I don't, either.
Once again; strawman. I am arguing for Daria to be based on better and more realistic situations-- not for after-school specials. Apparently, the only way you could respond to me, was to 'misunderstand' my comment. I wonder if you and your friends understand the situation comedy format well enough to react to my criticism of it here.
??? We've just explained to you that Daria wouldn't encounter these people, given her situation (enrolled in an upper-class suburban high school). Now you're saying that to make the show more "realistic" such encounters should be forced? Don't you see a certain lack of logic here?
Hey, y'know what? There aren't any Hindi characters on the show. Why not? There are millions of Hindi in the United States (some of them upper class). Why aren't you making a stink about that?
And Daria's never run into a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA. Where are all the Communists on the show?
And I personally think that the show is terribly flawed by the absence of genetically altered lab mice, enrolled at Lawndale as part of a complex plan to take over the world ...
You did by implication. Or do you just find it unbelievable that Daria ISN'T a promiscious, violent, drink-sodden druggie? I've got news for you ... there really ARE teenagers out there with the courage NOT to do that sort of thing to themselves. I know a bunch of them, both IRL and online.
I wish they did. I'm 34 years old, and they're both dead.
Teenagers out there, especially teenage girls ... would you call the situations in *Daria* "realistic" or not? And why?
Don't you remember? Melody Powers "took them out" in "Cafe Disaffecto".
Daria exposes the sordid world of high school where people who can carry a football or shake pom-poms are acclaimed as the penultimate achievement of human evolution while intelligent people who prefer to focus their attentions on a wider range of interests are held in the lowest regard. There are many of us for whom Daria represents a very stark reality, much more real than any other TV show that comes readily to mind. The realization that it really isn't just about high school but about life in general only enhances the satire. Good satire only hits the reader/viewer with a Nerf bat instead of a club. The addition of any of these other trivial "issues" would only clutter Daria with frivolous side-plots while diminishing the effectiveness of the satire by making it too intense. Daria is quite real enough for me as it and I don't see any need for any further enhancement. It's just real enough to get the job done.
Indeed. And this is problem is actually more "relevant" to smart, decent teens than are drugs, pregnancy, or (in most schools) violence.
*Daria*'s virtually the only TV show I've ever seen which had teens at all similar to any I knew growing up. (*Roseanne* was another, and I've always wondered how Daria Morgendorffer and Darlene Connor would have reacted to each other if they'd met at around the same age).
I could see doing a show on those "issues" if they became relevant to one of the main characters. As it is, it doesn't seem likely in the near future.
This is virtually the same thing - it is the people Daria interacts with that is the center of the show. Fine. I ask that you present, as an example, how to 'realistically' portray Daria interacting with the poor in an upper-middle class suburban environment - remember, Daria's not particularly a proactive person when it comes to social consciousness, so soup kitchen work is contrived (if you're looking for the truly poor), and she doesn't go to football games or parties where she might meet people who come from communities where there are people who make less than, say, 60000 dollars a year. Remember, Lawndale is not a representative sample of the US, and I don't think there is a /single/ funny sitcom that is a representative sample. Or maybe gays or handicapped students? Daria has a very limited social circle, why would some total stranger 'out' themselves to her privately, since I really doubt (remembering what high school was like) anyone would out themselves /publically/ in high school. I don't know about handicapped students, since our district either didn't have them, or they got sent to 'special' schools, but hey, I like to think my life was pretty realistic without them. I'm just trying to ask what you would do to rectify these problems - constructive criticism is so much more fun on a newsgroup than unwavering rhetoric.
mmm. Is it an active censorship, or the limitations of the setting though? Honestly, if the producers have decided to set Daria in an upper-middle class location, gangs are going to be much less a prominent problem, and even /less/ so with the asocial Daria. I personally don't think gangbangers would be all that funny, unless they were grossly caricaturized and bowdlerized, in which case it become hypocrisy again.
I wouldn't. As I asked earlier, how would /you/ realistically do this? I'm just curious, since in most homogenous, parochial settings like Lawndale, a high school kid 'outing' him or herself is basically tacking up a sign that says "beat me up". One could do an episode like this, and then Daria has to stand up for equal rights or maybe even cope with her own, previously unrecognized homophobia. good drama? sure. funny? not as far as I can tell.
The fact that you're arguing this so much says you're a fan to me. But non-constructive criticism doesn't seem that righteous to me. And answering every assertation by your debating partner with 'strawman fallacy' doesn't really seem to be promoting discussion.
Well, I understand situation comedies pretty well, I think. And in my experience, whenever a show tries to deal with serious social issues - which is basically everything you said Daria lacked: gangs, drugs, teen pregnancy - the episodes are generally regarded as the weakest and least funny. Maybe the writers and producers of Daria want to deal with the minutiae of reality rather than the sweeping social commentary that has proven the downfall of many a funny sitcom. I personally think dealing with weddings, or baby sitting, or the realization that you're maybe not your best friends /only/ friend are realistic and serious enough for me. Let's leave the drug dealers out back in the parking lot, away from Our Heroine.
In fact, within in the context of her high school, Daria is economically "lower class". Her family was only recently able to afford to move to Lawndale; before that they lived in Highland, a community definitely not upper-middle class.
Daria definitely wouldn't be prejudiced against the handicapped, and probably not against gays either. But how many handicapped students are there as a percentage of the population of Lawndale, so how many would the asocial Daria happen to know?
And given that gay teens tend not to advertise their status, why would Daria necessarily realize that anyone she happened to know was gay? She's perceptive, but she's not a telepath.
While Lawndale probably has a few violent students: 1) I doubt they could organize actual "gangs" in the East LA or Chicago sense in such a heavily patrolled school and community; and 2) how would they get involved with Daria anyway? (she is neither skeevy nor particularly vulnerable-looking).
Yes. Especially somewhere like Lawndale, they would enjoy a short, violent career leading to their incarceration in a juvenile detention center. Not funny at all, neither for themselves nor (more to the point) their victims.
The exception, of course, would be if the situation grew naturally out of the story arc. THAT kind of story can be very strong indeed.
But an anti-social intellectual virgin who avoids drinking and drugs is unlikely to encounter the *particular* problems the earlier poster mentioned. So such a situation would be clearly artificial and hence obviously intended to be preachy.
As is obviously Our Heroine's preference, else she'd be seeking them out to play with their heads like she used to do with Beavis and Butthead.
On 3 May 1999 21:03:53 GMT, [email] (JBassior) wrote:
Ironically, I happen to have written *fanfics* in which Jane is rumored to be gay in one story arc, and is a telepath in the other. But that's not really relevant...
Heh-heh-heh, I read those. I think that if *Jane* were gay, Daria might suspect something. But Jane most definitely is not (though that doesn't leave out bisexuality).
My opinion of Daria's perceptivity is that she is highly intelligent, notices almost everything around her (even subtle things), and has both superior reasoning faculties and a highly retentive memory. As a result, some of her realizations come close to "telepathic" from the viewpoint of an average person, without any psychic powers needed.
And I don't think she could fail to notice such a major aspect of her best friend's personality.
Not really. If I were out in high school, I'd probably have come home from school bloody every day, knowing my fellow students' attitudes towards gays. *And*, I went to high school in California, so there's that stereotype out of the window. Though I can think of a few places where, if I went to high school there and I was out, I'd likely come home *dead*.
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")
make GEORYN disappear to reply
"The only completely consistent people are dead" --Aldous Huxley
N.P.:"Fool The Fortune"- S a h a r a / F o r A l l T h e C l o w n s
This would depend on a lot of things, such as the attitudes of those in charge at the school, or how you actually come out--are you telling your closest friends after a lot of careful thinking, or are you running around saying, "Hi! I'm gay!" to everyone you see? :-) But seriously, how would you have a realistic portrayal of a gay character on "Daria" without it becoming the dreaded "Afterschool Special?"
On Mon, 3 May 1999 01:36:57 -0700, some letters randomly coalesced from individual pixels, claiming to be from [email] (milton brewster), and it said:
When was this claim ever made? Outside of fan ramblings (and yes, I am guilty of this), who has said this show is any more realistic than any other?
There is a difference between portrying things as someone might think they should be, and portraying things as they are. Just because it ain't PC doesn't mean it ain't there.
Yes, but if you wish to post as you have, then you should be prepared to hear _our_ opinions on what you have posted. I am not saying you don't have the right to post, I'm saying I disagree. That's what everybody else has said, as well; nobody has asked you to leave, nobody has said you don't have the right.
Yeah, I don't think it's about teenagers -- it's about *a* teenager, and her name is Daria. They even use her name as the show title!
They all seem to be Americans too. There were no Americans at all at my school, yet I find this departure from real life doesn't spoil my enjoyment of the series or it's trueness to itself, in fact I don't usually notice this oddity any more than I notice that they're all rich people living in huge houses.
Actually, in the book Naming & Necessity, the philosopher Saul Kripke reckons to have proved not only that unicorns don't exist, but that they could not exist, since even if we were to discover, say, fossil remains of some unicorn-like creature, we would not be able to prove that these were the creatures that inspired the unicorns of our myths & legends: their existence might be a coincidence, with the unicorns of myth being invented independently, making the real life creatures something else, ("neo-unicorns" perhaps).
Kripke also does a nice line in "fool's tigers" (as in fool's gold etc) -- creatures that look & act like tigers but on being dissected turn out to be something else, eg. elaborate machines. But what if all the world's tigers turned out to be "fool's tigers"? Would we still call them tigers, or would we conclude that tigers don't exist?
On 1 May 1999 08:30:54 GMT, [email] (JBassior) wrote:
Yep, it is indeed Ms. Barch, and that was the punchline of the strip. "Shut up, Mack!" :-)
Martin (to send E-mail, remove the "nospam" from my E-mail address) ---- Quinn: "When they got nervous, they'd drink cocoa." Helen: "Now, sweetie, there's nothing to worry about." (door slams) "Looters!" ---- Outpost Daria: Your Online Database for All Things Daria! http://systech.simplenet.com/daria/