What Daria means to someone else

Daria..., by Calhoun Kersten, confessions of a self-proclaimed megalomaniac. Emphases mine.

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For those of you who don't know (and I can't imagine who that would be) Daria was everyone's quintessential angst-ridden sarcastic teen from the late 90s to the early 2000s. In a weird way, she sort of came to represent the disenfranchised in the high school caste system. I say that it's weird because, popular or not, most people I know felt marginalized in high school at one point or another. But there was something so empowering about the character who chose to be a spectator, rather than involved. It may not be a healthy way to live life, but high school's not always the healthiest environment either and yet, most of us still go.

Anyway, back to the show and less about the emotional validation I received from a cartoon... Daria was one of those rare moments in television where there was no real stigma placed on being unhappy or dissatisfied with the way that things were. Life wasn't sugarcoated, because let's be realistic, sometimes things just aren't how you'd hoped they'd be. Sure, a lot of the times Daria painted an excessively dismal picture. It wasn't always true to life, but at least it had the audacity to suggest that wanting something more wasn't as awful as most people would have you believe.

Keep in mind, this show was also way before the whole jaded anti-hero became a television staple (if you're confused about what I'm talking about, watch just about any Bryan Fuller show and you'll see what I mean) . . .

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Daria DVD Excitement!

Daria - Here It Is, MTV's Release Date (and Extras) for Daria on DVD!, by David Lambert, TVShowsonDVD.com.

Since last summer we've known that MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment is preparing a 2010 DVD release for the animated series Daria, the 1997 spin-off of Beavis and Butt-head. This morning Paramount has officially announced the title, giving us a release date of:

May 11, 2010

Daria - The Complete Animated Series on DVD will, according to the studio, contain "ALL FIVE SEASONS PLUS BOTH MOVIES!" The running time is 1606 minutes (almost 27 hours!), and video is listed as full screen.

Yippee!

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It's 2009, Mattel,

and Disney, too. Way to include black characters in a movie with outdated animation, while keeping the rest of your current slate of movies as pale as ever. Including Prince of Persia, and the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean coming in 2011? Really? I've never been to Persia, but I have been to the Caribbean, and I've seen some colorful people there.

Back to Mattel. I read this post on Jezebel--"Dear Mattel: This Is How How You Make Barbie More Diverse"--after I read another post on Jezebel, and the following post on Feministing: Real Talk about Barbie: When experience and narrative don't match up, by Ann referencing Latoya. Emphases mine.

Did Barbie impact me personally? Not really - I wasn't inclined to play with dolls, and I was conditioned to recognize when I was being sold something. I learned from a very early age that white beauty isn't the only beauty and there was no reason to feel bad about some white doll thing when there were so many other cool things in the world.

But that was my experience.

My cousin, who had dozens of Barbies and their cars and their dreamhouses thinks Barbies are wonderful toys for her four year old daughter. My cousin jokingly describes herself as looking for a Ken (we are both moving into our late 20s) and keeps her hair long and relaxed.

Unlike my cousin, I never hid under a towel at the pool to keep my skin from turning darker.

And unlike some of my friends, I never felt that sting of being passed over to play with Barbies because there weren't enough black one's to go around. I didn't walk around with a towel on my head swinging it around as if it was long flowing hair, and I didn't (as described in a seventeen magazine article that was published when I was still in the age range to read it) pump out lotion and leave it on my skin pretending I looked white.

I never felt that pain that one of my friends felt when her classmates teased her about having dark skin and short hair, even though it was relaxed and she used a variety of products to try to make it grow.

And I never felt the kind of pain one of my other friends felt when she went up to her white crush and confessed her feelings, only to have him reply "But...you're black." All the parental affirmation in the world was not helping then.

When you have children, you are their primary example. For a while. And then they go to school, they socialize with others, they pick up words, ideas, actions that you never would have dreamed they would. Some of my friends had color struck parents. And some of my friends just got caught up in a glossy, aspirational, media saturated world that paints a very clear picture of who in our society is beautiful and wanted and who is not. Barbie is a part of that. Hollywood is a part of that. TV is a part of that. Advertising is a part of that. And it is relentless and endless.

It might not make sense to some of you who have not felt the sting of feeling entire pieces of your identity excluded from view and representation. Who take for granted that while you may not relate to Blake Lively or Lauren Conrad that you can always turn on the television and see someone of your race and your gender doing all kinds of activities and seen in all sorts of contexts.

If you felt like you could relate heavily to Daria and Jane but you were still thankful for the one time Jodie made a speech about being the only black kid at Lawndale, if you watched The Craft because it was awesome, but you always remember that it was Rochelle who got told that her "little nappy hairs" looked like "pubic hairs" or you just realized that the only "role"for black girls in society was as the silent/funny/pathetic side kick in a white girl's story then you understand.

I still identify with Daria more than Jodie, because although Jodie was black and ambitious (like me!), Daria was well-read and ostracized by her classmates due to her honest points-of-view (like me!). I liked that Jodie wasn't anyone's sassy black friend. Her character had development and a purpose, like most of the characters in Daria did, regardless of gender. Those people had distinct, meaningful personalities.

That's one of the things I don't like about The Office. I was happy about the "Scott's Tots" episode this week, because who doesn't like dancing children who are going to college? I liked that Erin was featured more in this episode, although she was functioning as a less cynical version of the old Pam, conscripted to assist Michael in another embarrassing endeavor.



I don't like how Pam has transformed from Fancy New Beesly--the aspiring artist who is taking charge of her life--to Pam Halpert--Jim's wife/baby mama who traded her art career for a position as a mediocre salesperson in a bankrupt paper company.

I don't like that you can count the colorful people at Dunder Mifflin on one hand, and if you blink, you'll miss them. I don't like that the women on the show haven't been humorous on their own in a while. I don't like that all of Michael's love interests have been carbon copies of Steve Carell's blond wife (who now goes by Nancy Carell), with no discernible personalities of their own aside from their inexplicable infatuation with Michael. Though I did like crazy Jan and her baby created from super sperm.

This is probably why both Sherri and Parks and Recreation have grown me, with their somewhat diverse casts and their funny female characters. Although, they could both use some more, or any, Asian and Latino people.

In conclusion, I need some black friends to talk with about the above issues. Or, if you're not black, but you would still like to talk with me, let me know. I'm a nice lady!

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Excitement! But not too much, because it's Daria.

Excuse me? Daria finally coming to DVD, by Annie Wu, TV Squad.

Thank the late-90s gods for the existence of Daria and praise be to the supernatural entities responsible for DVDs. For the first time ever, Daria will be available on DVD.

We feared it couldn't be done, but it's going to happen! I can hear sour-faced now-20-somethings celebrating now. Yes, they're quiet, but they're definitely excited. Keep it cool, guys, keep it cool.

MTV will soon release another highly anticipated DVD set for their sketch comedy show, The State, and it looks like one of the first things DVD owners will see is an ad for a 2010 Daria release. TVonDVD.com even has a little screencap and everything.

Hooray! I hope the music from the episodes stays in. Darn licensing laws and poor planning keeping me from my entertainment.

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In Women's News Today

Daria Takes Aim At Jane Magazine, by Slut Machine at Jezebel, via Feministing. Hooray for Daria! The comments led me here. Yippee!

WNBA rookies work on their game faces, by the linster at AfterEllen. Feministing also wrote about this story last month, but the linster points out the inherent homophobia along with the sexism involved.

The AfterEllen article led me to these poignant articles on how the American mainstream media dealt with Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign:

Woman in Charge, Women Who Charge, by Judith Warner at The New York Times.

and

Hating Hillary, by Andrew Stephen at New Statesman.

I have a whole heap to say about the people who let out the hate in their hearts during the Democratic Primary Season. People who won't be satisfied until Senator Clinton grovels at Senator Obama's feet, then leaves the country--nay, the planet(!) and begins her life anew on Mars. People who actually repeated this image on the news, not to condemn its existence, but to lament the loss of Senator Clinton as a late-night talk show punching bag. For now, I leave you with this statement from Feministe's Jill:

I know many women (and men) today are mourning the fact that the female candidate didn’t get her historic moment. I am mourning that too. And again, Melissa says it better than I could. Women are hurting, and our confidence in our “allies” and in our fellow progressives has been thoroughly challenged.

See The Daily Kos for evidence of those so-called "progressives", who often consider 51% of the population a special interest group.

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Why there has been no Daria: The Movie

On Writing Female Characters, by Jeremy Slater at the now defunct How to Write Screenplays. Badly.

It's hardly surprising that the vast majority of working screenwriters are men...or, as some call them, "the unwomen." The operative word in that sentence is working, by the way, since the blogosphere (literally: a sphere of blogs) is crammed to its pink little rafters with female screenwriters. Most of them are talented. All of them are unemployed.

If you've ever read a woman's screenplay, you know how provocative, intelligent and humanistic they can be, rich with nuance and complex character arcs. Many of these feemplays, as we like to call them when no women are around, are so beautifully written and heartfelt they can leave even the strongest reader quivering and shattered in the grip of that foul beast we call emotion...

...What this means, gentlemen, is that the burden of writing female characters falls squarely on our burly, hair-spackled shoulders. The glass ceiling may be keeping the ladies out of Hollywood, but there's nothing keeping them out of the movie theater...

...This doesn't mean the women in your screenplay have to be realistic or believable, thank God...Fortunately, decades worth of lazy movies have conditioned audiences and executives alike to expect female characters to fall into one of three easily classified categories...

There's more. Go read it. It's funny!

I'm a normal person.

From Sepia Mutiny, Dearest Pecola, I Want to Weep, by anna, found after reading her more current musing, PostSecret isn't always tragic. As one might expect, a whole heap of comments followed that post.

I have never wanted to be white. During my lifetime, I have wanted lots of physical changes in my body, including longer hair, more manageable hair, browner hair, a smaller nose, less "insulation", smaller feet, less dermatological issues, no allergies, less susceptibility to colds. However, most of those desires were based on wanting to be more like the people around me, who, during my St. Thomas years, were mostly black. That was normal to me then. Being white was not quite the socially-instituted default position that it is here on the US mainland. Growing up in St. Thomas, it was just another color to me, not something to either envy or despise.

I have complained on here and in real life about many situations that would have ended differently or would never have occurred at all if I were white. Many of those same situations also would not have occured if I were male. And if I were a white male...well, then there would be no need for this blog.

If--holding every other defining factor in my life constant--I were white, things would be a lot different in my life. I can't fathom the difference it would have made in my growing up, because that would my a time-space continuum, Back to the Future study of epic proportions. I do know that my college life and post-collegiate career would have been different in at least three ways:

1. I would have had more friends (though their quality would be debatable).

2. I would probably have dated someone, or multiple people by now (again, of debatable quality).

3. I would be infinitely more successful in my career (and possibly be equally disappointed in it, if not more so).

I know life would have been easier for me over the past eight years if I were a white woman with the same instinct and abilities that I have now. I probably would have gotten most of the stuff I have wanted and have worked hard for in my professional and personal life. If any of you would like further explanation of my unsubstantianted claim, please ask politely.

Having said all of that, I again state that I have never wanted to be white. Not that being white is a bad thing. Although, considering the track record of white people over the course of recorded history, with all the conquering, enslavement, and exploitation of peoples on six continents, I understand the hesitation towards lumping yourself in with pale people at large.

As Daria said in the first episode of her eponymous series, "I don't have low self-esteem...I have low esteem for everyone else." I don't dislike myself for not being white. I dislike other people who treat me like I'm different because I have a skin with a high melanin content, naturally kinky hair and a relatively wide nose. I dislike people making assumptions about me based on some woman they saw on The Apprentice. I dislike that this is the level of discourse about the 2008 Presidential election. I dislike that it took till 2007 to begin even a meager national discourse on misogyny in hip-hop.

But I don't dislike myself, the color of my skin, or the ongoing history of my people. All of my people: women, black people, feminists, pop-culture enthusiasts, entertainers, writers, comedians, Americans, St. Thomians, Angelenos, advocates for social change. All of my people are discounted, disparaged or simply ignored by our white patriarchal, hyper-masculine society. That doesn't mean I should change myself to fit in. It means I should facilitate change in my society, so we can all fit in, and we can all feel normal.