Backwards Comparability: Daria

One of my favorite shows growing up was Daria. Feeling like an isolated individual in a high school that was more a joke for babysitting rather than educating, I found solace in Daria’s contempt, and it was refreshing to see such an honest perspective. Daria was my childhood, and a crushing knowledge that I was always going to be ostracized for being different, but I didn’t have to be mopey about the situation. Daria was a spin-off of the ever-popular, generational show, Beavis and Butt-Head. The slacker 90’s allowed for two slackers to talk about sex, fart jokes, and bask in senseless violence, all-the-while using that Mike Judge wit to dissipate the civil unrest all in one half-hour program. It was surprising to see such an intelligent show come out of such a risqué, and albeit, idiotic humorous series like Beavis and Butthead. However, most tend to not see that Beavis and Butthead was a fairly intelligent conversation of the early 90’s, it’s apropos of nothing, ne’er-do-well lackluster commentary, which has been left behind for a post millennial world hell-bent on anything but substance. Back before Mtv completely sold their souls to political oppressors, it stood for a rationale of free thought, where all sides of conversation could exist with amicable debate, and resound thought. It was also a time for stellar art and creativity to come forth through cartoons and illustrations in all forms of social commentary and avant-garde “90’s-isms.” Meaning what we saw was a resound love the of the future aspects of not only intelligent conversation, open-mindedness, and creative freedom, but also a staunch respect for past orthodoxies, and open debate on real change that was equivalent to a fast-pace, growing world. Shows like Aeon Flux, and the comic book phenomenon The Maxx, allowed for social discussion on feminism, which wasn’t one-sided, nor positive. Aeon Flux also held the strong undertones of the negatives of Fascism, and how the individual can fight for what they believe in, rather than a black-and-white perspective we now seem to hold as values today. Daria was not as scandalous a show as Beavis and Butthead, instead it was fairly intelligent, a cynical post-grunge, alternative aspect that housed the great deal of that 90’s comeuppance, and shelved the doom-and-gloom with sardonic cynicism. It was smart, shifty, and almost a psychological experiment that warned about the risk of consumerism, and the stupidity of hive-mind mentality that dawns on us both in high school, and post-graduation. I look at the show as a perfect way to close out last millennial civilization in the Western world. It is a great commentary that many of us seen as growth from the asinine 90’s, and the hopeful 00’s. The show ended after only five seasons, which was a shame, because I believe the uncanny amount of intelligence, and references are what started the trend of using cuts, and social references in television shows, which closed out the 90’s, and opened up the 00’s. Agree, or disagree, but shows like Family Guy and South Park owe a great deal of their existence and/or their writing for this show, and it’s predecessor, Beavis and Butthead. Personally, I know Daria was a stand-alone, a show that could only exist in the 90’s because it took risks that stemmed past the Post 9/11 horrors of political correctness, where even video games are censored of anything even the most befitting of scrutiny. We censor our history to befit a growing present that will only stem to recreate that with which we censored before. Daria was quick to be that overly intelligent brainchild of fart jokes and the ample repeating of the word “boobs”, but like a phoenix that rises out of a pit of slacker sarcasm, a beautiful cynical Cygnus spouts forth with a fervor that makes the more feeble-minded feel uncomfortable in its blatant disregard for hurt feelings. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, maybe because I’m older, I feel things seemed smarter back then, and in-truth, we are not dumber as individuals, but we’ve always done stupid things as groups, but I feel Daria was special, and most people could learn from it, and truly the show has aged gracefully. Does Daria represent a time that’s passed? Absolutely, but the Daria mentality is far from lost on any said generation. High school will always suck, no matter how fun the Zack Morris’ make it seem, high school is the shit-stain we must all go through, and I will add; my high-school experience was far from wretched, but it’s the forced regiment-like militarism that most of us cannot respect. Daria quotes Sartre, stating “Hell is other people”, and in retrospect, that is the premise of this whole series, but it also shows that no matter how imbecilic others can be to us, we need them, like-it-or-not, and Daria takes a maturity and smarmy thought-process to each and every half-hour debacle she must face. In-the-end, she teaches all of us, and makes us feel smarter for watching. I tend to think Daria does for philosophy and thought, what the Big Bang Theory was essentially supposed to do for science: make people feel like they can at the very least, comprehend the basics of smartness that was on their television set. Daria’s ensemble cast was always full of pre-millennial mindsets whose parents or grand parents were relics of the fifties and sixties, so they-too had a mindset to be both open-minded, but not optimistic as their family, and didn’t have the same hang-ups of their pre civil rights parents. Daria’s mother was probably the first legitimate helicopter parent on television, and the father was the blatant pro-feminist dad that was equal to a stay-at-home father today, a more capable house husband, whose wife was the real breadwinner, and although this is placated as humorous at times, it’s not seen as shocking, which makes the show far more modern than even it’s 90’s settings. We could learn a great deal from this show in today’s society, and most importantly, we could learn a great deal about ourselves as westerners, and how much the world has truly changed in the past twenty years.