Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Young Daria's Bedroom in Highland

When watching "Boxing Daria," I am always struck by the very feminine quality of her childhood bedroom. She certainly lacked for nothing: frilly curtains and lampshade, ornate furniture, little ducks along the ceiling, a clown-face light switch, toys and books galore, a doll house, and pink walls to boot. This was the lair of the Daria we know? Granted, she learned to drop her things on the floor early on, as she does in her Lawndale bedroom. And she did learn to hide in a book when real life got too stressful (or too ridiculous) to handle. It still seems like a different kid, though. Beavis and Butt-head couldn't have ruined her that thoroughly.

Looking at this picture, one wonders where the feminine side of Daria went. She wears a skirt in high school, but all the frilly things, the ornate and decorative things, that stuff went away. There was a big change. She stops competing for attention. She blocks out thoughts of boys (until Trent appears, and even then she squashes down her feelings without mercy). She doesn't socialize with other girls or with boys. She keeps to herself, intellectual and introverted and judgmental and increasingly sarcastic.

One wonders what kind of Daria this little girl could have grown up to be, even with her personality style as solemn and standoffish as it was. Interesting fodder for AU stories, starting with this little Daria. Who else might she have become?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wasn't she 6 in Boxing Daria? How many 6 year olds decorate their own room? And if it was up to Helen, Daria's room in Lawndale wouldn't look like it does, either.

Unknown said...

As for her feminine side, take a look at your previous post. :-)

Technical point: do we know that this was Highland? The B&B years were middle school. "Boxing Daria" was grade school time.

Anonymous said...

Agreed with anonymous....this is the room that Helen wanted for Daria, not the room that Daria wanted for herself.

Maybe that explains her room in Lawndale.

Anonymous said...

The room also doesn't match with 6-year old Daria's personality, either. She was already showing her tendency to pull back away from the competition with Quinn and others for attention.

Though I don't think her feminine side ever totally went away, it was suppressed. After all, she knew how to apply makeup in Quinn the Brain. For some reason, she had learned prior to then. Hmm, more story material...

The Angst Guy said...

Daria did not appear to reject her room, however. She was obviously playing there a lot (by herself, I assume) and wasn't trying to replace the curtains with black shades or anything.

Anonymous said...

She was six! Jeez! What did she know from shades?

Anonymous said...

She knew the shade of darkness in her soul!

=back of hand to forehead=