It's me - Brother Grimace. Nice to see you. I'll be dashing in and out every now and then to make Daria-centric comments. First things first - TAG, thanks for letting me play.
Nothing to rant or say right now. Guess I'll just post a little reminder of one of my favorite Daria episodes - Quinn The Brain:
Always did think the 'boob-enhancing' baby-T that she wore here was, well, in the words of Bill and Ted, "Not bad." As PPMB denizen smk has reminded me - she said that I need a slightly classier term than 'sweater puppies'. She's right - but the original term that I heard, from Alan Ruck's Upchuck-esque character 'Stewart' on ABC's Spin City, was 'sweater meat'.
Along those lines - sooner or later, TAG and I will have a serious discussion on the nature of Helen Morgendorffer's greatest assets - well, beside her brains and her uber-competitive, 'win at all costs', 'take-no-prisoners!' attitude. On an actyual serious note, though, one of the things I'm working on for 2009 (besides finishing up ALL of my unfinished fics!) is an essay on the nature of romance in Daria. I'm trying to look into why (or why not) several characters are together, and the background/backstory for those characters. For example - Janet Barch. On first glance, she seems truly unredeemable - but if you look closely, she's one of the saddest, most damaged characters in the show, from beginning to end - and it's not her fault.
The crux of Janet's problems stems from her divorce, which apparently changed her from - what? - to the male-hating virago we know from the show. Consider, however, a couple of facts.
* Janet Barch is an intelligent woman - and actually VERY or even EXTREMELY intelligent. (Greg Grumman, playing a bit part on an episode of House, M.D. commented on Greg House himself as being in the same vein. 'He's gotta be good, because when you're a jerk like that, you're either good or you're unemployed.' ) However, because of the way her personality (in this supposition) changed - she was probably released from whatever position she had, and she was lucky to find work as a teacher at Lawndale High. Angela Li probably had her over a barrel - the only job that she could get where she could do anything near what she loves - science - and get an actual living wage, Li gets a top-flight teacher working for her (in the case of the girls only, and occasionally a boy or two), and occasionally vent out her rage and frustration against the other gender without too much blowback.
* Janet was actually one hell of a wife. She was married for twenty-two years (for you Star Trek:The Next Generation fans - that's the exact length of Jean-Luc Picard's first mission aboard his first command; USS Stargazer. Very few women, even if they're dumber than bricks when it comes to men, would spend twenty-two years married to a guy if something in that marriage wasn't working, and vice-versa.
* Janet actually loved her husband very much. 'A woman scorned', and all that - and it seems, from the little data that the show's given us, that Janet was the victim of 'the seven-year itch' - adjusted for inflation, of course. The ex-hubby seems to have found younger, cuter, more eager to please in bed and too young to understand that she's being used; the ex ran off with this young thing... and it tore Janet apart. The only way she found that she could cope is to lash out and hurt everyone as much as she's hurting inside... and she's never stopped hurting.
I also think that the absolute worst thing that she could have done is to get involved with Timothy O'Neill. Can you say 'classic case of overcompensation?' If the show had ever tried to give some depth to any of the secondary characters, Janet would have been perfect; I would have loved it when she dumped O'Neill (I swear befor God, I REALLY can't see them lasting too long before he starts to remember that he has a penis and 'allows' some starstruck teenage girl in one of his English classes to 'help him with his Longfellow', to recycle an old joke. (I always saw O'Neill as the teacher most likely to get into trouble that way, and then hang himself in his classroom just before the bell OR to do it in front of his class. I really can't tell you how much I despise that character.) Anyway, he'd screw the teeny-bopper and then go running to Janet for confession and forgiveness ('because she can understand my pain - howI'm suffering because I couldn't control myself, andhow I've damaged that young girl's trust in all adults, and all men...'). I'd hand her the axe handle my brother used to keep in his trunk, and tell her that no one will ever know. They could show the tape on Youtube and FOX News with her face in high-def, and no charges will ever be filed because it's obviously temporary insanity AND self-defense.
Well. That's a little more serious than I wanted to get on my first turn out of the bullpen.
We'll go for something lighter next time, I think.
Just got home from vacation, still pretty bleary and a little brain dead. What's been going on since I was gone... got to have a most excellent Dariacon with Brother Grimace, only a week after having a most excellent one with Richard and Louise Lobinske, so I totally rule. Well, okay, THEY rule, but I get to rule a little bit.
