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.
7 comments:
Re: Barch being VERY intelligent, I have my doubts.
I don't think Angela Li pays any attention to the quality of the teachers at LHS, given what we see of them and her. Li's more interested in financing her rampant paranoia by diverting school funds into bizarre pet projects. Barch thus gets away with being Barch, O'Neill with being O'Neill, etc., and the football coach gets his old job back after serving jail time for taking kickbacks (per The Daria Diaries).
True, the show is a cartoon parodying suburban life and excesses, but one must admit that such a collection of out-there teachers is possible only when the one in charge is as "out there" as everyone else. As above, so below. It is logically consistent.
One also wonders if Janet Barch was as good a spouse as she seems to think. Maybe her ex- was a world-class jerk, but can you really see Barch as anything other than a harpy who blames all her problems on other people? The divorce probably made her more like what she really was.
I must admit that O'Neill creeps me out, too. He and Barch deserve each other. I don't know if he'd bonk a student (though Dervish's "Cries for Help" is fairly convincing), but one day he'll screw up somehow and Barch will go "pop." His apartment will then have to be sealed up as it will be impossible to get Timothy scraped off the walls and washed out of the carpet.
One also wonders if Janet Barch was as good a spouse as she seems to think. Maybe her ex- was a world-class jerk, but can you really see Barch as anything other than a harpy who blames all her problems on other people? The divorce probably made her more like what she really was.
Remember what she says in IICY?
"You didn't spend years of your life telling him again and again to get his grubby hands off of the remote, quit his damned coughing, stop behaving like an imbecile, only to be tossed into the trash like a broken record!"
Sounds to me like she was an interminable nag when she was married, and most likely drove her husband insane for the twenty-two years before he left her. I don't think that's any excuse for what he did, but I doubt Barch was any kind of model wife beforehand.
finishing up ALL of my unfinished fics!
All of 'em? Woo hoo!
Aw, you spoiled the "The ___ Guy" trend we had going! (sulks)
Oh, and welcome to the blog. :)
(sulks more)
For the blog he could be The Brother Grimace Guy. C'mon, do it for France.
That's funny. I just realized that I was planning to finish all of MY unfinished fanfics in 2009, too.
Must be a virus.
Hooray for fic-finishing viruses!
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