So, I've noticed that Daria is popularly thought to be very attractive--perhaps even more so than Quinn. Since all of the characters on
Daria look fairly nondescript, being somewhat simply drawn cartoon characters, fans tend to point to the climactic scene from the episode "Quinn the Brain" to support this.
After all, Daria gives herself a makeover, and anyone who's seen a movie or TV show geared toward teenagers knows that's the way to turn a humdrum teen girl into a smoking hot one, right? ;)
There's also Quinn's reaction to Daria's makeover. She feels threatened, which clinches it, right? Quinn wouldn't feel threatened by Daria's appearance if Daria was not, in fact, at least as attractive as Quinn.
Right?
I'd like to offer a new way of looking at this scene. First, there's the obvious "parody" aspect of the scene. As mentioned previously, just about every young adult movie and/or TV show has done some variation on the "plain girl puts on makeup and fluffs her hair, then becomes supermodel" trope. "Quinn the Brain" has the plain girl put on makeup and fluff her hair--then turn around and revert back to her former appearance before more than one person even sees her.
Second, many people seem to overlook the parallelism of Daria's actions. All of the events leading up to that moment include Quinn "taking over" Daria's persona. She writes, she says "brainy" things, she dresses unfashionably, etc. Daria feels threatened by this, even though we all know she has no reason to be. No one would argue that Quinn's poem about the greasy fry is a masterpiece, or that her philosophizing about school work is the most ingenious idea since Darwin. The point is that Daria sees those things as defining
her, and Quinn is now being recognized for them instead.
So, when Daria decides to fight back by taking over the aspects of Quinn's personality that define Quinn, there's no reason to assume that she successfully surpasses or even equals Quinn's appearance. Yes, Quinn felt threatened, but simply because she saw someone else usurping her persona--successfully or not--in the same way Daria felt threatened by Quinn. In short, Daria's makeover is the "greasy fry poem" of attractiveness.
This is not, of course, the only way to interpret that episode. Certainly it's possible that Daria walked out of her bedroom looking like the love child of Angelina Jolie and Jessica Alba. However, keep in mind that there exist plenty of women out there whose looks were between average and okay, who watched
Daria in high school because they liked seeing another "average to okay" girl who reminded them that her appearance was irrelevant compared to her intelligence and sense of humor.
Am I saying there's no way Daria could possibly be attractive? Not at all. Am I saying that fandom should not ever consider Daria to be at supermodel heights of attractiveness? Nope. However, I think that, from now on, anyone who declares Daria to be the "hot" sister must also recognize Quinn as the "smart" sister.
It's only fair, after all! :-D
