Seeing reels from Daria on Instagram reminded me how good the first season was. It's not online for free (meaning Amazon has free trials), so I busted out my barely used DVD set, the one I hated because the music's missing (bar one song), and decided to watch it. To be fair, the replacement music really isn't that bad, it just wrecks some jokes.
Anyway, episode two Britney asks Daria if the phrase "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is from a song. I nearly died. That scenario happened to me almost exactly. Okay, it wasn't between me and a cheerleader, my country doesn't have that shit. It also wasn't even at school, in the cafeteria, which we also didn't have. It was at work. And I like the person who was the Britney. And technically I didn't correct them, the person who said the phrase said, no that wasn't Kelly Clarkson. That person also looked really appreciative when I said it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche. I'm not that smart, I can't spell the guy's name off the top of my head. But I had a Daria moment in real life. And I was the school Daria. Most of those girls grew up and were told they weren't that smart or edgy, and it wasn't that cool to say you were. But, fuck it, how is this not evidence I can fucking own this one. The only reason I'm not on Instagram right now telling people is the Britney follows me. Whether she remembers the scene, I don't know. I just don't want to point it out and be mean. And people were really quick to call me out for being too smart, they still do it. You don't ever get away from that.
I also have a limit on Daria's voice when I binge the show, and the theme. It takes a while for her monotone to grate on your nerves. This really was a show better seen on TV. And I missed most of the later seasons, again these shows were on during my transition from high school to college when I wasn't around a TV much once I'd moved out.
Also, Tiffany had a totally different voice in the second episode (Britney and a few other characters weren't as "on" initially, they really do lean into the quirks of those character voices along the way), and Stacey's nowhere to be seen as yet. I forgot how much Daria terrorises Quinn early on, and her family. Daria's completely toxic but it's against objectively awful people like her entire family and 99% of the students at school, and her teachers. And the lines are giving me late 90s MTV website vibes where they had just enough space to upload a couple of videos and audio clips you could click on. This show was my life back then. I feel like I have an absolute right to claim my Daria card.
Oh, and Quinn being asked to tutor Daria was basically my life at work until recently. And Quinn "outperforming" as a writer over Daria was my authorship life until recently.
I actually feel kind of stupid for how angry I got about the lack of licensed music from the show, considering I don't even remember every song they played, they weren't all even hit songs, just whatever MTV was playing at the time. Even the websites I'm looking up have varied totals of songs played which leads me to believe people couldn't identify some of them to list them, given something licensed played as incidental music through the whole show, so it never had a score, getting that info even for a fan wiki is a lot of work if you weren't listening to the radio back then. Looking at the track lists I don't remember hearing those songs much. I can't believe some episodes only had 2 songs total, plus some of the credits had songs played. Now I'm wondering if this was harder to curate back in the day because the internet wasn't that accessible. So I'm seeing a lot of lists where they had no idea what song was played, so they've left a ? or no listing at all. It didn't occur to me nobody would've been able to get this info down without keeping track live or having every broadcast episode videotaped. Someone's supposedly done a complete play list of 628 songs. The Wikipedia section mentions 99% of the songs were removed which makes sense to me because I distinctly remember Tori's cover of Strange Little Girl playing in the second movie when I was watching the DVDs for the first time and my brain just went Huh? K? You got that? It would've made way more sense to admit defeat from the outset and just not even try to secure licensing.
It's been a quibble of some TV show fans where rules in certain places dictate you only have the rights to use the song once during the initial broadcast, and it's revoked and then needs replacing for streaming or physical release. Which seems silly, again there's a couple of scenes in Skins season 2 that were just crap without the original song. Something about certain scenes with certain songs, if it hits you in the feels the first time, or you watched that version and got the feels, it's really a shock to the system when you're expecting the song/moment and a totally different song is playing. It makes you mad, you're looking for an emotional lift and it's just completely denied. I think it's something people who add music for shows don't always get. Dan Harmon insisted music not be used if an editor can make a scene without a pop song and it's totally fine, then don't force it. The problem is worse in trailer terms especially now everyone wants like a gritty reimagining of a popular song with beats you can use for dramatic edits and bass drops. Or they happen upon a meme song and suddenly it's in the trailer.
This wasn't about music in shows but it's important to bring up in the context of Daria, it was what made the show famous outside of the titular character being iconic on her own terms. Watching it now, it didn't get the mainstream credit it deserved for how subversive it was, it was competing for attention from Futurama fans, who were becoming disillusioned Simpsons fans looking for a replacement cartoon. Bevis and Butthead is still hilarious, the first movie holds up. I couldn't binge it though without getting more annoyed. I don't think other MTV shows relied that heavily on music that was on MTV or just out at the time. Since I only remember a couple of moments where the song mattered, watching now, they did fine replacing it with a score, I was nostalgic for an aspect of the show that made it fun but this change doesn't make it the unwatchable mess I accused it of being when I got the DVD. They at least bothered to make it sound like 90s grunge predominantly.
Also Daria was on the cusp of being a millennial, she was canonically born in 1980, something I never considered until going back to the DVDs which are skipping despite me barely touching them (thankfully, the cheap Bluray player is a good DVD player and the DVDs aren't region locked - I might have to try a few DVDs out and see if they don't skip too much) You could say she was a Gen Xer but it's barely.
Rewatching the Misery Chick episode and Daria has a point. I was the only kid who seemed remotely interested in death as a concept so I'm glad nobody died. And Jane running away and through Daria's problems, I wish people played that clip more. Especially now when nobody on the side of thoughtlessness has figured out why billionaires dying in a submarine is worthy of ridicule. You didn't want to keep going on why? That wealth disparity caused by these fuckers accentuating everyone's poverty with no regard is a perfectly reasonable response to them possibly dying a horrible death. The Onion figured it out, people are still upset. This is the level of stupidity people apply politicians or horrible people in general finally dying - it's ill to speak wrong of the dead, even if they couldn't care less if you die and have likely made decisions that could possibly even increase your entire chance of dying (i.e. Trump). People get upset when Murdoch's name trends on Twitter and it's nothing about him dying. Meanwhile, we get panic attacks if someone who's kicking on a bit starts trending and we all think they're finally gone. Daria being the agony aunt for people who can't cope with grief is another of my shared traits. Some people clued in to the fact I thought deeper than some kids so I must have had some wisdom about shitty things. In truth, I didn't go to a funeral until I was in my early twenties, and the sight of a closed coffin was way more confronting that I anticipated. I was too affected by other people crying.
Another question came up about Daria being autistically coded. I said it was a retroactive diagnosis based on what we know now, not was obvious then. She had big feelings hiding behind a mask and a monotone, that alone would nominate her for the club. But she was really dour and I didn't always have the capacity for that. Maybe when I was 15 and anxious and more aware of being numbed out. The difference is she spoke up when I didn't and was basically right about everything. And her mother was a lawyer so some punishments from the school were mitigated by Helen's legal savvy (however, it's pretty shitty Helen's employing her PA to do Quinn's homework). I think Daria was probably more autistic than me and she wasn't clueless about people. I know it makes people so mad to point out autism where people don't want to see it (mostly neurotypicals), I think it's kinda fun to play that game. We only do it to ruin TV shows for neurotypicals, of course. They're not allowed to enjoy an autistic character without us pointing it out and making them feel shitty for liking anything remotely autistic.
She also gets nauseated in VR, like me. She’s also a chronic bitch who beats up her sister. She gets blotch face and neck like me when she’s anxious. But it's kinda funny the way other students worry about her being in hospital despite her wanting it to be a secret, just because she's the main character. She only really cares about Jane, (and Jodie when it counts). I think I felt so detached from other students it made no sense to me they would show me sympathy when I was sad. Daria's really an anti-hero as much as Bevis and Butthead are, she's diabolical and mean-spirited but the point of the show was really about her slowly succumbing to her own humanity, which we don't see Bevis and Butthead do as much, unless Bevis is butt-hurt about being unable to score. She wasn't miserable, she didn't hate people, she really just didn't hold anyone in good esteem. She becomes a decent friend, so when it comes time for her to betray Jane, that's where the show fell off the wagon for me. It was more, how would Daria cope with being in that situation, and her picking the cheating route felt stupid and forced. Plus, she sucked as a girlfriend, and the guy was nothing to bust a friendship over anyway. I think her going through her whole high school experience without a boyfriend would've been fine. Her crush on Trent humanised her enough, she kept it up despite realising he wouldn't be a good match long term, that's totally normal. And him showing up to her house to see her is amusing. The piercing episode is cute, like the contact lenses one. For such a flat character on the original show, you can see why people loved Daria being given the depth of a normal teenage girl who still couldn't fit in anywhere. Also she was better at telling her mother off for taking calls rather than listen to her problems. Which is why we all love Aunt Amy, Daria's adult counterpart.
And teachers needed to stop entering her work in competitions without her consent.
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