My So-Called Life

I recently read an article in the New York Times about the tv series My So-Called Life coming out on DVD. I was a little taken aback by the intro of the article: "To a certain sort of woman who is somewhere between late youth and an unacknowledged middle age..."- (oh good god that is me- why does she make that sound so old?!?!).

This show came out in 1994, when I was working at the Wok Inn on Thursday nights and could therefore not watch only the most important tv show of my generation. Well, thanks to the snow storm this weekend and our pulling the tv plug this fall, I was searching the web for free tv shows online last night (yes, I know this is just what the writers are striking about... sue me, I needed knitting accompaniment and I was up to date on all my favorite podcasts). And there it was, under the "full episode" option on abc.com-- the pilot to My So-called Life!!! It resonated with me on many different levels. First, I was struck at the changes from 13 years ago: Angela and Rayanne start the show asking strangers for change to make a phone call (because teenagers didn't have cell phones back then, of course), the girls wear baggy plaid shirts (see Bellafante's quote below,) Angela's dyed hair that so scandalized would barely get a blink in today's world of tattoos and piercings (I sooo wanted hair like that!), not to mention her parents look so young to late youth/unacknowledged middle age me. It may be 13 years later, but I am glad I finally get to see this show. (Assuming ABC is planning on putting all the episodes up in the coming weeks)

Here are a couple of other good quotes from Ginia Bellafante's article that really captured certain aspects of my generation that make me glad I "came of age" when I did:

“My So-Called Life” imagined parents and teenagers operating out of separate and oppositional emotional spheres. It recognized adolescence as a psychological phase with a beginning and an end, and while that might seem a common-sense approach to the show’s subject, contemporary television rarely seems to take it."

As the touchstone examination of adolescence in the ’90s, “My So-Called Life” rejected the Clintonian ethos of ambition: striving, perhaps, wasn’t better. And at the same time it linked itself closely to the feminism of the period, one that prized interiority, self-help and revolutions from within. It was a diluted notion of female advancement, but at least it was a modestly dressed one. Angela wore late-grunge-era flannels and baggy shapes. So there is another way, finally, that “My So-Called Life” looks like no other teenage series that succeeded it: We never saw our heroine’s bellybutton."