TV Revisited...Daria

I remember growing up in the 90’s and never really appreciating Daria, which aired every Saturday on channel 5. I was drawn to the pleasing aesthetic of the show but I could never relate to this ugly, gawky outcast and besides, I didn’t find it funny and the characters voices irritated me. Perhaps I was just too young to fully appreciate her.

Recently there has been somewhat of a Daria revival on freeview channel VIVA, with Daria episodes airing left, right and centre, and this time round, I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with the show which has definitely seen Daria dragged off the mortuary slab, resuscitated and thrust back into her high school uniform to relieve those painfully awkward days.

For those that don’t know, Daria is a series following the lives of the Morgendorffer family, but particularly titular character Daria as they ride the peaks and weather the troughs of life in a new town.



Daria herself is best known for her cutting cynicism, wicked wit and sinister sarcasm. She’s not depressed and she doesn’t have low self esteem, just ‘low esteem for everyone else’. She dresses in drab fashion, clashing colours that would never work on the runway and she seems genuinely bemused and wearied by American teen life.



Little sister Quinn embodies everything that Daria despises about the teenage experience. She’s pretty, popular and perky, a real life Jessica Rabbit, and an odd mixture of doe-eyed Lolita like sexuality and padlocked celibacy with a love of everything bright, shiny and fashionable and a dislike of anything hot, sweaty and dirty. Quinn does indeed have all the depth of a puddle but she still manages to be quite a mesmerizing character. She personifies young newly awakened sexuality that parades but doesn’t really understand itself yet, immaturely beautiful, understanding the effects of her looks but not the responsibilities they entail.

Dad Jake is the little boy who never grew up, and constantly berates himself for selling out and following the conventional norms of society and wife Helen is the businesswoman-cum-mother who tries to excel at it all whilst wearing her perfectly preened suit.



Outside of the intriguing family dynamic and clash of characters are the students of Lawndale high who encapsulate the little world that Daria and Quinn are propelled into. For Daria, this world consists of equally outcast artist Jane (famous for her red jacket, short black hair and witty quips), her brother Trent (a guy who may or may not have finished high school who now spends his time playing in a band called Mystic Spiral – name liable to change, on whom Daria develops the crush to end all crushes and okay, I was won over by Trent myself...), students Brittany and Kevin who exemplify the cheerleader/jock archetypes and Upchuck, the resident deluded lothario with about as much charm and sex appeal as a cockroach mated with a rodent.



Quinn’s world consists of a very different set of acquaintances. Within seconds of her arrival at her new school, Quinn is snapped up by the fashion club and becomes their vice president. Sandi, Stacey and Tiffany form her image conscious gang, symbolic of everything shallow, self-conscious, materialistic and insecure about teenage girls. Indeed, this gang are a kind of pre-Mean Girls or alternate ‘Ashleys’ gang from Recess. They talk boys, eye liner and beauty products and little else. Daria and Quinn’s high school experiences are polar extremes; Daria exists on the periphery and Quinn excels in the spotlight under the glare on the precipice of popularity and obscurity.



Beyond the student body, the teachers are an equally dysfunctional bunch. Mr DeMartino can barely repress his rage at the apathy and stupidity of his students and constantly wishes he was doing something else, whilst Mr O’Neill is still in the Pollyanna mode of teaching, believing that he is making a difference with his blood curdling sensitivity and focus on esteem and emotions.

So what is it that hooked me about Daria this time around? Daria is a show that is a skilful slice of everything that the 90’s was.  Each character represents and relates to a very definite aspect of many peoples lives.

For anyone that’s ever felt isolated by their morals or intelligence, there’s Daria.

For all the ‘what if’s’ and ‘if only’s’ of our romantic life’s, there’s the aching, embarrassing, hormone riddled infatuation that Daria has on Trent, a crush that probably would have little basis for a long lasting relationship but is definitely relatable to every teenage girl on earth.



Quinn is the shiny, super cute queen bee who has everything, and shows moments of maturation and growth beyond her desperate desire to fit in, acknowledging that everyone has something that they are good at, and for her, it’s being popular.

The fashion club represent herd mentality to hilarious effect, Jane represents alternate living, and Trent personifies the lazy but contradictorily ambitious attitude of a slacker with dreams.



Helen and Jake represent the power house matriarch and the coddled, ineffectual father becoming increasingly prevalent and I’ve never seen a better example of a teacher who just doesn’t give a rat’s ass (that would be Mr D.)

Daria is a brilliantly clever take on 90’s life seen through the eyes of a disillusioned teenage girl who can see through the fluff and pretence of cute clothes and bouncy hair, but what’s most important about this show is its heart. If it were made today, Daria would be portrayed as vivid and beautiful, and wholly unrelatable as an outcast loser ‘brain’. Instead, we can relate to Daria’s reluctance to fit in, her ability to soar above the average teenage issues (like getting a nose job or updating your wardrobe) and her awareness of the fact that there is more to life than high school. In this way, Daria is a role model for any outcast girl, or indeed, all outcasts, to escape from their petty problems and realise that Daria has been there and done that already. Daria doesn’t get the guy (Trent is always just a ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’ crush, she  is never popular and she never manages to achieve bouncy hair) , but she does survive high school, and she does so by never sacrificing who she is, and that is all any of us can really ask for.

Ted

Seth MacFarlane is the marmite of the comedy world, segregating audiences between a tidal wave of love and loathe. I am both a fan of 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad' but I just could not bring myself to enjoy Ted as much as was intended.

The plot centres on man child John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg), who as a boy, wished that his toy teddy bear would come to life and be his best friend forever. He makes the right wish on the right night and Ted springs to life comforting him on thunder filled nights. Fast forward a good few years, bypassing a blip of 15 minutes of fame for the bear that can speak and it seems that Ted is everything deplorable in a human being deposited into the sweet, enchanting exterior of a toy bear.



Perhaps this is the fundamental flaw with the character of Ted. He is simply unlikeable. He drinks, does copious amounts of drugs (he settles on 'Mind rape' after debating 'Gorilla Panic' and 'This is permanent'), uses vegetables to penetrate hookers, is unemployed and throws the F bomb around at an explosive rate. Ted is essentially a 15 year old, responsibility free Peter Griffin, and not just in terms of the voice which is UNMISTAKEABLY Griffin, but the demeanour, the behaviour and the hostility. Ted's sweet features and sentimental back-story don't do much to deter us from the fact that is a rather repugnant character. Perhaps it is simply that I’ve outgrown McFarlane's humour, or perhaps it's that 'Ted' is too much like Griffin to be appreciated as a truly unique, one off character.

There is a certain audience that would gravitate to Ted. This would be the same audience that appreciates Stifler or Mary styling her hair with ‘hair gel’. It’s not an immature or unrefined audience. Most of us have a space or two in our bellies for a bit of toilet humour, but when the entire character is constructed around such gags with little to no redeeming qualities, the character becomes hard to stomach. The character of Ted is 98% jokes with only a 20-30% laughter success rate. In fact much of the humour was generated by other characters, rather than Ted himself, and he worked best with the odd quip or one liner, rather than any lengthy conversational exchange.



John and Ted's friendship is one of debauchery, co-dependency and fun. Ted is John’s security blanket from his childhood but also a representation of simpler, happier times. Their friendship is dysfunctional but real and clearly of much importance and value to both. Two may be company but three is most definitely a crowd, enter John's girlfriend Lori (panther like Mila Kunis), who wishes for a more mature relationship with John which is hindered by Ted's predominance in John’s life. Whilst John dithers between his future with his girlfriend and the past cultivated between himself and Ted, father and son duo Donny and Robert would very much appreciate taking Ted off of his hands!

Ted is a mixture of humour and fantasy but don’t be fooled, this is primarily a romantic comedy with a wise cracking talking teddy bear thrown in.

The crux of Ted seems to be a man’s choice between childhood and manhood. Ted represents John’s ties to his former self and Lori represents the potential of his adult future. But does he really have to lose one to have the other? Or can a man’s inner child survive alongside his enlightened mature self? This is the classic ‘bros before hoes’ tale; should John choose Ted or Lori? His best bud or the love of his life? Does he have to choose at all?



Some of the jokes are pure and simple hilarity, as if ‘Family Guy’ animations were transported into the real world. There were moments that made me explode with demonic laughter, but for the most part the film falls flat and fails to live up to its immense potential. It could be that McFarlane has been heavily censored or perhaps it was his intention to deviate slightly from the controversial foundations of ‘Family Guy’ to breach a wider audience. Either way, something fundamental is missing and heavy segments of ‘Ted’ simply sag.

Mark, Seth and Mila fulfil what’s required of them, but the sneaky scene stealers are the bit parts. I can’t help but think that if their roles were elevated, the film might have drawn a few more laughs from me. Giovanni Ribisi is creepier than a creeky staircase as crazed fan-boy father Donny whilst his Susan Boyle lookalike son Robert portrayed by Aedin Mincks is the Veruca Salt of this story; spoilt and deplorable. There is a lengthy cameo appearance from ‘Flash Gordon’ front man Sam J. Jones and a cameo from Norah Jones that made little to no sense to me whatsoever. But for me the hugest accolade belongs to Patrick Warburton who famously voices Joe Swanson of ‘Family Guy’ as the undecided homosexual who eventually comes out with a mild mannered Ryan Reynolds.

Don’t get me wrong; parts of ‘Ted’ will have you cradling your split sides in tickled agony, but far too much of it falls flat, and if we take out the talking teddy bear, we simply have a hiccough between the love story of Mark and Mila, and therefore it essentially feels a little lazy.

The Dark Knight Rises

Selena Kyle: There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.



Some films are heralded by the sound of rampant applause and acclaim long before they even make it to the big screen. One such film is the third and supposedly final in Christopher Nolan’s revamp of the campy Batman series, to create a sleek, stealthy, sinister world of decadent darkness.

Eight years on from the harrowing events of The Dark Knight, Gotham resides in a state of melancholy peace following on from the tragic death of the cities former hero Harvey Dent and climactic capture of Batman’s warped  ‘dog chasing a car’ nemesis the Joker.

Millionaire socialite Bruce Wayne has also retired from the public sphere, whiling away time in his palatial surroundings at Wayne Manor, convinced that life no longer has anything to offer him since the murder of his long standing flame Rachel. Physically in detriment and mentally distracted, Wayne is no longer the powerful hero the city had come to depend on.



Unfortunately, he is forced to don his leathers again, roused out by the craft and cunning of cat burglar Selena Kyle. A new antagonist has ventured into town, an adversary far more physically powerful and brutal than any of Batman’s former contenders – Bane. Recruiting disillusioned men from the world above down in the sewers, Bane quietly builds a formidable army to assist him with destroying Gotham. It is not simply that Bane wants to eradicate Gotham from the map (though he does indeed want this). He firstly wants to give the people of Gotham hope, hope for freedom and hope for escape, before plunging them into total eradication.

Tricked by Catwoman into a confrontation with Bane, Wayne is defeated and locked in a cell in a remote desert prison. The aesthetic of the prison outlines Bane’s concept for defeating Gotham in perfect clarity. All prisoners, from their dank and dark surroundings, can glimpse the beaming light of hope and freedom above. All they must do to claim it is climb the rope and escape. Unfortunately, none of the prisoners have ever achieved this, except one, a child. Bane tantalizingly teases Wayne by providing him with video footage of the destruction and despair he reeks on Gotham in his absence causing Wayne to begin focusing on sharpening his mind and developing the potential of his body.



Meanwhile Bane isolates the city of Gotham by detonating several devices that render it impossible for the inhabitants to leave. He forces the wealthy and powerful into hiding, returning the city to the damaged, despondent, disillusioned, imprisoned and impoverished, releasing prisoners chained up during the Dent Act and revealing the truth about the actions of former Hero Harvey Dent. Now that the city belongs to ‘the people’, in a warped re-enactment of the Last Judgement, the accused are forced to choose death or exile, forced onto the frozen wastes of Gotham before plunging to their deaths in the water below.



Now that Bane has provided the citizens with a glimmer of hope, reclaiming the city from their rich oppressors, he can wait quietly as the bomb slowly ticks down. But Wayne has grappled with a very important finding. He cannot escape the pit when he uses the rope and inches his way closer to the top. Instead he mimics the actions of the child who escaped before him. A child who freed themselves by lunging their body forward, powered only by the fear of death, the desperation of escape and the tenacity toward freedom. Accepting his fear of death, Bruce manages to escape the confines and returns to his city.

What follows is the reunion of our protagonists and anti heroes, Batman, Gordon, Fox, Blake and Catwoman as they attempt to thwart Bane’s plans, save their city and expose an unlikely adversary.

The film ends in such a way that indicates the franchise could be returned to. This could be the closing of a chapter, or the gentle shutting of a book, but it could also be planting the seeds for an entire new direction. Certain facts and loose ends are left up in the air, leaving us only to assume that this is the end, or a new beginning for several of the characters involved.



Nolan is renowned for casting unpredictable wild card choices that tend to confound and polarise audiences. His decisions are never ‘obvious’. He gave the role of the Joker to Heath Ledger when he was only really known as a romantic lead in teen fair such as 10 things I hate about you, and what he received was a man who enmeshed and immersed himself in the role with such totality that he became the twisted face of manic insanity and chaos. In this film he bestows the role of Catwoman to a rather unlikely candidate, star of The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, wholesomely lantern eyed Anne Hathaway who similarly transforms and transcends her limitations to become the sinisterly sensuous Selena. Anne surprisingly slips into the sombre mood with effortless ease, creating a crafty, cautious cat of a woman, scarlet lipped, kohl rimmed bottomless black eyes, lycra clad and buxom. I have a feeling Anne’s career is going to go in a completely different direction after her participation in this franchise.



It is Nolan’s faith in these seemingly random choices that creates a sumptuous cast that surprises and ensnares. Many mocked him for casting unconventional beauty Maggie Gyllenhaal as Wayne’s love interest rival, and likewise his decisions for many other roles are unusual, but work astonishingly to breathe life into their roles. It is interesting to see actors and actresses sizzle and intensify under Nolan’s watch, shedding former skins and showing their true capacities to become new characters.



Christian Bale brings his usual thoughtful, reticent intensity to the Batman role, Michael Caine astounds in more emotional, heartfelt exchanges between Alfred and Bruce, Gary Oldman is fantastic as ever, reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon, Cillian Murphy is suitably bewildered and dishevelled as Dr Crane and Morgan Freeman lends his gentle tenacity to the role of Lucius Fox. But there are two other newcomers that really steal the scenes for me.



The forceful intense tenacity of Tom Hardy who also incorporates a graceful, magnetic vulnerability is the villain of the piece Bane – literally the bane of Batman’s existence in this movie. His presence is startling and instant. It is at times difficult to understand all of Bane’s lines (something the Batman franchise consistently suffers from) due to his masked exterior, but Tom’s eyes and muscles do all of the talking to create a truly formidable and memorable opponent.



Nolan has brought in many of his Inception pals, gracing Joseph Gorden Levitt with the role of Blake, a police officer branded a ‘hot head’ who is promoted to Detective thanks to Gordon’s recognition of his talents. Gorden-Levitt has a youthful vulnerability hiding in a brooding exterior that make him perfect for this dynamic world of Nolan’s creation.



Another Inception star, the stunning Marion Cotillard plays the understated role of Bruce’s new love interest Miranda Tate, who is not all she seems. A startling face that only has a fraction of screen time most definitely deserves a shout out, the baby faced; adult eyed Joey King, who portrays the role of the child escaping the pit.

Nolan creates a dark, gothic, hyper realistic atmosphere compared to Burton’s earlier campy style. This world is a bit of NY, a little London and a sprinkling of Chicago. Not so unrecognisable to us, but a stone’s throw away. Shakespeare used to set plays picking apart London’s social and cultural issues by transposing them to Italian towns. Nolan behaves similarly. Particularly with the world as it is, many of Batman’s themes and points resonate poignantly. Have the rich and powerful held the poor and desperate down for too long? Are many of us dual, doing what we can to survive in the concrete jungles we’ve created? Batman is essentially a humourless franchise, with only the odd second of inferred humour. It is a thick, muddy, swamp like world of depravity, money and evil.  Hans Zimmer demonstrates this with his delicious soundtrack that will literally raise the hairs on your arms and tingle and jangle along your nerves. He creates music built for flight or fight, with a power and rawness rarely matched. Action fans will not be disappointed at the animal confrontations of Bane and Batman that had me hanging on my seat with apprehension.

Batman has always been a study in morality. Gotham is a world where good and evil do battle behind guises and masks very much mirrored in our own world. An exposed face can do more good hidden and anonymised. Unfortunately, this film will forever be tarnished by the real life actions of a crazed murderer in a small Colorado town, but this is not a film that glamorises violence, this is a film that shows the necessity of fighting for what’s right, appreciating what we have and not taking things at face value.

Beauty and the Beast: The Ugly Face of Prejudice

Series 2, Episode 3

Channel 4

9 o’clock





Channel 4 is renowned for its provocative, distasteful titles but does tend to scrape the surface of some rather poignant matters.

This time, the focus is on our obsessive relationship with a very narrow definition of beauty that an increasing number of women and men are cutting, injecting and butchering themselves to fit.

A handful of highly desired features are sought after by the individuals who pursue the never-ending search for idealised beauty: full lips, long luscious locks, large glimmering eyes, pearly white teeth, a smooth, wrinkle free forehead, a slim figure complete with large breasts and an ample bottom (buxom and gravity defying of course) and skin the colour of untrodden golden sands.

Few, if any of us, are naturally endowed with the majority or all of these attributes but yet this has become the pinnacle of perceived human attractiveness. The achieving of such beauty has generated a market of make-up, plastic surgery, hair extensions, false tan and various other products designed to strip the bank balance of girls and boys with disposable incomes (or their harassed, harangued parents) and the far reaching grip of the marketing machine is targeting younger and younger age demographics, forcing girls and boys to become preoccupied with their appearances earlier and earlier.

There has always been a pressure to look good and it’s not difficult to envision that there always will be. Beauty has always been valued, but over the years the definition of beauty has shrunk to fit a narrower, more defined margin, to the exclusion of an assortment of various other looks.

Magazines, movies and newspapers tend to portray a certain kind of look, to the exclusion and alienation of all others.

So what happens when the cataclysmic combination of a self-confessed beauty worshipping narcissist shares life’s with a person with a facial disability/disfigurement?

What can the two exchange and learn from one another?

Is there merit to the fanatical pursuit of beauty? Do we need to shift our priorities? Is our quest for beauty draining us emotionally, mentally and spiritually? (As well as financially).

You might come to this show with preconceptions about the ‘beauty’ and the ‘beast’. You might assume the beauty is vacuous, insecure, self-oriented, lacks will power and has all the sustenance of cotton candy. You might also assume the ‘beast’ is warm hearted, has triumphed over adversity, and has a greater grounding and understanding of what ‘really’ matters. This show attempts to unravel these preconceived notions, or solidify them. The interesting thing is that many of the beauties are adamant that they are self-confident and completely at ease with their dedication to a strict beauty regimen, perceiving it as both achievable and necessary. Some light probing though, suggests that the majority of the women are caught in a cycle of both short sightedness and deep rooted insecurities. By fixing the outside excessively, they feel they are soothing some great internal monster that threatens to engulf them with a yawn. What the show tends to reveal, as a trend, is that the beauties, despite being aesthetically appealing are often dealing with a ‘beast’ of their own in the form of a mental disfigurement, rather than a physical one, be it depression, an eating disorder or devastating insecurity.

This week we meet Holly Kent and Nelly Shaheen. Holly is a model and pole dancer, who initiated her career at the tender age of seventeen. Self-assured and assertive, Holly appears entirely in control of her destiny with the same cold tenacity worn by successful glamour models such as Jordan. She finds pole dancing liberating and claims she never feels happier or more at ease anywhere else than in a gentleman’s club. Although she doesn’t claim so directly, it appears that her career enthuses her with a sense of identity and womanhood.

Nelly by contrast, suffers with harlequin ichthyosis, a skin condition that forces her to partake in a gruelling skincare regime every morning to sooth her blistering skin.

The two instantly click. Both are confident, direct women who are cardinal in their approach. But Nelly exposes Holly’s less than glamorous past, revealing her battles with bulimia and crippling insecurity. Holly then turned to plastic surgery, parting with her cash for fillers and Botox at the tender age of twenty-two to combat the looming signs of aging long before their onslaught.

Holly is stubborn in her declarations that her chosen path makes her happy, but Nelly whisks her away to LA where hardened ex industry girls reveal their disillusionment and dissatisfaction with a world that centred itself solely on their looks and had no use for them when they were no longer novel and fresh out of the box shiny.

The girls become firm friends, cementing a new ideology that the external may be shallowly and superficially important, but the inside is the generator of all potential and power that can inspire a life. Nelly shines as a happy, warm and powerful young woman with the perspective to guide and inspire legions of others who struggle with disabilities or insecurities, and hopefully Holly will put her powerful ambition to a more worthwhile cause that will benefit her both in the short and long term.