This isn’t really a review but more of a opinion piece on the animated series ‘Daria’. It ran from from the late 90’s to the early 2000’s and had a big impact and even if some people didn’t necessarily watch it on MTV it was iconic enough for everyone to know it was something good.
‘ Daria’ is a densely packed animated series that followed the daily activities of Daria Morgendorffer an angst filled teenager who likes to read, is sarcastic , realistic and sees through the shallowness and almost vomit inducing, capital driven and moralistic inflation of the suburban American scene.
I only faintly remember watching ‘Daria’ as a kid, so I spent the whole week crash-watching all of the five seasons. And unlike most binge-watch in experiences I don’t regret this one.
The main character Daria is a first child with middle-child syndrome, who lives with her detachment to her superficial , troubled and volatile caricature family and friends. The fun thing about Daria is that even if she is supposed be the voice of reason, she has it without being fake or annoying. The voice actress for Daria even talks like an answering machine, which is kind of symbolic.
I also really like Jane Lane and Trent, because they embody the broke and hot artist and musician. I’m pretty sure anyone can recognize their own artsy friends in them, and Trent looks exactly like the lead from every band at the time. Plus it’s fun how realistically lazy and always working on something at the same time. It inspired me.
Quinn the fashionable, social butterfly who thrives on her popularity is also fun to watch.
I honestly wish we could have a satirical show like this in a Pakistani setting. I know I’d watch it.
And to make things brief ‘Daria’ was and still is a ‘breath of fresh air’ as one critic called it. The writing is great, the characters are cartoony enough to be fun and real enough to be sad, the look is unique and something not overdone to death. The plots go strong and the repeated character tropes don’t lose their charm and overall the series and theme of the holds strong years after it’s release and I’m confident that that’s how it will stay.
The show did great a comic strip like depiction of society at that time and about the fear of what we were going to go down as. The show was a study of probably the last few years during which people were concerned about the lose of innocence and scholary intelligence, which would be and maybe has been lost to shopping,plastic surgery, nerds that are nerds for an image, superficiality for superficiality, reality TV over poetry. The stress, annoying dumbness, lack of depth, the cynicism that intellectual kids feels, and not having any immediate solutions to saving the rain forest or the ozone layer that till now didn’t really catch up to us, really cements the show like a Bible guide to that time of our shared past.
So overall I feel like everyone should consider watching Daria. Because is something almost everyone in our twenties will recognize and probably enjoy and post about as their spirit animal.
And within all the the things ‘Daria’ was right about when it came to human consumer nature and trends in society. The one thing that it maybe wrong was that viral internet videos and not mindless television would make us crazy.
Plus I think season 1 to 3 are the best ones.
And hopefully the reboot won’t destroy my recently developed nostalgia.
Maheen's Muse 