7-31-97

Hail,

Doing the numerology reports made me think about doing something I had been considering for a while.  When a foray into town left me with a while to kill at the library,  I decided to do it.  I've added name meanings for all the main characters (except Mack, but I found a really bad pun for him).  I hope I don't have to write out an analysis for each one, but I probably will sometime anyway.  It's pretty obvious that the names were picked with an eye towards their meanings...

Wraith

7-29-97

Hail,

A little merchandising update to start.
Bradley C. Mohr has informed me that there are also Daria stickers out... lots of them.  Unfortunately, he doesn't know where, but keep your eyes open.

Yesterday I was going back through the Double Meanings, and for some reason the one about Jane's glue-gun stuck (no pun intended) with me today.  And I was also thinking about Sick Sad World in general (I hope some of you are jumping ahead of me here).  Then I went "I can't believe I didn't notice this one before..."  The Sick Sad World logo is about as freudian as it gets.  Think about it (if the animated version doesn't tip you off)...  Maybe this is part of why I decided to name the page what I did... Anyway, this is rather interesting.  I don't know if the writers and artists intended this consciously or not, but  it fits the general male vs. female theme of the show.  It's not always an in-your-face theme, but it's there.  Aside from Trent, the guys are either sometimes well-intentioned but stupid or obnoxious hornballs.  So, what better symbol for the girls' favourite show?  The reporter is female too, and so far her interviews have been with guys (Artie and the guy reporting a Yeti sighting).  So, my old complaint about the show pops up again, but since the season's over, there's not much that's going to change on this front.  (One thing to all you ladies who think all guys that age are obsessed with sex... what about Trent?  He's still at the right age for it, but he hasn't shown it, and I haven't heard a single complaint...)

Wraith

7-28-97

Hail,

News and rumors first?  Yup.

Lets start with a fairly popular topic.  Merchandising.  Now, in addition to the Daria watch available from "Things you Never Knew Existed" catalog, there are four T-shirts available from Spencers.  So far, I have no idea what pictures are on the shirts, and the nearest Spencers is about 200 miles away.  If you do find out, please tell me.  There is also a Daria calendar soon to be released.  The latter news is from Katherine's alt.lawndale.com site, of course.

There's a wonderful bit of news I heard today (well, it's wonderful to me).  NO MORE BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD!  No more episodes of Beavis and Butthead will be produced!  Unfortunately, there are thirteen not-yet-released ones to go, and we can expect another movie featuring the two twerps.  Does this mark the changing of the guard of modern entertainment?  Will brain-dead shows like Beavis and Butthead be replaced by more intellectual shows like Daria?  Well, probably not, but this makes one less we have to put up with.

The fanfic is coming along nicely, with part 5 of M.I.B. just up, and a great, completed, story called "Queens are Wild" that you must read.   It even brings up the "people judge you by your looks" message of "The Misery Chick".  More fanfic stories like this would be great... ;)

Also, just for fun, I decided to do something with the characters names.  About a year ago, a hippy friend of mine pointed me towards a site called Matrix Space.  She was very into astrology, and loved this site, which, in case you didn't guess, has on-line astrology reports.  While I would have loved to run the characters birthdays through, we have no idea about them (for you astrology buffs, my natal chart has the moon void-of-course).  So, I did the next best thing and did numerology analysis' of all the main characters, and compatibility analysis' of Daria and Trent; Jodie and Mack; and Helen and Jake.  Right now we only know of one middle name (Mack's), so these could all change (and will be updated anytime we find a middle name out).  However, it's possible they don't have middle names, so I ran them anyway.  While they aren't all too accurate, there are some interesting ones (especially the Brittany and Kevin's chart...).  I doubt the writers had any intention of anything like this, but they're here anyway.  You can find the charts on that character's page.  Thoughts of astrology brought to mind Daria's birthday, of course, which has been added to the future plots page, in a very unrefined form.

Back to "The Misery Chick".  Season finale that it is, it'll get talked about a lot until we get to next season.   Unfortunately, my family is glued to the TV, so I haven't had a chance to watch the episode again.  (My little brother watches Daria, but he'd watch a test pattern.  I know... from experience.  Now that we've got cable, he'll settle for the home shopping network, however) So far, I've decided on three major themes of the show.
1)  The importance of appearance in modern society.
2)  Most people deal with topics that disturb them by ignoring them, and then can't face them when forced.
3)  There can not be love without pain.

The first is dealt with by Daria through the whole episode, as she finds out what people really think of her.  She's show a great understanding of psychology as it applies to certain people (her revenges are very tuned), but her understanding of "mass pop-psychology" seems to be a little lacking.  I don't know why it surprised her to find out how people perceived her.  Of course, she may have just been incredibly surprised that they were all so unperceptive (or is it imperceptive?) as to believe that.

The third is the over-obvious message Daria gives in Mr. O'Neill's class (in the hopes of making her class-mates think a bit, perhaps?).

The second message is the one I found the most interesting.  This is a very odd message for MTV to have in one of their shows.  Not that it isn't true, but coming from MTV...  This episode made me think (or, perhaps, hope) that the network execs aren't actually watching the show any more, since it's getting good ratings.  If they found out just how much Daria made fun of everything MTV holds near and dear, we might have problems.  The incredibly shallow denizens of Lawndale High are pretty much the typical MTV viewer.
One other thing I'd like to say here is that, while many in the school didn't want to deal with death, Daria has comes to term with it (the other way, which is important).  This is something I share, but don't ask me why, I'm not sure.  Could be from nearly getting killed as a young teen in a car wreck.  Could have been from nearly getting killed when I got hit in the head with a golf-club (It's true!  You can tell, can't you?).  Jane hasn't quite come to terms with mortality yet, but when she tries not to think about, she at least knows she's avoiding it.  Sooner or later she'll have to face up to, which would be an interesting topic for a show.  There's not much chance of a main character being killed off, but Jane has numerous nameless or faceless relatives.

Hmm, this was a bit more disconnected than I had intended.  Ah well.  Between seasons it's time to break out the Daria tapes and watch and watch and watch... make sure to send any double meanings, mistakes, loose threads, and moments of note to me ;)

Wraith