Welcome back to another edition of Netflix Sunday. I was originally planning on sharing about more British shows, but then I remembered American TV has some awesome stuff. America! F*CK YEAH!
So this week’s Netflix contender is 1994’s My So Called Life.
My So Called life was a short-running show with all of 19 episodes, but one of my favorites that pretty successfully encapsulated the teenage experience in the 1990’s.
The story centered on a young Claire Danes as Angela Chase, a girl growing up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, who, like most of us, was growing older and emotionally ambivalent towards her parents, while discovering new friends and life experiences.
Her two best friends were Rayanne Graff, a free spirit (whose wardrobe I always idolized) with an alcoholic, mostly absent mother and a drug problem, and Rickie, the eyeliner-wearing boy who lived with his abusive uncle. Rayanne was the bad influence, but her affection for Angela was apparent, as was her hidden vulnerability, distrust of people, and her desire for her friends to act as her family, because her family had failed her, causing you to both love and hate Rayanne.
The show was rather topical and took on some intense issues in its short run – child abuse, sex, drug use and had an openly gay teenager. This was before Ellen Degeneres came out publicly in 2002 1997 or ’98, which was a HUGE deal, so for a show to portray a gay teenager in the mid-1990’s in a sympathetic way; in such a central role to the show was a fairly influential to a lot of people my age.
The show also starred a young Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano-the dreamy object of Angela’s affections, an eye-opener to those of us who had raging crushes on the brooding, guitar-playing hottie that pretty much all teenage crushes suck.
While show portrayed several difficult social issues, it managed to not be overly preachy. It’s honest look at teenage life and angst wasn’t necessary sympathetic or critical – Angela makes a lot of decisions she’s not sure if she should be proud of, but shows that time for what it is – a difficult time of self-discovery as teenagers realize their potential to become independent adults, while dealing with learning some of the harder lessons alone. Also, the soundtrack is classic 1990’s. Can’t beat that!
