Daria was a spin-off of Mike Judd’s Beavis and Butthead. With a debut in 1997 on MTV, I appreciated the show, but like most good things, I simply didn’t care for it at the time. Fortunately, my wife, Kara, is obsessed with Daria. For her birthday this year, I got Kara the entire series on DVD. My wife watches it incessantly, and eventually I warmed up to the show.
As I said, I liked Daria from the get-go, but I don’t think I fully understood the characters and the satire it portrays of everyday life. In some ways, Daria is looking at high school through glasses that show caricatures of real people you may have known growing up. The main character, Daria, is a social outcast who’s incredibly intelligent. She’s often hanging with her artsy friend Jane. Then there’s the dumb jock, the perverted nerd, and a variety of teachers that exhibit miserable, overbearing, or passionate behavior. So even though Daria is a satire on the life of a high school student, it’s spot on in so many ways.
Jane and Daria enjoying a lively lecture.
What I like most about Daria is that even though its main focus is humor, the show reminds me of what it was like to be a high school student. The main character, Daria, is really an adult in the child-like world of high school. Her dry sarcasm and wit often mirror that of older viewers as she mocks the close-mindedness of her peers. One scene in particular had me rolling, as Daria’s younger sister, Quinn, is trying to decide who she’s going to date. One of Quinn’s friends says, “You’ll never have a more important decision in your whole life.” The best part is, Quinn’s friend is absolutely serious!
And that’s where this show is comedy gold. Some of the characters in Daria are straight-up stereotypes. But that’s what makes it hilarious because the show’s aware of this, and embraces the concept, making it that much more outlandish and funny.
Daria’s Dad gives her a hug as her mother watches with approval.
While not as crass as Southpark, Daria is a great show with amazing characters. They develop, grow, and at the very end, Daria and her friends part ways to go to college. It’s bittersweet, but beautiful. So even though Daria ends with a bang, the minuscule problems she and her peers face are always there, ready to be revisited. This show is an absolute gem. I highly recommend you pick it up. Even if you don’t like the show, it may provide amusement in a different way as it makes you recall the trials and tribulations you navigated during your youth (i.e., pimples, dating, and popularity). Looking back, none of that mattered. But at the time, we were viewing the world an inch from the pavement, such such things seemed so important. But as we grew, we stood up and saw the bigger picture. Daria is about that. And it shows you that how we saw the world, and how it really is are two different things. So even though growing up may be “painful” it’s actually beautiful. And at times, downright hilarious.
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