My So-Called Life
I’m moving in two weeks. I haven’t started packing. I bought fifteen boxes today. This was obviously the optimal time to purchase My So-Called Life on dvd. Or possibly not.
But this was the first show I obsessed over, years before Alias and Chuck and…well, really, that’s about it. I had to watch it on the basement tv because as usual, my parents would much rather watch the umpteenth episode of Law & Order than Angela Chase’s angst. But I was 14 in 1994, and I was living Angela Chase’s life in my head, except I couldn’t get away with dying my hair red, and I was nowhere near as gorgeous as Claire Danes. And Angela had a few more friends. But otherwise? It could have been me.
Anyway, I rewatched the pilot tonight, and I was struck with two things.
- Jordan Catalano is extremely cute, and I can see why I wove my escapist fantasy life around him in 1994. In reality, though? I would have had to brain him with something. The boy is the most dimwitted stoner I’ve ever seen on screen. And I’ve SEEN Dazed and Confused.
- Angela Chase’s mother is my mother. She says the exact same thing to Angela that my mother said to me when I dyed my hair red (“Well, we’ll always be able to find you in a crowd” in that special resigned why-did-you-do-this tone of voice).
Will definitely be watching more before the movies have to be packed away. It still holds up and is still great, even if I’m ten years removed from the angstfest that was high school.