Daria – in "Camera Obscure"
The animated series "Daria" was an extremely well-observed and almost always funny look at family life in the USA. Focused on the kids at Lawndale High School and especially on the Princess of Snark, Daria Morgendorffer, it dealt with the universal currency of growing up and being teenage. It didn't matter if you'd never been to an American high school or if your own educational experience was as far removed as it was possible to get – the experiences of Daria at Lawndale High evoked familiarity and "I've been there" feelings in anyone, anywhere. Especially the feeling of being too intelligent to fit comfortably – Daria's dilemma. I'm now of an age to see it from the point of view of the adults in the show. The burnt-out teachers, the Dibbler-like school principal, and above all, Jake and Helen Morgendorffer. Helen the workaholic, Jake overshadowed and hypertensive, secretly fearing he is redundant. In the long tradition of American screen families – the Bundys, the Simpsons, the Griffins, the Hills - they're utterly dysfunctional, but manage to work something out in the end. Just like the rest of us, really.
Here's a go at something in the Daria canon. I'm assuming the action happens in the middle-to-late 1990's, so I've tried to make allowances in terms of the technology and gadgetry available. I'm pretty sure the first – big, clumsy and expensive – digital cameras were available then... one is crucial to this story. So apologies if I've introduced an anachronism.
"Class assignments!" said Mr O'Neill, enthusiastically. The thirty or so students in his class looked on with their usual stupefied disinterest. Despite his best efforts to inspire them, nobody wasted any interest or enthusiasm in his class. At Lawndale High School, there wasn't a great deal of that to go round. What little you had, you guarded carefully, and kept for things that interested you.
It is perhaps a telling point of Mr O'Neill's personality that after twenty years as a professional educator, he is still trying to inspire enthusiasm in his classes. And nobody wanted to disappoint him. It would have been like kicking a puppy: the kicker would only feel guilty about it afterwards, especially when they looked into big brown eyes full of pain and bewilderment.
"Now before I hand out a list of suggested tasks, there's an announcement from the Principal. Ms Li was reviewing practice at this school. She has noticed that when it comes to partnering up for shared assignments, the same people always pair up together, like Kevin and Brittany, or Daria and Jane. She would like to shake things up and get different people working together."
There was a groan from the class. Daria Morgendorffer sat up a little straighter and her eyes narrowed slightly. She liked working with Jane Lane. Daria provided the brains and the intellect, Jane contributed creative drive and imagination. She looked round to see Jane scowling. Their joint work and presentations usually scored "A"'s all round. It was an arrangement that suited them both and they saw no reason to change it.
"I'm sorry!" Mr O'Neill almost pleaded over escalating groans and protest. It had overtones of a sheep trying to negotiate with wolves. "It isn't my decision. It really isn't."
"I was only obeying orders, huh." Daria said in her usual flat monotone. Her facial expression remained impassive. If Daria Morgendorffer could be bothered to play poker, she would soon discover that she could be frighteningly good at it. Mr O'Neill reddened and winced, but otherwise tried to ignore Daria's barb.
"Now I've tried to work out the fairest possible allocation of new partners..." the hapless O'Neill continued. A crescendo of objections drowned him out. He waited for it to subside, and said "Look, when you leave school and go out into the world and get jobs, you will find yourselves working alongside people you wouldn't choose, and only associate with because you work with them..."
He was interrupted by Ms Li, the principal, walking in. She beamed a snake-oil seller's smile. Daria and Jane shared a look. Ms Li taking a personal interest in things was never good for anybody. Anywhere.
"As Mr O'Neill has informed you," she said, "we are changing the usual protocol concerning group work. It will stretch you more to work with new people, it will be good for your communication and co-operative skills, and as Mr O'Neill so wisely said, in real life you will not be able to pick and choose the people you work with. You have the list, Mr O'Neill?"
He nodded, cleared his throat, and then read the list. It was worse, much worse, than Daria or Jane could have imagined. Muted groans rose as the assignments were handed out.
"Kevin Thompson– Jane Lane."
Jane shuddered and grimaced.
Daria was just about to say something when...
Daria Morgendorffer – you will work on this assignment with Charles Ruttheimer III."
Daria's jaw dropped and her mouth opened wide with alarm.
Of all the people. Of all the possible people.
It had to be Upchuck.
Charles "Call me Chuck" Ruttheimer III. A guy with unshakeable and rock-solid self-confidence. A guy who believed in himself. It was just a shame that most of the time, this was expressed as an unshakeable belief in his personal and sexual desirability. Even so, this would not have been a problem and might even have been desirable had he actually been physically attractive, or, failing that, pleasant of personality.
This unshakeable and rock-solid self-confidence had one flaw. It was housed in the rather scrawny and weaselly body of Charles Ruttheimer III. The guy nicknamed "Upchuck" by his female contemporaries. It was shorthand for "this guy makes you want to chuck up your breakfast." Shortening it to "Upchuck" saved time and energy.
Upchuck was... well, a walking leer. A lech. Daria had the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn't just undressing you with his eyes, he was also putting you in every uncomfortable and unedifying position known to the editors of "Hustler". With his eyes. And he was physically scrawny. Freckles fought the acne for room on his face. His long angular rat-like face was topped with a mop of carrot-red hair. Daria reflected that it was unfair to condemn someone for not being physically attractive, since you had no control over the genetic lottery that selected your parents and gave you your looks. But in this case you had to add in all the things that made Upchuck Upchuck. And which threatened to make anyone in close proximity to him upchuck. Therefore it wasn't unfair to consider him a total jerk. Nature gave him his face. Nurture had made him obnoxious.
And Daria was now stuck in a situation where she had to work closely with him.
She sighed. This was going to cause problems.
"Growwwwllllll!"
She winced. It was coming in very close to her right ear. Upchuck was no respecter of personal space. That was irritating as well as uncomfortable.
"Well, hello, feisty lady!" Upchuck breathed into her ear. He thought it was a low seductive whisper dripping with hormones; Daria knew it to be like fingernails scraped down the blackboard of her personal space.
And, yes, he was doing that thing with his hand again, pretending he had talons extended and was scratching at a post. Whatever it was meant to achieve.
"You know that makes you look like a tomcat in heat scratching at the furniture?" Daria inquired. "Next stop for you might be the veterinarian."
"Rowlll!" Upchuck said again. He was not easily deterred. In fact, Upchuck was never deterred. He dealt with refusals and rebuffs by simply ignoring them. She wondered why he felt he had to do that. And he had this irritating quirk of making a double eyebrow-raised gesture when he did it. The two caterpillars perched above his eyes – she guessed she had to call them eyebrows, for want of a better word – were trained on command to jerk up and down twice whenever he did the "rowlll!" thing. And he always said...
"Feisty!"
Daria's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. Upchuck did not spot the danger signs. He went on, with completely misplaced self-confidence,
"So we're study-buddies, huh! When do I get to see your personal space and the inside of your boudoir?"
Daria stared at him, levelly.
"Let's get this straight, Upchuck. We're working together on this one because we have to.. We're keeping it professional, Upchuck! That means you only get to see my bedroom if it's a snowy day in Hell. And if I ever invite you into my bedroom, then Hell is exactly where I'll be!"
"GrowwwwLL!"
"Don't push it, Upchuck!"
Daria kept a picture of the airship Hindenberg crashing in flames on the inside of her locker door. If anyone asked her why, she directed them to the iconic accompanying quote: "Oh, the humanity!"
Family mealtimes always reminded her of the crash of the Hindenberg in fire and flames. Especially if her father had been cooking. Jake Morgendorffer tried to compensate for a frustrating working life, and for the fact he brought in far less money than his wife, by treating cookery as a serious hobby. The fact he really wasn't any good at it was his tragedy.
Daria wondered which of her parents was cooking that night. If it was her father, then it was likely to be cordon burnt. If it was her mother,always assuming she wasn't working late again, then it was going to be something from the freezer, nuked in the microwave. In either case, she'd probably end up down the pizza house with Jane to get some sort of minimal sustenance inside herself.
"Hi, Daria!" said a perky voice that, to her, was irritation personified. Her sister Quinn joined her at the kitchen table. Had you asked Daria to provide a list of ten things she hated about her sister, the response would have been a narrowing of her eyes and a comment like "That's kind of limiting it!" or "Why stop there?"
Quinn was a couple of years younger than Daria. The age-gap provided for lots of sibling rivalry, ample room for petty irritation, and lots of scope for occasional humiliation. A natural attention-seeker, Quinn was elfin and petite with a long oval face, a button nose, perfect 20-20 vision that eliminated the need for glasses, and long, fine, red-golden hair. She affected crop-tops that left her navel exposed, and she knew she was pretty. She exploited her winsome charm for all it was worth, and was disingenuous enough to deny any responsibility for the fights she provoked and the hearts she broke.
Daria was of the opinion that after she, the older sister, had been born, the Morgendorffer gene pool had been left in a pretty shallow state with most of its content extracted. This explained Quinn.
"Hi Quinn." she said, with a certain world-weariness. She then endured her sister's ongoing soliloquy concerning school, Fashion Club, the sheer number of guys trying to ask her out, and what do you think, Daria, Jerry's got a Mustang but Brad says he can borrow his father's sports car, it's an imported British MG, and apparently those are retro but really cool...
Daria tuned her sister out. Quinn's conversation was like a Moebious strip; it twisted and turned around a predestined path and always returned to the place where it started. Eventually.
"Daria, you're not listening to me!"
"Was I meant to be? Let me see now. You've got Jerry and Terry and Brad pursuing you, you complain about it but you secretly like the way they fight over you and compete by buying you presents. This other guy has car X and this other, other guy has Car Y, and you're agonising about which is the coolest to be seen in. Mr O'Neill is being a jerk because he persists in giving you D grades. And that's on a good day. You're in competition with Sandy and the other clones in the Fashion Club over who's most tuned in about the important things like clothes and make-up. And that's on a good day. You see, I can follow your conversation without even listening. It kinda sinks in, like osmosis."
"Os-what?" Quinn squeaked. Daria winced. Without looking up, she said "Osmosis. It's a science thing. Think of it as like expensive face-cream."
"Well, at least you think clothes and make-up are important!" Quinn pouted.
"Hi, kids!"
"Hi, Dad!" said Quinn.
"Dad." said Daria, without looking up. She picked up a newspaper. There was a re-run of Sick, Sad World on later. Something to watch when she was over at Jane's. Jane would paint. Daria would chill out while she painted. It was a strong friendship with somebody only marginally less cynical than she was, and probably with the second or third most intelligent person at Lawndale High.
Jake Morgendorffer was on the high point of his cycle: superfically cheery and ebullient. Daria knew or sensed what this masked. Her father listed his occupation as "business consultant". In practice this meant well-paid but precarious work at the mercy of the whims of his employers. It was like a better-paid version of temping, Daria thought, only not for minimum wage.
In practice, the Morgendorffers depended on the income of Daria and Quinn's mother, Helen. She was a company lawyer who on the face of it pulled in a big salary, enough to buy into an upmarket suburb like Lawndale. But the downside was that she seemed to think this obligated her to be on call for twenty-four and seven. Daria had done the math. Her mother's pay would have been way over average salary had it only been for a standard thirty-five hour week. But the way her mom made herself available to Eric at any unreasonable time of day... well, divide that high salary by one hundred and sixty-eight, the number of hours in a week.
This made her mother's pay little more than the minimum wage. But she got really mad every time Daria pointed this out. The only time Helen Mogendorffer had worked less than stupid hours – in fact, had worked her contracted thirty-five and had the whole weekend free – had been when Eric had had a heart attack, brought on by continual grinding overwork.
Her mom had gotten mad when Daria had pointed this out too and drawn the obvious parellel. Daria largely refrained from commenting these days but held the remark in reserve, in case a family fight ever got to DefCon Three.
But her father still felt second-class, insecure, and inferior, next to a wife who earned way more than he did and who had a secure job with a fully-funded 401K and health insurance.
This insecurity came out in the downside of the Jake Morgendorffer cycle, as irrational fits of anger and rage. It blew itself out, and Mom was largely sympathetic, but Daria still braced herself for it, even though she'd learnt to tune it out. It really didn't help that her father had let slip on several occasions that he was disappointed at not having fathered a son.
And Dad was cooking, his way of trying to compensate for Mom's late nights at the office, his way of giving something back to the family.
He was just appallingly bad at it.
She tuned out the increasing frustration and burning smells coming from the cooker, punctuated by cries of "DAMN IT!" . Quinn shrugged, and returned to her absorbtion in Waif magazine, a publication with few, but easily understood words, and lots of pictures, largely associated to glossy advertising for expensive clothes and accessories. Quinn didn't mind not eating: Daria sometimes suspected her sister was either anorexic or a practitioner of the Supermodel diet. (1)
Helen Morgendorffer returned. She greeted her daughters warmly, and briefly frowned at the burning smell.
"What are going to try and eat tonight, honey?" she called.
"Chicken Kiev a la Jake Morgendorffer!" he called back, trying to make his voice sound cheerful.
Helen knew the form. Resignedly, she reached for her purse.
"Here's five dollars each." she said, in a low voice. "Get something to eat when you go out tonight."
"Thanks, mom!" said Quinn. "But could you make it ten?"
"Likewise." said Daria, quickly. "If Dad's doing Chicken Chernobyl, I'll need some pepto-bismol as well as pizza."
Helen paid up with good grace.
As the burnt offering reached the table, Helen cheerfully asked
"What did you two do at school today?"
Daria sat through her sister's blasé commentary on the doings of assorted would-be boyfriends and the intricate trivialities of Fashion Club. Her mother eventually turned to her, expectantly.
"We got landed with new study partners for class assignments." she said, reluctantly. "Miss Li noticed we always choose the same people, so she decided to improve things by randomly pairing us up. Look out for a high body count by the weekend."
"Daria, do not even joke about such things!" her mother said, indignantly.
"So I wasted lots of cash on the long black leather coat and the repeating rifle? Damn. I'll ring Jane and tell her the random killing spree is called off."
"Mom!" Quinn said, in a high-pitched wail. "Daria's frightening me!"
"And, mom, I'm sorry to have to do this to you. But I've been assigned Upchuck as a study partner. I'll try to keep his visits here to the absolute necessary minimum. But he's gonna have to come here to collaborate with me."
"Ewwww!" shrieked Quinn. "Upchuck? Here?"
"Now I know the Ruttheimer parents." Helen said, firmly. "I'm sure a lot of the things Charles does are just part of an act. Just a face he puts on. I'm sure in private and out of school we can get him to drop the act and we can see him as he really is. I'm sure there's a decent young man in there, if only he stops pretending to be something he isn't."
Daria sighed. When her mother was frantically trying to convince herself and others of an unlikely proposition, she put on her courtroom attorney face. It stood out a mile.
"If there's a decent young man in there, he's long since died for lack of sustenance in a deep dungeon cell, alone and in the dark." Daria said. "Mom, when Upchuck was little, even his imaginary friend refused to be seen with him and walked off the job!"
Jake Morgendorffer joined them at the table. He had picked up not enough of the conversation.
"What's this, hon? Daria's got a boyfriend? Good for you, kiddo!" her father said, exultantly. "You're bringing him over to see us?"
"Dad, can we get it straight? Upchuck has been forced on me. He is in no way, shape or form, a boyfriend!"
"You're going out with him? Even for you, Daria, that is gross!" Quinn declared.
Helen frantically tried to change the conversation. She brought out a large, bulky, black object. It shone with the enamelled black and silver trim of expensive gadget.
Despite herself, Daria was intrigued.
"What's that, mom?"
"It's one of the new digital cameras!" her mother declared.
"Can I see?" Jake said, enthusiastically.
"They do away with film. The picture is stored in a teeny computer chip...be careful with it, Jake! It isn't mine, they cost thousands, it belongs to the firm! I had to take photos to confirm a few details of the Mannington case. Which is where I need you girls, as I assured Eric I could put them in the family computer and print copies for the file and the court. One of you must know how to do it?"
"I'll give it my best shot, mom.!" Daria assured her mother. One of the computer geeks at Lawndale would know. In any case her mother had thoughtfully brought an assortment of discs and operating manuals and cables and leads with her.
Pushing aside a partially eaten Chicken Chernobyl, she said
"That's me done. Thanks, dad. I'll be at Jane's. How soon do you need those photos, mom?"
She left her father, who appeared to be in the middle of a David Bailey or Man Ray fantasy, and gratefully slipped out to walk round to Jane Lane's and a sensible, sane, intelligent, person she could talk to.
That's it for Part One: there will be lots of digital camera related shenanigans in Part Two.
All together now: La la la, la la...
1(1) The supermodel diet: after eating, bend over the toilet bowl and insert fingers into back of throat. A size zero figure is practically guaranteed.