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Dear Angela: Remembering "My So-Called Life"
Dear Angela includes fourteen critical essays that examine the brief-lived but landmark television series, My So-Called Life (1994-1995). Though certainly not the first young woman to be the center of a television series, Angela Chase and the show about her life were doing something new on television and influenced many of the shows about young people that followed. Michele Byers and David Lavery bring together enthusiastic and engaging voices that bear on a series that continues to be hailed as a breakthrough moment in television, even though more than a decade has passed since its cancellation. Tackling a broad range of topics―from identity politics, to music, to infidelity, and death―each essay builds upon a belief that My So-Called Life is a particularly rich text worth studying for the clues it offers about a particular moment in cultural and television history. Dear Angela offers a sophisticated analysis of the show's legacy and cultural relevance that will appeal to media studies scholars and fans alike.
- GenresNonfictionTv
256 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 4, 2010
Reading this made me want to go back and watch all the old episodes again, just so I could look at the "Patty reading," compare the masculinities of Brian Krakow and Jordan Catalano, and give the magical realism of the Halloween and Christmas episodes another chance. Scholarly essays with personal POVs -- I'd recommend for any fan who's interested in really dissecting the show and exploring the whole phenomenon of it. Like, why was it canceled but Dawson's Creek succeeded?
May 12, 2010
if you like to intellectualize your fun. Some essays are better than others.
September 27, 2017
This collection of essays about the short-lived television series My So-Called Life suffers from an emphasis on trendy, political topics that have little relation to the actual television show and will be frustrating to many fans who picked this up in order to read essays about the television show. This is particularly unfortunate because I think this show has many themes that would make for fascinating exploration, but-with a few exceptions-this did not happen. The editor appears to be the major culprit. Her essay is unnecessarily dense and displays a penchant for ignoring the actual story to focus on trying to impress readers with her facility with academic jargon and abstract concepts. This is an excerpt from the first essay:
From Michele Byer’s “Gender/Sexuality/Desire”:
The viewing of these characters as they are performed in the text affects their construction and their perception as “real”. On paper it is easy to see the layering of stereotypes that goes into the construction of these textual bodies. The same bodies are then projected onto the viewer, who, in viewing them as real rather than as stereotypes, attempts to perform them with her own body. This text not only participates in inscribing the viewing body with whom, what, and how to desire; it also plays a part in how that body comes to know desire (Walkerdine 1990). In this text the screen bodies are read as performing adolescent rebellion, but their performance is a rebellion only within their screen world. If taken up and performed by the viewer, the body becomes a site of surveillance rather than a site for struggle, in that the performance conforms to hegemonic structures. It is only in the critical viewing of this text, the bodies that perform it, and the ways in which the performance is taken up by the viewer that resistance and rupture are made possible. (Pg 16-17)
I naturally recoil from this sort of criticism which does not engage with the story at all but assumes an abstract ideal which is never made explicit, and I suspect, if it were, I would disagree with it. The lack of any details from the show makes the essay generic as well as nonspecific. She does not present a case for her conclusions. Instead, this string of unexamined conclusions barrels on like a train on a track.
Translated into English, Byer’s point seems to be: ‘Because these characters are viewed on television instead of in a book, the fact that they are stereotypes is harder to see. So a confused fan will imitate the characters to the point of changing her own wants to those of the characters. The fan’s personality becomes a sleek performance rather than a messier searching for her individual wants. Only through examination (which I am graciously providing) can the fan realize the manipulation going on here.’
I have several problems with this. I’m not convinced that stereotypes are harder to detect onscreen. I don’t believe the characters are stereotypes. Imitation is not necessarily as nefarious as assumed and can be expressive as the fan chooses to emulate whomever she feels most reflects her. Rebellion is not really a large part of the show. I would consider what makes this show unique is the confusion, inarticulation, and raw feelings that its characters portray. The emphasis on rebellion seems to come from without-in short, from the author who is quoting the phrases of others who have constructed an elaborate fantasy of rebellion against norms through means of literary criticism. These people literally believe that they are performing a civic duty by pointing out to others that their books, movies, and tv shows do not conform to this new form of critical thinking-all without making a case for the new form.
This propensity for stating opinions as fact continues on into other essays, such as this part:
Susan Murray’s “Saving our So-Called Lives":
Perhaps the intermingling between text and the personal may have a more poignant meaning for teen girls and other fan groups, since they are in the process of adopting two disparate signifiers into their identity. They are assessing not only what it means to be female, but also what it means to be a “teenager.” Barbara Hudson (1984) asserts that the discourses of adolescence and femininity are subversive of one another, creating a set of conflicting expectations for the teenage girl. She describes adolescence as a masculine construct (embodying images of rebellion, restlessness, resistance, and the like) that contradicts a girl’s attempt to become a patriarchially-defined feminine, demure (perhaps even silent) young woman. The dissonance created out of this dichotomy is one that leads a girl to feel uncomfortable with each signifier. (pg 44)
Having once been an adolescent girl at the time that coincided with this television show, I do not feel this is an accurate account. The girls in the show are not demure or silent. As the main focus of the show is on an adolescent girl, how can someone state without any attempt at persuasion that adolescence is seen as a male condition? Again, there’s a disconnect between what is being written in this collection and what the television show was.
Another low point was the lack of engagement with the characters as if any empathy or identification was forbidden unless you shared every identifying characteristic of that character. Couching it as an attack or “hijacking” is disturbing. I don’t even have the bond of homosexuality, and I can still identify with Rickie, and this is not an attack on him. People can identify with characters on many levels other than sexual orientation, race, or economic status. In fact, to identify with a character based solely on such markers would be a rather shallow experience, in my opinion. But this new trend makes those markers exclusionary, as if you cannot identify with someone if these factors do not match.
Jes Battis’s “My So-Called Queer”
It is so easy, so effortless, for me to “identify” with Rickie Vasquez, despite the incontrovertible fact that all we really share is our queerness. What is it that originally entitled me to hijack Rickie’s experience of trauma, his experiences of dislocation and exclusion as a Latino teenager from a poor economic background whose friends are all white, straight, and middle class? How did I imaginatively project myself into some different adolescence where I did not grow up in a racist and rural white suburb, where I was not one white teenager in a school full of white teenagers just like me, where I did not live in a comfortable home with stable biological parents who loved and supported me?” (Page 75)
There were so many essays that did not engage with the television series in any meaningful way. There were a few exceptions. I wish that I had included at least the name of the others since I don’t want them to be lumped in with what I found to be irritating or off topic. There was one on how language was used in the series and another one on a theory about the story being an extended fantasy of Angela’s mother. Some essays did engage with the show, and these were informative and interesting takes. An example from the book:
Diedre Dowling Price’s “Whatever Happens Happens: Infidelity in My So-Called Life”
The premise of My So-Called Life is not romantic infidelity, but a severed friendship in Angela Chase’s decision to essentially trade-in her childhood friend, Sharon Cherski, for a more spontaneous, breezy model. The pilot begins with Angela’s voiceover, “So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff. Just for fun. Just cause it seemed like if I didn’t, I would die or something. Things were getting to me. Just how people are. How they always expect you to be a certain way, even your best friend.” This conscious decision to stop seeing Sharon and start seeing Rayanne is judged as unnatural by both Sharon and Angela’s mother, Patty, and the new “crimson glow” hue Angela chooses for her hair is merely the physical representation of the emotional and social metamorphoses she undergoes. When Rayanne tells Angela her hair is holding her back, Angela responds, “I had to listen because she wasn’t just talking about my hair, she was talking about my life” (“Pilot” 1001). Angela, however, is not the only MSCL character to desire real change and to plunge into fantasy. These escapist themes are explored through issues of infidelity throughout MSCL. This infidelity, however, is not portrayed conventionally as the result of not loving one’s partner or being attracted to another. Instead, it is an attempt to fill a void, or to pretend, even for a moment, to be another person-both reasons why infidelity as portrayed on MSCL is forgivable.” (page 121)
All in all, the book was a disappointment because of what I know it could have been. There were some bright spots but many, many dark spots. This is simply not an adequate way to examine a show. It’s not just a vehicle in which to espouse your assumptions about gender or homosexuality or hegemony.
From Michele Byer’s “Gender/Sexuality/Desire”:
The viewing of these characters as they are performed in the text affects their construction and their perception as “real”. On paper it is easy to see the layering of stereotypes that goes into the construction of these textual bodies. The same bodies are then projected onto the viewer, who, in viewing them as real rather than as stereotypes, attempts to perform them with her own body. This text not only participates in inscribing the viewing body with whom, what, and how to desire; it also plays a part in how that body comes to know desire (Walkerdine 1990). In this text the screen bodies are read as performing adolescent rebellion, but their performance is a rebellion only within their screen world. If taken up and performed by the viewer, the body becomes a site of surveillance rather than a site for struggle, in that the performance conforms to hegemonic structures. It is only in the critical viewing of this text, the bodies that perform it, and the ways in which the performance is taken up by the viewer that resistance and rupture are made possible. (Pg 16-17)
I naturally recoil from this sort of criticism which does not engage with the story at all but assumes an abstract ideal which is never made explicit, and I suspect, if it were, I would disagree with it. The lack of any details from the show makes the essay generic as well as nonspecific. She does not present a case for her conclusions. Instead, this string of unexamined conclusions barrels on like a train on a track.
Translated into English, Byer’s point seems to be: ‘Because these characters are viewed on television instead of in a book, the fact that they are stereotypes is harder to see. So a confused fan will imitate the characters to the point of changing her own wants to those of the characters. The fan’s personality becomes a sleek performance rather than a messier searching for her individual wants. Only through examination (which I am graciously providing) can the fan realize the manipulation going on here.’
I have several problems with this. I’m not convinced that stereotypes are harder to detect onscreen. I don’t believe the characters are stereotypes. Imitation is not necessarily as nefarious as assumed and can be expressive as the fan chooses to emulate whomever she feels most reflects her. Rebellion is not really a large part of the show. I would consider what makes this show unique is the confusion, inarticulation, and raw feelings that its characters portray. The emphasis on rebellion seems to come from without-in short, from the author who is quoting the phrases of others who have constructed an elaborate fantasy of rebellion against norms through means of literary criticism. These people literally believe that they are performing a civic duty by pointing out to others that their books, movies, and tv shows do not conform to this new form of critical thinking-all without making a case for the new form.
This propensity for stating opinions as fact continues on into other essays, such as this part:
Susan Murray’s “Saving our So-Called Lives":
Perhaps the intermingling between text and the personal may have a more poignant meaning for teen girls and other fan groups, since they are in the process of adopting two disparate signifiers into their identity. They are assessing not only what it means to be female, but also what it means to be a “teenager.” Barbara Hudson (1984) asserts that the discourses of adolescence and femininity are subversive of one another, creating a set of conflicting expectations for the teenage girl. She describes adolescence as a masculine construct (embodying images of rebellion, restlessness, resistance, and the like) that contradicts a girl’s attempt to become a patriarchially-defined feminine, demure (perhaps even silent) young woman. The dissonance created out of this dichotomy is one that leads a girl to feel uncomfortable with each signifier. (pg 44)
Having once been an adolescent girl at the time that coincided with this television show, I do not feel this is an accurate account. The girls in the show are not demure or silent. As the main focus of the show is on an adolescent girl, how can someone state without any attempt at persuasion that adolescence is seen as a male condition? Again, there’s a disconnect between what is being written in this collection and what the television show was.
Another low point was the lack of engagement with the characters as if any empathy or identification was forbidden unless you shared every identifying characteristic of that character. Couching it as an attack or “hijacking” is disturbing. I don’t even have the bond of homosexuality, and I can still identify with Rickie, and this is not an attack on him. People can identify with characters on many levels other than sexual orientation, race, or economic status. In fact, to identify with a character based solely on such markers would be a rather shallow experience, in my opinion. But this new trend makes those markers exclusionary, as if you cannot identify with someone if these factors do not match.
Jes Battis’s “My So-Called Queer”
It is so easy, so effortless, for me to “identify” with Rickie Vasquez, despite the incontrovertible fact that all we really share is our queerness. What is it that originally entitled me to hijack Rickie’s experience of trauma, his experiences of dislocation and exclusion as a Latino teenager from a poor economic background whose friends are all white, straight, and middle class? How did I imaginatively project myself into some different adolescence where I did not grow up in a racist and rural white suburb, where I was not one white teenager in a school full of white teenagers just like me, where I did not live in a comfortable home with stable biological parents who loved and supported me?” (Page 75)
There were so many essays that did not engage with the television series in any meaningful way. There were a few exceptions. I wish that I had included at least the name of the others since I don’t want them to be lumped in with what I found to be irritating or off topic. There was one on how language was used in the series and another one on a theory about the story being an extended fantasy of Angela’s mother. Some essays did engage with the show, and these were informative and interesting takes. An example from the book:
Diedre Dowling Price’s “Whatever Happens Happens: Infidelity in My So-Called Life”
The premise of My So-Called Life is not romantic infidelity, but a severed friendship in Angela Chase’s decision to essentially trade-in her childhood friend, Sharon Cherski, for a more spontaneous, breezy model. The pilot begins with Angela’s voiceover, “So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff. Just for fun. Just cause it seemed like if I didn’t, I would die or something. Things were getting to me. Just how people are. How they always expect you to be a certain way, even your best friend.” This conscious decision to stop seeing Sharon and start seeing Rayanne is judged as unnatural by both Sharon and Angela’s mother, Patty, and the new “crimson glow” hue Angela chooses for her hair is merely the physical representation of the emotional and social metamorphoses she undergoes. When Rayanne tells Angela her hair is holding her back, Angela responds, “I had to listen because she wasn’t just talking about my hair, she was talking about my life” (“Pilot” 1001). Angela, however, is not the only MSCL character to desire real change and to plunge into fantasy. These escapist themes are explored through issues of infidelity throughout MSCL. This infidelity, however, is not portrayed conventionally as the result of not loving one’s partner or being attracted to another. Instead, it is an attempt to fill a void, or to pretend, even for a moment, to be another person-both reasons why infidelity as portrayed on MSCL is forgivable.” (page 121)
All in all, the book was a disappointment because of what I know it could have been. There were some bright spots but many, many dark spots. This is simply not an adequate way to examine a show. It’s not just a vehicle in which to espouse your assumptions about gender or homosexuality or hegemony.
June 16, 2008
The only collection of scholarly essays on this beloved, less-than-one-season-long TV show in existence, DEAR ANGELA is a trove of useful information and thought-provoking analysis. I'm glad to have it!
February 8, 2012
A collection of essays about one of my favorite shows. Very interesting, but I would not advise reading the essays one after another. As the authors are different, a lot of them give the same background information in their introduction. I did notice two mistakes within the essays, minor, but I wonder if these were caught in the editing process. When putting together a book made up of previously published essays, can the editors correct the mistakes within the text?
For those curious one essay stated that only one episode featured another character's voice over, and another erroneously referred to the characters as members of Generation Y.
Still, I highly recommend this for the academically minded My So-Called Life fan.
For those curious one essay stated that only one episode featured another character's voice over, and another erroneously referred to the characters as members of Generation Y.
Still, I highly recommend this for the academically minded My So-Called Life fan.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews