My So Called Life Dvd
My So Called Life Dvd
My So-Called Life is an American television teen drama created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. It originally aired on ABC from August 25, 1994, to January 26, 1995. Set at the fictional Liberty High School, it follows the emotional travails of several self-aware teenagers. The critically acclaimed, but short-lived, show ended in a cliffhanger with the expectation that it would be picked up in an additional season, but it was officially canceled on May 15, 1995.
The show placed #33 on Entertainment Weekly 's "New Classics TV" list, and in 2007 was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All- TIME ."
Themes
My So-Called Life deals with issues much discussed in the mid-nineties, including child abuse, homophobia, teenage alcoholism, homelessness, adultery, school violence, same-sex parenting, censorship, and drug use. While a lot of shows brought up these themes as a one-time issue (a "very special episode") that would be introduced as a problem at the beginning of an episode and resolved at the end, in My So-Called Life they are just a part of the continuing fabric of the storylines. The title of the show alludes to the perception of meaninglessness that many teenagers experience and encapsulates the main theme of the series. The show depicts teenage years as difficult and confusing as opposed to a light, fun-filled time of pranks and jokes.
Style and legacy
The world of My So-Called Life was devoid of last-minute miracles (aside from an angel in the Christmas episode), of simple resolutions and instant revelations.
The interior voice-overs in My So-Called Life came, with three exceptions, from Angela's point of view. "Life of Brian" was narrated by Brian; "Weekend" was narrated by Danielle; "Resolutions" opened with voice-over thoughts from all principal characters as well as Sharon's boyfriend, Kyle.
Characters
- Angela Chase , played by Claire Danes, is a 15-year-old sophomore at Liberty High School in Three Rivers, Pennsylvania, a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh. Like most teens in the throes of self-evaluation, Angela is attempting to discover and assert her identity. To do this, she distances herself from her past, pulling away from her parents and her childhood friends, Sharon Cherski and Brian Krakow. In their place, she befriends Rayanne Graff and Rickie Vasquez. Angela has a crush on Jordan Catalano and admires him from afar until they begin dating, and after their inevitable breakup. With these new relationships, Angela finds herself in precarious and sometimes dangerous situations; however, despite temptation, she always remains true to her values. Angela's voice-over narrates 17 of the 19 episodes in the series.
- Patricia "Patty" Chase , played by Bess Armstrong, is Angela's mother. Unlike many TV couples, she is the main breadwinner and, at the beginning of the series, even employs her husband. She is opinionated and often can't help but express her strongly held beliefs, which at one point leads to a confrontation with the free-spirited mother of Rayanne. She is reactionary and self-absorbed, seeing the actions of Angela and her other family members as primarily motivated by their relationship with her. Her family frequently becomes flustered by her demands for respect and complaints about her burdens.
- Graham Chase , played by Tom Irwin, is Angela's father. Graham is the more affectionate and understanding parent who cooks and is far less strict than his wife. He's relatively soft-spoken and continues to struggle with his role in the household and the direction of his life in general. In an effort to broaden his horizons, he decides to take a cooking class, which sparks a friendship with a female classmate, causing tension with Patty. He eventually is invited to teach the class and makes plans to open a restaurant with his classmate.
- Danielle Chase , played by Lisa Wilhoit, is Angela's younger sister. There is an emphasis on how much she is ignored by her family. However, she has a biting and sarcastic wit serving as somewhat of a comic relief throughout the show. She has a crush on Brian and secretly yearns to be more like Angela, whose life and friends fascinate her. In the episode "Halloween," she dresses up as Angela and fools her parents for a brief moment with her near-exact replication of Angela's red hair, clothes, and demeanor. Danielle's voice-over narrates the penultimate episode, "Weekend."
- Rayanne Graff , played by A.J. Langer, is Angela's new best friend at the beginning of the series. She is wild, rebellious, and parented by a negligent single mother (drunk, tarot-enthusiast Amber, played by Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn). In the episode "Other People's Mothers", the depth of Rayanne's troubles are revealed when she suffers a drug and alcohol overdose at her own birthday party. She is rushed to the hospital and, afterward, begins counseling, only to relapse a month later. Near the end of the series, Rayanne sleeps with Jordan after a night of drinking ("Betrayal"), and the ensuing fight between Rayanne and Angela is not fully resolved by the end of the final episode.
- Enrique "Rickie" Vasquez , played by Wilson Cruz, is Rayanne Graff's other best friend. He is an openly gay ethnically ambiguous 15-year-old boy raised by his uncle, who physically abuses him. Rickie wears eyeliner and bright clothing and feels most at home in the girls' bathroom with Rayanne and Angela. When his uncle kicks him out of the house, he is fostered briefly by the Chases; he is then fostered by gay English teacher Richard Katimski (played by Jeff Perry), who becomes a mentor to Rickie.
- Sharon Cherski , played by Devon Odessa, was Angela's best friend throughout childhood, until Angela became friends with Rayanne. Sharon and Angela's mothers are best friends from high school. To Angela, Sharon represents a suffocating world of boredom and normalcy, in stark contrast to the wild world of Rayanne Graff. Sharon is conventional and academically minded, but throughout the show, her subtleties are revealed and more dimension to her character becomes obvious. Later, she becomes sexually active with her football-player boyfriend, Kyle, and begrudgingly develops a friendship with Rayanne by the last episode.
- Brian Krakow , played by Devon Gummersall, is the geek of the show. He has a hopelessly unrequited crush on Angela, and has been longtime friends with both her and Sharon. Despite his high IQ, he lacks emotional intelligence and is often socially awkward and self-righteous. This, more than anything else, alienates him from his peers. The other characters usually turn to him only when they have an academic or technological query. He makes friends with Rickie towards the middle of the series. A romance between him and Angela is hinted at in the end of the final episode, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities". His voice-over narrates the episode "Life of Brian," in which we learn more about his inner and outer worlds.
- Jordan Catalano , played by Jared Leto, is one of the best-remembered characters of the show, though he was possibly the least seen and had the fewest lines of dialogue. He is good-looking, popular, and rebellious, a major slacker who constantly cuts class and is on the brink of being expelled (mainly because he is nearly illiterate due to dyslexia). He is Angela's main love interest, and during the series they have an on-again/off-again relationship. He reveals his emotional depth in his songwriting ability and occasional — and seemingly accidental — profound thoughts.
- Tino was an oft-mentioned character who was never actually seen, but mentioned in almost every episode as a running joke of the series. He was a friend of Jordan and Rayanne. Tino was also the lead singer of Jordan's band, Frozen Embryos (later Residue). In the Academy Award-winning 2008 film Juno , the titular character is asked if her band will get back together, and she replies, "Once Tino gets a new drumhead, we should be ready to rock." This was confirmed as a reference to My So-Called Life by screenwriter Diablo Cody on the DVD audio commentary.
Production
Preparation
Winnie Holzman was an award-winning writer but had not written much for television and was not making a living with writing at the time she got the idea for My So-Called Life , a project she had initially been calling 'Someone Like Me'. Holzman spent time at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles (through a program with the Writer's Guild in which writers could guest teach) as research for writing the show.
Her brother Ernest Holzman had been working as a cinematographer with producers Zwick and Herskovitz on their hit show thirtysomething when he introduced his sister Winnie to the producers, who grudgingly agreed to look at her "spec" script for what would become the pilot of My So-Called Life . They were pleasantly surprised that the draft pilot was brilliant and worked with Winnie to shape the show. Ernest Holzman went on to work as director of photography on several episodes of My So-Called Life . Zwick and Herskovitz, in many ways pioneers of the type of naturalistic television characters that distinguish the shows they have produced, had worked on the TV series Family in the mid-seventies and had struggled to develop a young
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