The anti-Juno

Today, the most simultaneously overrated and underrated film in recent memory, Juno, arrives on DVD. I hate to be all Spike Lee and say, skip that, watch this, but uh, skip that and watch this*.

See, although I don't even hate Juno (despite everything, I enjoyed it, contrary to how I may have come off...twice), but I finally figured out exactly why I couldn't connect with its snotty-assed namesake: Juno MacGuff is the antithesis of My So-Called Life's Angela Chase, who's quite possibly my favorite teenage girl of all time (real or fiction). Juno is a know-it-all; Angela is a think-it-all. Juno is extroverted enough to be exempt from real self-consciousness (i.e. she has no idea how obnoxious she is); Angela is a painful self-examiner (however wrong her observations about herself are). Juno's an emotional superhero; Angela's ready to self-destruct at the tiniest shard of visceral kryptonite. Juno's intellect is lightning-fast and infallible (even if she doesn't know Greek from Roman mythology); Angela's musings, even when spot-on, are worded goofily enough to feel perpetually stumbled upon.

It's this last point that I feel is most important: while Juno is essentially the extension of Diabo Cody's considerable ego, Angela Chase is a warts-and-all portrait of a well-rounded human. She's whiny, annoying, selfish, clever, insightful, beautiful. And hilarious! Rewatching MSCL via last year's DVD release reminded me how awesome Angela's dialogue is, especially her narration. I haven't seen any sort of clip reel that collects her greatest hits, so I made one. The wisdom of Angela Chase follows in all of its endearingly laughable splendor:

I don't want to video you out, so below is a transcript of Angela's musings. I think they might be even funnier in print:

 

"It's like sometimes, people fill their minds with all these stupid things, you know? To keep themselves from thinking about, y'know, what's really important."

"When someone compliments your parents, there's, like nothing to say. It's like a stun-gun to your brain."

"Sometimes I think if my mother wasn't so good at pretending to be happy, she'd be better at actually being happy."

"The sad truth is, my breasts have come between us."

"Hatred can become like food. It gives you this energy. You can, like, live off it."

"I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother. It just means too much to her. I mean, if you stop to think about, like, chewing. What it really is. How people just do it. Like, in public."

Mom: "Angela, orange juice doesn't grow on trees."
Angela: "It sort of does."

"Maybe teachers have a hidden life where they're actually, like, human. Where they have, I don't know, dignity. Or maybe not."

"It's so weird that teachers actually, like, live places."

"Field trips are so intense. It's like everybody's been let out of their cages or something. And we're all roaming around. Loose."

"There's something about Sunday night that really makes you wanna kill yourself. Especially if you've just been totally made a fool of by the only person you'll ever love and you have a Geometry midterm on Monday, which you still haven't studied for because you can't because Brian Krakow has your textbook and you're too embarrassed to even deal with it. And your little sister's completely finished with her homework, which is just, like, so simple and mindless a child could do it. And that creepy 60 Minutes watch that sounds like your whole life ticking away."

"When someone dies young it's like they stay that way. Forever. Like a vampire."

"You know how sometimes the last sentence you said, like, echoes in your brain and it just keeps sounding stupider? And you have to say something else just to make it stop?"

"It's so weird when you see someone you just dreamed about. Like it's gonna show."

"When you call someone's name, like, kind of loud and they don't hear you, it makes you feel really lonely."

"Walking into someone's house for the first time is like entering another country. Not that I've ever been to another country."

"Like cheerleaders. Can't people just cheer on their own? Like, to themselves?"

"You know the karma in this house is, like, ridiculous...Yeah, it's really low. Or dark. Or whatever it is that happens to karma."

"I thought at least by age 15, I would have a love life. But I don't even have a like life."

"I couldn't stop thinking about it. The, like, fact of it. That people had sex. That they just had it. That sex was this thing that people had. Like a rash. Or a rottweiler. Everything started to seem, like, pornographic or something. Like, Miss Krysanowski has sex. So does Mr. Katimsky. They both have sex. They could have sex together, like, right now. I am, like, the sickest person."

"The thought that I might be seeing Jordan Catalano in a few hours was, like, impossible to comprehend. Like when they first tell you about infinity."

"Because it is a big deal. I mean, sex made your whole life start and if you think about life as, like, a circle or something, then sex and death are the same...Look, I'm not saying they're the same. I mean, I've thought about having sex with you, and, god, I've never seriously thought about killing you."

Mom: "You know what you really should do? Soak a washcloth in some steaming hot water. Apply it very gently to your chin, make sure you have a swab handy..."
Angela: "Mom!"
Mom: "What? I'm trying to help. What is wrong?"
Angela: "Just the word 'swab.'"

"School is a battlefield for your heart. So when Rayanne Graff told me my hair was holding me back, I had to listen. 'Cause she wasn't just talking about my hair; she was talking about my life."

"It had become the focus of everything. It was all I could feel, all I could think about. It blotted out the rest of my face. The rest of my life. Like the zit had become the truth about me."

"It just seems like you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know if it's even you?"

"I just think people wanna believe things about people, and so they decide certain things are true. And they don't even ask. And it's not fair! 'Cause you have to live with it anyway."

"People always say how you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing. Like a toaster, or something. Like you can know what it is, even. But every so often, I'll have, like, a moment, when just being myself in my life, right where I am, is, like, enough."

"What I was thinking as, like, a New Year's resolution is to stop getting so caught up in my own thoughts. 'Cause I'm, like, way too introspective. I think."

"But what if not thinking turns me into this really shallow person? I better rethink this becoming less introspective thing."

*I don't really think you should skip Juno, or anything for that matter. You should experience any and every bit of pop culture for yourself. So rent Juno. See if I care. But just know that Angela is cooler.

Comments

[M]

Ugh, I love My So Called Life so much it hurts. Rayanne is the skankiest bf in hist.

[Kristi]

You could never, ever, ever video us out.

[honeybfly]

I just finished all the extras of MSCL. I bought the DVD pre-release and have taken months to get through it all because I didn't want it to end. That was the best series hands down. I have one other for you to consider - Dead Like Me. It was on Showtime forever ago and I bought both season's DVD's last year and loved it. Another good insight into teen (after)life.

[Madeline]

I read your ANTM blog religously, but you just became my favorite person in the world. Angela Chase is quite possibly my favorite character ever! MSCL was the best series to ever exist.

Thanks for the Youtube string of amazingness.

[Brandon H]

Dude, again, thanks. This trip down memory road was great.

[Lisa]

Funny about the comparison. I really have always thought MSCL was SO overrated. I am of the generation that went apeshit for the show, but I was one of the few who just didn't get it at all. I didn't connect to Angela whatsoever and felt the show has always been vastly overrated. (That being said, I don't connect to Juno either and probably wouldn't have when I was a teen.)

[midwestmom]

Can we have a video of all Jordan now?

[Tramputee]

My god, I watched this show with apopleptic fervor whenever it was on (both the network broadcasts and when MTV reran it), but have not seen it since- now I realize why my devotion: Angela Chase's narration verbalized the endless feedback loop of existential angst running in my feverish 13-year-old mind, complete with "like"s...
Now I am consumed with sharp, sick-sweet anti-nostalgia for those terrible days...I'm sure the Germans have a word for this feeling. Thanks, Rich: awesome.

[immy]

Am I the only one slightly annoyed by Angela. She's the equivalent to a female Jerry Seinfeld.
"Why is it that people, like, enjoy wine? Don't they know they're drinking, like fermented grape ooze? I mean really like who thought to, like, try it?"
I wanna scream shut up already, stop saying 'like' after every sentence and quit over analyzing every last thing.

[Laura @ Hungry and Frozen]

Thanks for the transcript :) nice to be able to read everything at one's own pace. I was a bit younger when MSCL was screening here but it still struck a chord somehow. That bit about the Sunday night - and the last sentance repeating in your head - had to be written by someone who'd had an awkward time as a teen.

[amygarlick]

Thanks for that melange of Angela quotes. It's been a while since I've seen the show (I watched it the first time around) and it's just so smart and sweet and authentic and NO EFFING WONDER it got cancelled. It was too good.

[Cortney]

I totally agree with you. Juno is an annoying snob of a movie character. Why is everyone in love with her?

[Jackie]

"That bit about the Sunday night - and the last sentance repeating in your head - had to be written by someone who'd had an awkward time as a teen."

Wait. there were people who didn't have an awkward time as a teen?

[Scott Free]

Interesting. I'd like to see you do something like this more often (i.e. revisiting media from the past and comparing/contrasting it with its present-day counterpart).

[hmakav]

I gave MSCL to my 11-year-old daughter for Christmas. It is great literature.

I love this!!! thanks Rich! MWAH!

[Grace]

I love this! totally made my day. My one of of my fave quotes aren't here though. From Episode one:

"I'm in love. His name is Jordan Catalano. He was left back, twice. Once I almost touched his shoulder in the middle of a pop quiz. He's always closing his eyes, like it hurts to look at things."

Then when it comes up again later in the same episode.

Rickie: If you were about to do it, okay, what would you want the other
person to say, like, right before.
Rayanne: `This won't take long.'
Rickie: No, seriously.
Rayanne: `Don't I know you?'
Rickie: No, for real, like, like, romantic.
Angela: `You're so beautiful, it hurts to look at you.'
Rayanne: `It hurts to look at you?'
Rickie: How'd you think of that?
Rayanne: Where would it hurt?
Rickie: I really like that.

I always though that would be an interesting thing to hear before the first time. Not so cliché as 'I love you' or 'I'm ready' or whatever.

I am going to be an Angela Mode for the next 4 hours. *sigh* Nostalgia.

[Shane]

And now I know what DVD choice I'll be making tonight. I can see the box set from here, collecting a slight layer of dust, begging to be watched. Thanks for the flashback and a reminder of how good TV really was before the CW came along and ruined everything.

Damned Gossip Girl...

[finicky]

I'll have to say that Jared Leto ruined it for me, but I really love that Juliana Hatfield is in there, and the soundtrack, even without any Sweet Sensation or The Cover Girls, is, like, rad.

Ha. I have all the episodes on my PC at my mum's home. I hope my 13 yrs old niece get the chance to watch them in between snooping for porn on the pc.

Juno, she is a very endearing character, I could really love this girl, who's so me and thousands of others, confused, clueless, but is still opinionated and smart, funny, stupid, all at the same time.

[Joanna]

I never got to so MSCL on TV, so I'll have to rent it. But my 13 year old and her friend loved Juno because it seemed totally real to them: the smart-ass front.

[Carrence]

Omg you are my hero.

[jOn]

Thank you for this. It's truly an amazing gift to all.

[Roger]

Hey thanks, you might have sealed the deal on me buying the DVD set. I hadn't heard of the show prior to yesterday (when I saw her face on the cover of the DVD set), but I am slightly obsessed with Claire Danes. Luckily for me, it sounds like the show might appeal to my nature.

[ham samich!]

sigh... remember how hot jared leto was in mscl? and now he wears silver crocs. didn't see that one coming.

[Heather]

MSCL is one of my favorite shows. I'm part of that crowd that was depressed when I heard that there wasn't going to be anymore episodes. I still wish they would bring it back, even though with out Claire Danes and Jared Leto it wouldn't be the same.....