SLAUGHTERHOUSE DARIA An Essay in Regard to the Censoring of "Daria" by The N by Peter W. Guerin ================================================================ "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself." --Potter Stewart ================================================================ You know, I seem to be more and more like Michael Jordan everyday. I swear at the end of my final "Daria" fan fiction story, "The Winds of Change", that that story was going to be the final "Daria"-related thing I would ever write, period. But just like the death of his father (not to mention a failed attempt to break into baseball) the first time and an increase of showboat antics by younger players (and having part-ownership of the Washington Wizards) the second time didn't deter His Airness from lacing up the Nikes one more time, circumstances have led me to heed the call of Henry V to venture once more into the breach, or so William Shakespeare put it. Everyone should consider themselves lucky in a way; I gave up watching the biggest sporting event of the year in my area--the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York (ESPN is covering it)--in order to write this essay. :-) Therefore, one may ask, why is Peter W. Guerin once more putting pen to paper (or, more accurately, booting up his computer, starting up Microsoft Word and banging out the keys on his keyboard)? Frankly, it has to do with the butchering of our favorite show at the hands of people who just don't understand. What I am referring to, of course, is the very questionable cuts made to "Daria" by The N, the teenage-oriented Prime Time version of Noggin, the educational channel co-owned by Nickelodeon and the Children's Television Workshop (though a recent report stated that Nick is buying out CTW's interest in the channel) which seems to me to be the neglected stepchild to its parent channel much like Nick at Night is to Nickelodeon itself (but not in the case of Nick at Night's own subsidiary, TV Land, which at least is a full- fledged channel in its own right). Unfortunately for me, I'm one of the very many who is Noggin-deprived (here I imitate Jake Morgendorffer and go "Lousy cheapskates at Adelphia not adding Noggin to my cable service! DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!! @-0). But, then again, given the circumstances, it's just as well that I don't get it. From the horror stories that I have read in both The Paperpusher's Message Board and at the "official" "Daria" message board at The N's own Web site (which I would like to thank Michael Williams of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada for pointing out the latter to me at the #Daria+ IRC chat room), I have to consider myself lucky that I don't get Noggin. Many of the cuts were in the wrong place, making some of the show's subtle humor get lost by getting rid of some jokes. Sometimes whole scenes were deleted. Even whole subplots were trashed. Of course cutting out such curse words as "Dammit!" and "bitch" made sense given that this is a channel aimed mainly at kids, but most of the other cuts just didn't make any sense and amounted to insulting the intelligence of the show's viewers. In one glaring instance an episode's title was changed from "The 'F' Word" to "Fail"; they didn't even bother to put this title in the usual "Daria" scriptwriting. The worst part is that The N has decided not to air twelve episodes, including the final two regular episodes "My Night at Daria's" and "Boxing Daria". While not airing the former might make some sense due to sexual issues, not airing the latter doesn't make sense and will deprive new fans as to how the series ended. Not since the Rev. Thomas Bowldler put out his hacked-up edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1825 (and thus coined the term "Bowdlerize") has a substantial body of work been so mercilessly butchered, and would certainly make self-appointed "censors of the people" like Peggy Charren, Terry Rakolta and the Rev. Donald Wildmon very happy. It seems some of the cuts, deletions and skipping over of whole episodes have to deal with sex and risqué moments. Besides "My Night at Daria's" and "Boxing Daria", another episode that was skipped over is one of my personal favorites, the Season 1 episode "The Lab Brat", which included one of my all-time favorite animated scenes (which should rank up there with Bambi's mother being shot, Usagi Tsukino/Serena/Sailor Moon crawling into a phone booth and crying after Mamoru Chiba/Darian/Tuxedo Mask dumps her, and Captain Okita/Captain Avatar of the Space Battleship Yamato/Argo dying from the effects of radiation poisoning): Quinn approaching Kevin wearing her trademark smiley-face T-shirt and a red miniskirt. As she says "Kevin, do you think my skirt's too short?", we cut to a view from just behind Quinn as we see Kevin gleefully watching the Pigskin Channel and shouting "Go, go, go!" The scene is uncannily reminiscent of that famous scene from "The Graduate" where Dustin Hoffman is staring at Anne Bancroft's legs. How hypocritical can you get? Kids at that age are probably reading comic books showing superheroines wearing much less than that (as in when Black Canary used to wear the leather jacket-leotard-fishnet stockings get-up) and just before "Daria" The N airs episodes of "Degrassi Junior High" and "Degrassi High" in which one of the characters--Christine "Spike" Nelson--becomes pregnant and later on another character contracts AIDS. Of course there was the wholesale deletion of the subplot in "Is It Fall Yet?" regarding Alison's lesbianism (as if the kids aren't aware of if already from Ellen DeGeneres or Rosie O'Donnell). If The N really took a good look at their target audience, they'd see that some of the girls out there are wearing about the same type of things that Quinn is wearing like low-riding jeans and baby T-shirts that expose their midriff and miniskirts (perhaps by now they've begun emulating the habit of singer Avril Lavigne by wearing neckties with A-shirts and jeans). Facts cannot be denied that teenagers of both genders begin to question their sexuality at this time. It was a hallmark of "Daria" that it chose a middle way in dealing with the issue: It didn't treat it with kid gloves, but it didn't hit it over our heads either. At first, only the real die-hard "Daria" fan element began to complain. What at first seemed to be a godsend turned out to be something from below Hell--five hundred levels below Hell to be exact. Martin J. Pollard even went as far as setting up a form at his Web site Outpost Daria where viewers can report on what was cut from each episode. Early on some of us did question the wisdom of Noggin getting the rights to the series, I among them. I thought that the show was better off being on TNN, since that network will begin airing "Beavis and Butt-Head" and "Ren and Stimpy" (with new episodes ofthe latter being made as well as a made-for-TNN movie). For all the whining people make about the black bar at the bottom of the screen, at least TNN would have aired the show uncut, and if that meant that they'd have to cut back a bit on airing "Baywatch" or "Star Trek: The Next Generation" around the clock or shelve the next airing of "The Godfather: Uncut", then so be it (but for the sake of "Daria" fandom's resident wrestling fan Chris Smith I hope they don't cut back on their coverage of the WWE just for the sake of putting on "Daria" :-) ). However, what The N didn't expect was that their own viewers began to complain--and complain LOUDLY. It all began at 10:25 PM on August 16, 2002, when a poster by the name of Powder96 made a rather bold post at The N's own "Daria" Message Board. To quote just a bit from her, Powder96 said that "I noticed an astonishing amount of censorship. . .as I began watching the show more and more, I noticed the censorship becoming more intense. . .the drastic scene cutting was crippling some of the jokes." Thus the carelessly tossed match onto the parched woodlands started an inferno. While I don't have the time or the patience to delve into every post (you can see for yourself at http://www.then.com/mb/viewtopic.php?t=47143), the original thread ran to 35 posts, while a follow-up thread ran an additional six (that thread can be seen at http://www.the-n.com/mb/viewtopic.php?t=51780). Many of the posts echoed that of Powder96, questioning the censorship; some said that perhaps The N can air the uncut versions of the episodes at Midnight or at 1:00 AM. There is some precedent for this; Cartoon Network airs virtually unedited versions of some of its "Toonami" programs on its "Toonami: Midnight Run" block. Others demanded that The N air all of the episodes and both movies uncut AND in the original running order (though I should point out to them that in Season 3, "Daria!: The Musical" was Episode 307 and aired first, while the episode that should have been first [Episode 301--"Through a Lens Darkly"] aired a week later). Therefore, one might ask, what can be done about all this? My own solution has been to take the horn by the horns and start a petition much like Alan Benard started the DVDaria petition asking MTV to release all of "Daria" on DVD. This petition asks TNN to add Daria to its line-up, plain and simple. By the time I typed this, the petition already has 32 signatures and has some of most influential members of the "Daria" fan community appending their John Hancocks onto it, including Michelle Klein-Häss, C. E. Forman, Chris Smith, Chad Page and Kara Wild. If you want to add your name to the petition and make both The N and TNN aware of how you feel, just go to The Official Daria on TNN Petition Home Page at http://www.geocities.com/dickmarino/dariatnn.html (or, if you prefer not to read that spiel, you can just cut to the chase and go to http://www.petitiononline.com/turk182/petition.html). Please sign the petition and make The N and TNN realize that fans like yourself deserve better. There is some room for compromise; I can be comfortable if the show ran on both The N and TNN at the same time, with the edited version on the former while the uncut version ran on the latter. What else can be done, you may ask? Perhaps signing the DVDaria petition is also in order here. Make MTV see that there is a market for releasing the whole series and both movies on DVD. Heck, if they can release all of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" on DVD, why not "Daria"? Also, perhaps writing an actual letter (yes, people still write letters :-) ) to TNN and The N might be in order here as well. Call TNN's toll-free hotline they plug every fifteen minutes or so and tell them to consider adding "Daria". The more people raise their voices, the greater the likelihood the big suits will stand up and take notice. Of course there are people who are going to say "Why bother? Doing all this isn't going to do anything." Given the close Presidential election we had going on two years ago, some of us are now painfully aware that one person or a handful of people can make a difference. I am reminded of the Biblical passage that goes something like this: "If one can put a thousand to flight, two can put ten thousand to flight, and a triple-braided cord cannot be broken." If things had swung the other way by a couple of votes at the Constitutional Convention, we would be speaking German instead of English and George Washington's modern-day descendant would be King of the United States. If things weren't as botched up as they were during the 1876 Presidential Election, Samuel J. Tilden would have been in the White House instead of Rutherford B. Hayes. I could go on like this forever, but I think you get the point. Therefore, in conclusion, there is a consensus that the censorship of "Daria" on The N stinks, and that something has to be done about it. Signing the "Daria" on TNN Petition, the DVDaria Petition and letting both The N and TNN know how you feel are all great starts. It's time to put their feet to the fire and let them know that you deserve better. The only thing we have to lose is all those cuts. "Daria" fans of the world, unite! :-) I respectfully dedicate this essay to one of my biggest influences: "Newsday" TV critic Marvin Kitman, the only TV critic I know who's not ashamed to admit that he likes "Bullwinkle". His column appears every Sunday at http://www.newsday.com/; click on "Columnists" on the left sidebar, then scroll down to the heading "Sundays with Marvin Kitman" On that note, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." Peter W. Guerin President and CEO, Mark Zero Fan Fiction, Unlimited Hudson Falls, New York 7:27 PM ================================================================ THE END ================================================================ THIS ESSAY HAS BEEN AN EXCLUSIVE CREATION OF MARK Ø FAN FICTION, UNLIMITED! ================================================================ "Home of the World's Weirdest Fan Fiction" ================================================================ Home page: http://www.geocities.com/televisioncity/network/4938 ================================================================ E-mail: markzero@email.com ICQ: 48647033 Official chat room #markzero located at Sorcery.Net (Java client available at http://www.sorcery.net) ================================================================ CLANG! CLANG! OUCH! I HIT MYSELF WITH THE !@#$%^& HAMMER! ================================================================ MARK Ø FAN FICTION REMEMBERS THOSE WHO WERE LOST ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. GOD BLESS AMERICA. ================================================================ BUY WAR BONDS AT YOUR FINANCIAL INSTITUTION. ================================================================