A Tribute to "My So-Called Life"

The year is 1994. A teenage girl finally sees a show that actually understands what she's going through. The year is 2015. A teenage girl finally sees a show that actually understands what she's going through. The show is My So-Called Life. I've only been on this planet for fifteen years, but I have watched an obscene amount of television. Probably more than most people twice my age (I'm really not bragging, I just have very few hobbies). Of all of the dozens of television shows for teenagers I've seen, My So-Called Life is the most honest and the most realistic. It has been over twenty years since it's premiere, but the issues it tackles span generations. The show was, in many ways, ahead of it's time. One of the show's main characters is a gay, Puerto Rican teenager played expertly by Wilson Cruz. I mean, look at television shows for teens even today and you won't see many LGBT+ youth. Let alone LGBT+ PoC. Wilson Cruz's character Rickie was intelligently and beautifully written. In fact, all of the characters were. A.J. Langer's troubled rebel Rayanne was apart of some of the most emotional story arcs. My So-Called Life had so many memorable characters, but none so iconic as it's star. Claire Danes' Angela was so perfectly angst-ridden, so wonderfully inquisitive. We see through high school as it truly is through the eyes of Angela, an average fifteen-year-old girl living in Pittsburgh in the mid-'90s. Angela feels everything so strongly as she attempts to make sense of her adolescent years. Angela is very smart, but kind of clueless about a lot of things (much like myself). She tries to find out who she is and where she belongs in this world. It would amaze me how I'd watch an episode of My So-Called Life that correlated directly to my life. A favorite of mine was the episode where the guys at Angela's school made a list ranking the sophomore girls in categories based on their physical appearances or personalities. Rayanne got the honor of being named the sophomore girl with the "most slut-potential". This list is so obviously ridiculous, but Angela can't help but question her own attractiveness. She feels ugly, even though she knows it's just a stupid list. This is perhaps Angela's most relatable and realistic quality: she can't help but care what other people think of her.